Re: OT: Code-switching in music

caeruleancentaur wrote:
>>li_sasxsek@... wrote:
>
>
>>I'm just wondering if anyone else out there could provide some good
>>examples of music with lyrics that involve some type of
>>code-switching or mixing in of "foreign" words or phrases.
>
>
> Are you talking about macaronic verse?
Yes, it would seem so. The original macaronics intermingled Latin (or
sometimes Greek) and were popular in the 15th & 16th centuries; the
intermingling of Latin & the vernacular go back to the Middle Ages.
------------------------------------

Chris Peters wrote:
 >>>Mark J. Reed wrote:> >> > How about songs like "Danke Schön",> >
"¿Qué será sera?", etc? Do they count?
 >
 >
 > Or on the Classical level, there's also Carmina Burana, which
switches back and forth (at least among movements) between Latin and
Middle High German.

Yes, it does. But Karl Orff put only part of the Carmina Burana to
music. There are probably more macaronics in the complete manuscript.
------------------------------------

Philip Newton wrote:
[snip]
 > After reading some of the responses, I was reminded of _In dulci
 > jubilo_, a Christmas carol which (at least in Germany) is commonly
 > sung half in Latin, half in German:
 >
 > In dulci jubilo
 > Nun singet und seid froh
 > Uns'res Herzens Wonne
 > Liegt in praesepio
 > Und leuchtet als die Sonne
 > Alpha es et O
 > Alpha es et O

Darn it! I'd thought of that one too, and you beat me too it   :)

but you've left out a line, surely. Before 'Alpha es et O' comes:
'Matris in gremio'

The English version, which is very popular, keeps the Latin of the
German original:

In dulci jubilo
Now sing with hearts aglow!
Our delight and pleasure
Lies In praesepio;
Like sunshine is our treasure
Matris in gremio,
Alpha es et O!
Alpha es et O!

There are also other similar English/Latin versions.
-----------------------------------------------

Kelly Drinkwater wrote:
 > Following the trail of Christmas carols:
 >
 > Chorus:
 > Make we joy now in this fest
 > In quo Christus natus est
 > Eia, eia.
 >
 > A patre unigenitus
 > Is through a maiden come to us
 > Sing we of him and say "Welcome"
 > Veni redemptor gencium
[etc. snipped]

Thanks - very interesting. I haven't come across that one. Do you know
its origin?

Some older carols do seem to like interspersing Latin with a vernacular
language. Another carol has in its last verse:

O and A and A and O,
Cum cantibus in choro,
Let the marry organ go,
Benedicamus Domino.

Professor Leonard Foster in "The Poet's Tongues" cites a 15th century
poem made up of alternating lines of English, Anglo-Norman & Latin; and
I understand that the minnersinger Oswald von Wolkenstein composed a
song incorporating _six_ languages: Provençal, Italian, French, Catalan
and Galician-Portuguese. Regrettably I haven't been able to find the
words of either of these.

--
Ray
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praeter necessitudinem.

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