religious songs
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The paper analyses the role of music in Dickens’ last, unfinished novel and its relation to the criminal puzzle which — for obvious reason — was left unsolved. Contrary to the traditional cultural associations (harmony, beauty, order), music in The Mystery of Edwin Drood is related to darkness, which shrouds the places where it is performed (the cathedral, Jasper’s room); it also functions as the background of various disharmonies (physical indisposition, quarrel, signs of hatred, fear). The theme of the only two religious songs that are referred to is sin and wickedness. On the one hand, considering the fact that music is John Jasper’s domain, the discordance not only functions as an “ethical metaphor” and externalization of the man’s character, but also points to him as the murderer of his nephew. On the other hand, the aforementioned songs foreground the motif of repentance or turning away from sin, which undermines the ostensibly obvious conclusions concerning Jasper’s guilt. Similarly to the detective novel of the (much later) Golden Age period, the hints prompting the puzzle’s solution are provided here, though they are not univocal, leaving a shadow of doubt as to the guilt of the most obvious suspect. Yet, contrary to the genre conventions, the clues appear mainly on the implied level of communication, available to the implied reader deciphering textual patterns and not merely “observing” the presented reality.

Children’s music traditions have been maintained, shaped, and transmitted orally for generations in families and communities in Nicaragua and Guatemala. An integral part of daily life, singing practices serve many purposes. In families, caregivers sing traditional music, religious songs, ballads, and lullabies as parenting tools to form bonds and affect mood. They also carry out finger plays, bouncing games, hand-clapping rhymes, and made-up songs to engage in musical play with their children. This musical environment fosters the continuity of cultural heritage, beliefs, and history....

Part 2: La Música (The Music) contains 90 joyful songs learned on playgrounds, in classrooms, and from families and teachers. The repertoire allows for musical play and movement, encourages lyrical improvisation, and fosters community. The collection is organized into three categories: Rondas (Singing games), Rimas y Juegos (Chants and games), and Canciones (Songs). Canciones, which comprises 51 songs, includes many pieces with accompanying actions as well as three religious songs and three in a Mayan language, Kaqchikel. La Musica includes song transcriptions, game or movement directions, English translations, informant and location citations, brief notes on song histories or performance practice, and illustrations by the Mayan artist Sucely Puluc. Field video, audio recordings, and additional song information on the companion website allow teachers and students to witness the songs in authentic contexts, demonstrate singing games, guide in pronunciation, and learn more about the history of the songs.

What happens to a worship song as it crosses geographical, cultural, and theological borders? How does this reallocation modify the role a song performs—and is performed—in context? This essay examines how religious songs that flow along transnational networks are transformed in the process of localization. It focuses particularly on how translation, conceived of broadly to encompass verbal and non-verbal aspects, happens within these processes. I argue that, while lyric translation remains a core component of these phenomena, it is but one of the multiple processes of localization that occur when a song travels. Throughout such processes, theology is (re)interpreted and songs are performed differently even as local congregations perceive their engagement with these repertoires as a type of connection to broader worshiping networks. Towards this end, it follows “Mighty to Save”, an Australian worship song, on its transnational path to re-localization within the context of Brazilian gospel. Analyses of the lyrical and musical translations and transformations the song is subjected to can shed further light upon the complex dynamic of transnational flows of religious repertoires in today’s interconnected world.

A Lamentation for Nature – the (Dis)consolation of “Ziemski Lament”?Founded in 2019, the “Ziemski Lament” [Earthly Lament] initiative revitalizes and recontextualizes the folk rite of singing lamentations and dirges which come from traditional rural culture. The group, which I describe using the category of communitas, performs songs taken from Śpiewnik Pelpliński, an extensive 19-century collection of religious songs. This type of communal expression is used to work through negative emotions caused by the consequences of the climate disaster and of exploitation of non-human nature. It is also an instrument of criticism of the strategies responsible for these phenomena. This article takes the study of the lamentation’s essential features and ways of circulation as the point of departure for a reflection on the functionality of this form of ecological protest. Lamentacja dla przyrody – (bez)nadzieja „Ziemskiego lamentu”?Powstała w 2019 roku inicjatywa „Ziemski lament” rewitalizuje i rekontekstualizuje obrzęd śpiewu pieśni lamentacyjnych oraz żałobnych pochodzący z wiejskiej kultury tradycyjnej. Grupa, którą opisuję w kategoriach communitas, wykonuje utwory zaczerpnięte ze Śpiewnika Pelplińskiego. Ten rodzaj wspólnotowej ekspresji służy do przepracowywania negatywnych emocji wywołanych konsekwencjami katastrofy klimatycznej i eksploatacji pozaludzkiej przyrody. Jest także narzędziem krytyki odpowiedzialnych za te zjawiska strategii. Zawarte w artykule badanie cech gatunkowych oraz własności obiegu lamentacji stanowi punkt wyjścia do rozważań o funkcjonalności tej formy protestu ekologicznego.

The aim of this article is to examine the functions and circumstances of reli­gious hymns and songs that accompanied the papal speeches during John Paul II’s 1st pilgrimage to Poland. The paper is not about the musical set­ting of the liturgy, or the songs sung, for example, while waiting for the start of a meeting with the Pope, but about those songs that were performed during his speeches, sometimes interrupting, and sometimes complementing them. The research question is: what role did religious songs play in John Paul II’s public speeches during his first pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979? In order to answer this question I analyzed available video (https://jp2.tvp.pl) and audio materials from that pilgrimage. Three homilies were used as research mate­rial: the homily delivered in Warsaw at Plac Zwycięstwa on 2 June 1979 and the homily given in Częstochowa on 6 June 1979, during the Mass for pilgrims from Upper Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin, in addition to the homily delivered in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 7 June 1979. This is followed by the speech deliv­ered at Lech Hill in Gniezno on 3 June 1979, the speech addressed to young people gathered at the Krakow Skałka on 8 June 1979, and, finally, conversa­tions with young people gathered under the window at Franciszkańska 3 in Krakow.

Abstract A lead tablet from Apollonia in Illyria exhibits the last strophe of a paean to Asclepios, that is transmitted in its entirety on inscriptions from four other cities. This article presents some alternative readings of the new fragmentary version and analyses its variants through the prism of the interaction between the local dialect of the Corinthian colony and the literary Doric of traditional choral lyric. Moreover, some linguistic discrepancies between the different versions of the hymn may have been conditioned by specific local characteristics of religious songs.

Based on ethnographic field research and thanatological literature, this article analyzes the continuing, but rapidly disappearing, Kashubian custom of bidding farewell to a deceased member of the local community known as “empty night”. Its essence is the night prayer vigil in the house of the deceased, performed by neighbors and relatives. The prayer consists mainly of singing religious songs on “the last things”—in particular about purgatory, human fragility, God’s mercy, and the Passion of Christ. The efforts of the orants are motivated by the concern for the salvation of the soul of the deceased, that is, the shortening and relieving the purgatorial punishment. The centuries-old tradition of “empty night” has been rapidly disappearing over the past 50 years as a result of both economic and social transformations, the gradual erosion of living faith, and the abandonment of the priority of salvation by younger Kashubians. The progressive medicalization of life and change of the approach to death play a crucial role in weakening the tradition of the ancestors. Thus the traditional “empty night” becomes a relic of “tamed death,” giving way to its tabooization and the illusion of “technological immortality”.

Paraliturgical song production provides opportunities for interdisciplinary research of interethnic, intercultural and interreligious relationships. It opens up the possibilities for understanding the development of cultural identity created by intensive cultural communication of Latin and Byzantine spirituality and is an integral part of the spiritual life of believers from the very beginning of Christianity. The contribution explains the different linguistic, cultural and ethnic confessional aspects that have influenced the formation of the cultural identity of users of such non-liturgical religious songs.