Friday, February 20, 2009

Vox Dei

I know there has been much criticism online about songs with the "voice of God," but here I am transcribing the Introit for the congregation to sing for the first Sunday of Lent, and they will be singing something like, "When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will rescue him and honor him; with long life I will satisfy him...."
When I first read it, I was like, "wait, who is 'he'?" and I had to read it and think about it a moment...

It just seems weird.
I'm just saying...

edit: ah, wait, I have an idea. I will put the "voice of God" in quotation marks.

2 comments:

Scelata said...

I don't think objections to a proliferation of ditties in the Voice of God were intended to forbid the practice across the board.

Note that despite suggestions in more recent documents that the people sing them, the propers where this might legitimately occur were really intended to be sung not by but _TO_ the people, while they processed or watched a procession.

And another valid objection is the modern practice of putting words into God's mouth when we presume to sing in His voice, rather than quoting or closely paraphrasing scripture. (I danced in the morning and I cha-cha-ed all the night, etc.)

Save the Liturgy, Save the World

Cantor said...

There are MANY unquoted instances of “vox Dei” in the Gregorian repertoire. The introit that you are translating is an example.