In early 2019 I bought a copy of the Reina-Valera Bible (1909), in search of lyrics to set. A lifelong sporadic learner of basic Spanish--formally, I took V semesters of Latin instead--I figured that composing in a different language would, at the very least, present an interesting challenge. More than that, though, the project promised liberation: starting with words that aren't completely familiar, I hoped they'd make it possible to write with a bit more abandon than usual.
And so it was with my first Spanish song, taken from a few verses of my favorite 62nd Psalm (supplemented with a bit of Psalm 61 for good measure). There's something very asymmetrical about the chorus--I haven't actually charted it to see how extensive that is, because I originally performed it as a solo piece during summer church--but it felt, and still feels, very natural. The variation in the second-verse melody sounds like it's trying to escape the song's orbit altogether. All the way around, it's a bit more exuberance than perhaps we're used to in our Episcopal parish, but it was quite well received!
One more note: It became clear very early on that using the RV translation isn't exactly plug-and-play. Being written in Castilian Spanish, it contains strange verbs like derramad that have to be converted (in this case to derramen) for the majority of the world's hispanohablantes who don't use the vosotros form. Dabblers beware!