I've done that for years, but I believe this is an error.  In France the Latin accents are completely different.  The accents of "vidistis", "pastores" and on "dicite" on the last syllable in French Latin, which fits the meter.  As in most of French, the last syllable usually gets the accent.  So I'd go with Poulenc's meter.

 

There are other differneces, like the "c" of "dicite."  Bev Taylor (UWisc) wrote a grea t article for CHoral Jouranl a while back that you might find on the acda website or from her.

 

Cheers!

David

 

Hi,

We're doing the group with a small group too.

A really cool thing about Poulenc's setting of Latin is that it follows traditional French stress patterns, specifically end stresses.  His settings fit his ear, and the world of Latin scansion and pronunciation he inherited.  FP clearly didn't care about te Pope's motu. 

 

So, I tend to ride the fence, not overdo the metric accents, but allow them to be there when they fit a French Latin end-stress.  Our challenge right now is not to cut the short end notes too short, and get that whack effect.

 

Check out H. Copeman's Singing in Latin on Poulenc and French Latin stresses.

 

best, Paul

Syllabic stress isn't very important in the French language, so in French music I'd favor musical accent over textual accent. That said, however, I wouldn't have any heavy stresses in the opening section of that particular piece.

One only has to look at his Gloria (GLOR-ri-A, in EX-cel-SIS de-O, Do-mi-NE de-US, etc.) to realize that the accents of the Latin text are of much less importance to Poulenc than the musical accents.

 

Lee G. Barrow