Monday 10 February 2014

Singing the Scriptures - The Music of Jonah 3:1-5

[Update - see the music page for all the music of the whole bible as implied by the text itself]

I have been testing my automated routine for producing the music directly from the Hebrew text of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. It has been revealing to me. Of course, I must refine the routine when I meet rules of the language that I have not taken into account. Generally though it is operating at 95-98% at the moment and I haven't broken too many things by putting in a few exception handlers. But the real challenge is in looking at the manuscripts online. Particularly Psalm 32, the first psalm I have chosen to transcribe. This is the psalm for Lent I and I have been asked to have ready for singing. The difficulty is that the online images of the text do not agree with the edition that Suzanne Haik-Vantoura used and the disagreements reveal additional harmonic possibilities that she did not consider. Also these online images are difficult to read (for me). There is much ambiguity. I may post on it in detail eventually.

In the meanwhile, here is the continuing story of Jonah. There's lots online about Jonah and reams of books written, so I confine myself to the tale and its performance. Note again in these 5 verses of chapter 3 the repetition of the double ornament from earlier chapters, this time on the words to her.  I think the music shows interest in the real issue - people and trouble (like the psalms). Note the repetition from chapter 1 of the word mortals.

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