Theory Assignment

Hi,

I like to share this piece that I wrote for my Tonal Analysis class. It's a midterm project and we write a chorale based on Bach's "Der Lieben Sonnen Licht und Pracht". All comments are welcomed and enjoy.

Best Regards,

James

I like this a lot!

In vocal music, slurs are to connect notes which share the same syllable, they cannot be used for phrasing. Since it is a "Tonal Analysis" excercise and you have no text, you shouldn't use any slur in your composition (anyway, in this choral phrases are visually delimited by fermatas).

Some other things that may need to be revised:

I feel the leading note (A) unresolved in the 3rd bar (I expect a B flat in the next or after the next chord), and the leading note is doubled. The diminished chord should be used here in 1st inversion (C in the bass) instead of in root position (A in the bass).

In bar 5, the alto sings a descending augmented second.

In bar 9-10 the bass sings note C three times in a row on strong beats (C E C E C C) while there is no real change in harmony (remains dominant). I felt it a bit boring. Moreover there are doubled leading notes here, too.

From bar 11 to 12 there are paralell octaves (contrary) between tenor and bass (B flat to G).

There are paralell 5ths in the last bar between soprano (D-C) and bass (G-F), and paralell octaves (G-F) between the tenor and the bass.

The tenor should sing F (5th) in the last chord instead of the doubling the D (3rd).
In the last cadence, the dominant chord have no 3rd (no leading note).

That's all for now, I hope I could help a little.

Máté

Thanks for listening guys.

Matthaeus, very detailed comments thanks!
If I can say something here:

-I added slurs just for the finale sound to be more smooth.
-I've just noticed the aug 2nd in bar 5..agh..that's 5 points off
-Bar 11 and 12, didn't see that Jump to octave.
-If you have an interval of 12 to another 12, does that count as if it was parallel 5ths?
-Last chord I had no choice but to double the 3rd.

Thanks for pointing those mistakes out. I tried really hard to check for parallel 5ths and octaves, but in the end I guess there's still mistakes.

-J

I just want to say that overall it was very good.

One thing that felt odd to me was in bar 6 and again in bar 8, the half-note fermata followed by a quarter rest and quarter note. Usually when you write a choral, that would be a dotted-half fermata and the conductor would cut off and give the beat 4 that leads into the next bar. The rest would be up to the conductor.

I also felt like the final bar was a little abrupt in the chord change. It felt like there was a transition chord left out between beats 2 and 3. Maybe beat 3 could be (score order starting at the top) F,E,C,Bb and beat 4 sould be your original chord with the fermata.

There was also something that told me that there should be a minor chord in bar 8. This is achieved through flatting the sopranos D.

Overall it was really good. Everything I made a comment on is just my personal opinion and I thought it was great to start with.

Please check out the attached image (last phrase of your choral), I hope it is useful to understand paralells and interval doublings.
The numbers are interval relations to the bass. Intervals greater than an octave are written like simple intervals (for eg. 5th instead of 12th).

And yes, you are right: moving from 12th to 12th counts as a paralell 5th, but moving from 5th to 12th or 12th to 5th are paralell 5ths, too.

Thanks for listening maestro3092, and thanks for the reply Matthaeus.

This just an update, and I fixed and edited some of the errors from before. This is the new version and the final version for my assignment.

Enjoy and cheers,

-James

Good job overall. Couldn't hear exactly the parallel fifths pointed out though the repeated bass note over unchanging harmony was noticeable. I think the problem with the last three chords of the chorale may be resolved if you fixed the ornamentation of the soprano line. One possibility is to have line ascend stepwise after the initial descent so that a suspension is formed with the chord before the last which eventually resolves downward.