'Lamentation'

This is a piece I wrote about 2 years ago for my (then) high school's string orchestra (with the addition of an oboe and bassoon).

It was written as a memorial to a teacher who had recently passed away, and was the first piece that I had written for an ensemble. Hope you like it! Please critique; I know there's probably a bunch of mistakes (I've already caught some myself).

Oh, and there's a problem with the audio: near the end of the piece, where the basses are supposed to be arco (which is marked in the score), Finale still plays them back as pizzicato. How do I fix this with Finale GPO?

Thanks for listening!

Sound: Lamentation.mp3
Score: Lamentation PDF SCORE.pdf

Asthetically, I think it's beautiful. You did a great job. I still have a couple of small things though.

At the begenning and end where you have the high D in the basses and resting 'cellos, the usual practice is to have the 'cellos carry the bassline while the basses rest. It's just preference though.

I felt kinda rhtymically lost in the pizz. section between 35 and 50 or so. I susupect it might just be the playback though. Your oboe and bassoon sound a little loud compared to the strings.

There's a couple of collisions in the score that you can probably find yourself. A lot of your hairpins seem a little wonky.

Overall a great job.

P.S. The vocals at 56 are a little awkward. I try not to be closed minded about effects like that, but it's a little wierd to expect the string players to sing. Even if you keep it in, you should indicate if it's meant to be transposed or written pitch.

Your comments have been very helpful. Thanks!

I like the cello idea. It seems like it would be much easier for them to play that note than it would be for the basses, and it would sound a little less harsh.

I think the oboe/bassoon loudness is definitely a factor of the playback (when it was performed live the balance sounded OK). What exactly do you mean when you say you were "rhythmically lost?"

I'll look for the collisions you mentioned. Those can be pretty annoying to look at.

Oh, and in the performance, the conductor actually changed the singing part and just told the basses to play a D instead. Apparently, most of the basses couldn't sing that low! I might instead write "optional: sing" or something like that.

Thanks for your comments! Now, time to edit...

Beautiful music! I really enjoyed it. Personally I both like the beginning D in the basses, and the sung part.

Having the initial D in the basses certainly has a totally different effect than having it in the cellos. It doesn't sound as strong and full in the basses, but a lot more fragile and thin, but personally I love that a lot. It definitely shouldn't sound "harsh" with basses, if they are well played. I find basses sound amazing in their higher register. (And of course they could even play quite a bit higher than that.) But of course, intonation is always a bit a problem with (high) basses. If you used cellos you should decide on which string you want that D to be played in any case. On the empty D string it will sound the fullest of course, but you won't have any vibrato, and you wrote pianissimo after all, so using the G string might be better. Or even the C string, which makes intonation harder again, but will make it sound closer to the double bass sound.

But as I said, personally, I'd keep it in the basses, so you get a really thin beginning, and let it expand when the other instruments come in. You could consider a solo though, which will be less problemetic intonation-wise, plus add to the effect of starting out really thin.

Of course it's true that having the basses sing is rather unconventional, and I can't say I can tell how it would sound exactly. But I like the idea, and have seen pieces before where musicians were asked to sing a tone, and it worked fine. I don't really understand how that note would be too low for most of the basses, unless they're all women. Assuming this D is written an octave higher than it sounds (like the rest of the double bass part), is in the range of all normal male voice types, from bass to tenor, and even in the range of some very low altos. Were they trying to sing it -two- octaves below the written note?

Whoops, guess I should have specified whether the singing was concert pitch or not.

Most of the basses in the orchestra were women, so I guess it would be kind of hard for them, since the singing is not concert pitch.

A bass or cello solo, hmmm.....

I think I will try both and see what works. Thanks.