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Spiritual songs > Hymns of the Liturgical Year > Pascha

Let us join and sing together

This joyful Easter carol is based on the Slavonic carol, Sohlasno zaspivajme, with a one-verse English translation (whose author is unknown).

Discussion

This carol has circulated in some parishes, and has also been sung by the Pittsburgh Byzantine Catholic Archieparchial Choir, using a setting by Darlene Fejka:

A couple of features of note:

• Like some other settings I have seen, this one reconfigures the lyrics "Sohlasno zaspivajme" and "Isusa proslavlajme" to "fix" the accents; most Slavonic versions don't see to do this.
• Choir versions often add flourishes (such as the eighth notes over "from the dead" in the fourth line of music, and "in the tombs" in the fifth.
• Matching up Slavonic and English versions under the same notes is something hard!

The Slavonic original has additional verses which tell the Easter story: the myrrh-bearing women, the angel, and stone rolled away, and so on. These really deserve to be translated. (The Slavonic version in the new hymnal will include six verses:

Thoughts or suggestions?

Please leave a comment on this blog entry: Songs for Pascha, Part 3.