I have mentioned before that I will be teaching a new course this semester on the Bible and music. And I also shared a setting I made of texts from Amos, to music that I wrote. The score to the piece is now available on IMSLP.
Well, another option for students is to take an existing melody and adapt Biblical words to fit. And so in this case too, I felt that I ought to do that myself before asking students to do so. Technically, I suppose “Let There Be” could count. But given the frivolous character of that, I wanted to do something more serious. And so here is my adaptation of Psalm 8 to a melody that I really love, Mná na hÉireann by Seán Ó Riada.
I’m glad that I did so, as there were interesting decisions that I had to make, including about whether to stick to my effort to use gender-inclusive language, or to use language that was closer to the traditional rendering with “man” and “son of man” and which fit more naturally with the melody.
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