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Jan. 5th, 2015 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreChoir rehearsals started tonight for our spring session. We are doing the Haydn Creation, which is the story of Genesis as sung by a choir of angels and looks like it's going to be pretty fun, even if it is one of those pieces where the soloists get all the really cool parts. I'm enjoying it so far.
But you know what I really want to sing? A giant dramatic choral work based on my creation myth. Because how awesome would that be? It would be totally awesome, that is the answer.
So. In the beginning, there was fire and there was ice. By which we mean some scary primal chaos. But between them, where they meet, there's a still place. And that's called the Ginnungagap (which is super fun to say - you should try it). The Ginnungagap is a still place where the fires cool and the ice melts and that's where life starts to form.
Some of the melted water comes together and forms into Ymir, the Roarer. He's the first-ever thing to live in the worlds and he's the father (and mother) of all jotnar (etins, thurses, giants). The second living thing to pop into being is a cow. Her name is Audhumla. Her udders give forth four rivers of milk, which is handy, because there's nothing else to eat in the Ginnungagap. So Ymir drinks a lot of milk and then wants a nap. He sweats in his sleep and his sweat becomes new jotnar - a man and a woman from beneath his arms, a six-headed thurse from between his thighs. And that, friends, is where giants come from.
Audhumla's still hungry, though, so she wanders off. She finds some ice blocks with salt on them and proceeds to lick the salt off. By the end of the first day, she's licked the shape of a man's hair. On the second day, his whole head is there. And by the end of the third, he steps out of the ice. And this is Buri, the first god.
Buri has a son named Bor, and Bor marries an etin-woman named Bestla, Bolthorn's daughter. They have three sons: Odin, Vili, and Ve. Odin and his brothers decided that they really don't like their mother's family. The jotnar are loud and chaotic and destructive. So the sons of Bor decide all the jotnar should die and they start by killing Ymir.
But, see, Ymir is huge. He is the primeval being, the first of all things, and he's big. So blood pours out of him like a literal flood, washing all the other jotnar away. (Except for a guy named Bergelmir and his family, who are like the jotun version of Noah.) And then Odin and his brothers are left with a giant corpse. So they decide to build the worlds out of it. Ymir's bones become stones and mountains. His flesh becomes the earth. His hair becomes trees and plants. His blood is the rivers and seas. They hoist up his skull on the backs of four dwarves and that's the sky. They toss his brains into the bowl of the sky to make clouds.
Then they divided what they'd made into the nine worlds: Niflheim and Muspell, Helheim and Jotunheim, Ljossalfheim and Svartalfheim for the alfar, Asgard and Vanaheim for the gods, and Midgard, where we live.
And that, O my best beloved, is how the gods came into being and how the worlds were made.
That's a pretty great story, right? I mean,the beginning of Genesis is pretty cool but it doesn't have giants or building worlds out of bones or primordial cows. You could make a hell of a big orchestral chorale work out of that story. A basso profundo soloist for Ymir, a mezzo or an alto for Audhulma, a bass-baritone-tenor trio for the son of Bor (the tenor* singing Odin gets at least one aria to himself). It opens with a loud wordless dissonant chorus that represents the primal chaos - women as fire, men as ice, opposing lines - that gradually resolves into the still peace of the Ginnungagap. The chorus sings the flood too, and then they sing behind the trio as they build with Ymir's body. Then there's a final triumphant choral movement describing the awe of the first sunrise over the new worlds. (Yeah, I know, we didn't cover Sunna and Mani. Whatever, artistic license.) It could be amazing. Someone should write that so I can sing in it.
(And then they should write something about the creation of Ask and Embla, because that is my favorite myth. And there should be at least half as many chorale works about the Ragnarok as there are requiems - "an axe-age, a sword-age, shields will be cloven, a wind-age, a wolf-age, before the world's ruin." Who doesn't want that set to music?)
Basically, sometimes, I would like to sing impressive chorale works that aren't about Jesus.
*Yeah, the tenor. Hjarrandi, the Screamer, and Jalk, the Gelding - Odin should be sung by a tenor.
But you know what I really want to sing? A giant dramatic choral work based on my creation myth. Because how awesome would that be? It would be totally awesome, that is the answer.
So. In the beginning, there was fire and there was ice. By which we mean some scary primal chaos. But between them, where they meet, there's a still place. And that's called the Ginnungagap (which is super fun to say - you should try it). The Ginnungagap is a still place where the fires cool and the ice melts and that's where life starts to form.
Some of the melted water comes together and forms into Ymir, the Roarer. He's the first-ever thing to live in the worlds and he's the father (and mother) of all jotnar (etins, thurses, giants). The second living thing to pop into being is a cow. Her name is Audhumla. Her udders give forth four rivers of milk, which is handy, because there's nothing else to eat in the Ginnungagap. So Ymir drinks a lot of milk and then wants a nap. He sweats in his sleep and his sweat becomes new jotnar - a man and a woman from beneath his arms, a six-headed thurse from between his thighs. And that, friends, is where giants come from.
Audhumla's still hungry, though, so she wanders off. She finds some ice blocks with salt on them and proceeds to lick the salt off. By the end of the first day, she's licked the shape of a man's hair. On the second day, his whole head is there. And by the end of the third, he steps out of the ice. And this is Buri, the first god.
Buri has a son named Bor, and Bor marries an etin-woman named Bestla, Bolthorn's daughter. They have three sons: Odin, Vili, and Ve. Odin and his brothers decided that they really don't like their mother's family. The jotnar are loud and chaotic and destructive. So the sons of Bor decide all the jotnar should die and they start by killing Ymir.
But, see, Ymir is huge. He is the primeval being, the first of all things, and he's big. So blood pours out of him like a literal flood, washing all the other jotnar away. (Except for a guy named Bergelmir and his family, who are like the jotun version of Noah.) And then Odin and his brothers are left with a giant corpse. So they decide to build the worlds out of it. Ymir's bones become stones and mountains. His flesh becomes the earth. His hair becomes trees and plants. His blood is the rivers and seas. They hoist up his skull on the backs of four dwarves and that's the sky. They toss his brains into the bowl of the sky to make clouds.
Then they divided what they'd made into the nine worlds: Niflheim and Muspell, Helheim and Jotunheim, Ljossalfheim and Svartalfheim for the alfar, Asgard and Vanaheim for the gods, and Midgard, where we live.
And that, O my best beloved, is how the gods came into being and how the worlds were made.
That's a pretty great story, right? I mean,the beginning of Genesis is pretty cool but it doesn't have giants or building worlds out of bones or primordial cows. You could make a hell of a big orchestral chorale work out of that story. A basso profundo soloist for Ymir, a mezzo or an alto for Audhulma, a bass-baritone-tenor trio for the son of Bor (the tenor* singing Odin gets at least one aria to himself). It opens with a loud wordless dissonant chorus that represents the primal chaos - women as fire, men as ice, opposing lines - that gradually resolves into the still peace of the Ginnungagap. The chorus sings the flood too, and then they sing behind the trio as they build with Ymir's body. Then there's a final triumphant choral movement describing the awe of the first sunrise over the new worlds. (Yeah, I know, we didn't cover Sunna and Mani. Whatever, artistic license.) It could be amazing. Someone should write that so I can sing in it.
(And then they should write something about the creation of Ask and Embla, because that is my favorite myth. And there should be at least half as many chorale works about the Ragnarok as there are requiems - "an axe-age, a sword-age, shields will be cloven, a wind-age, a wolf-age, before the world's ruin." Who doesn't want that set to music?)
Basically, sometimes, I would like to sing impressive chorale works that aren't about Jesus.
*Yeah, the tenor. Hjarrandi, the Screamer, and Jalk, the Gelding - Odin should be sung by a tenor.
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Date: 2015-01-06 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 06:37 pm (UTC)Yes. That would be nice. :)
Also, that is a brilliant creation story! ::grins::