The Problem of the Exsultet

This is a wonderful but long piece that needs to be done at the vigil. My problem is if you exclude chant there are few metrical settings. The text is here. My recollection is that the old version could be sung to “Ode to Joy” but no luck with that now.

While I suppose using the chant version is the sensible option it wouldn’t be my first foray into the medium.

Here is the chant music from ICEL so by all means sing along and learn it.

I don’t know anything about the two settings at AOV by Erica Marshall and Colin Smith and there isn’t enough of a sample to know what they are like. Do let me know if they are useful.

Looking for more accessible settings provides meager pickings. Tony Alonso’s is lovely and gentle but has some rhythmic weirdness. Hillebrand’s has been suggested to me before and is quite grand. Kendzia’s is very individual. Alonso’s is probably still the most singable of these.

I suspect that the reason there is so few is that the text does not particularly lend itself to metrical setting and I’m sure the people who prepared the text are fine with chant.

Just to prove that, I had a go and I’m sure the result is not particularly usable. I had several problems including that Band in a Box has a limit to the number of bars in a piece and that meant I did it in 3 sections, so there are dodgy edits in the MP3 and the sheet music. I did the usual thing and repeated musical phrases but every now and then I changed things up rhythmically to keep people awake. I initially wrote it faster and higher but the guitar was easier in D than F and you could capo it back up for convenience if it is too low. As I say, I doubt it is usable, but it was an interesting and enlightening experience.