Thanks! Glad you liked it. To answer your questions.
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1. Would this fall under 'incidental music'?
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No, I think I see what you're saying (the piece was for a specific occasion), but I think Incidental Music refers more to music specifically as background music for film, theatre, television or gaming - at least I think that's the wisdom around here as I understand it.
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2. The half-diminished seventh chord in bar 19 sounds a bit 'daring' to my amateur's ears. Don't listen to me though!
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Heh...that is a bit wicked, isn't it. The middle section of Mozart's "Ave verum corpus," after which this is rather obviously patterned, has similar dissonance at
unda fluxit et sanguine, though not quite as adventurous. Maybe that's the Schubert influence creeping in. Someone in the church might have dropped their rosary, but I probably wouldn't have been flogged for it back in the day.
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3. Is the tenor part transposed up an octave (it's in the treble clef)?. Some parts end up crossing over the soprano's line.
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This is standard procedure. When choral music is written with each voice on its own staff, as in this case, the treble clef is used for the tenor line and the music is sung an octave lower than written. When choral music is written on two staves, as it often is nowadays to save space, the soprano and alto are written in treble cleff on the top staff, and the tenor and bass in bass clef on the bottom staff.
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4. The soprano and tenor parts are pretty high in register. You must have a professional choir in mind? Or is this commonplace?
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I did have a semi-professional church choir in mind, with professional section leaders and talented amateurs. The tenor does go rather high; the style dictates that the high G-sharp not be sung full voice, and a well-trained choir would know this - being a tenor, I know that I can get away with this here and there, but it's best not to sustain it or use it too often. The soprano never goes above an F-sharp and is well within the singable range.
As for the "East West Samples - Quantum Leap Symphonic Choirs " - thanks for the link! Sheesh! it's $600 bucks! I just might have to do it someday, though...I've written a lot of choral music, much of which I haven't processed because I hate GM choral sounds.
Cheers!