Polorum Regina - Libre vermell de Montserrat

Details

Description

From the Libre vermell de Montserrat

Stretching on the meaning of "secular" medieval music, this song was written so that pilgrims, visitors, and other tourists would have "proper" songs to sing while visiting the Montserrat monastery, but it wasn't meant to be sung during mass. It's fun to think about the sort of problem this collection of songs was solving.

This song was meant to be performed by having the crowd repeat each verse, the same way we still do with psalms in the Catholic tradition.

Language: Latin. Thankfully I'm very familiar with this one :)
If you've heard other versions, you might notice I stress some syllables differently. As a classically trained singer, I'm very particular about having the accented syllable match the music so the word does not become distorted. This is either understandable since I'm a Spanish speaker, or just the weirdest pet peeve someone could have. Or both.

Arrangement: While the introduction simulates what would be done in a plucked instrument with courses (double strings), the rest is an arpeggio arrangement, similar to a modern Ave Maria. One day I was trying out different styles and got surprised at how well it worked.

I'll probably still work on this one as I'm not too convinced with how it sits on my voice the way it is right now, and I'd like to use the plucked part in between each section.

Playing technique: I'm using a piece of string as a plectrum.