Ave Maria- SATB (Live recording!)

Hello all! It's been awhile since I've posted a piece here, but with marching band season and musical season, I haven't had much time for composition.

This piece was written specifically for my honors choir at my high school to be performed at my senior baccalaureate. With that in mind, I intended for it to be short, and singable, while still being very colorful. I kept all of the ranges to the absolute minimum, with the sopranos and tenors going no higher than an Eb and the basses going no lower than an Ab.

I included no phrasings or dynamic markings in the score because I was teaching and conducting this piece and wanted to give that information to the choir verbally. We decided to make a recording of this for posterity last week, so I thought I'd share it with all of you :)

The recording is located on my music myspace here:

MySpace.com - Matthew Sullivan

Sorry about that. I don't currently have any server space anywhere else to upload it.

Thanks for listening!

Ave Maria.pdf

This is really pretty. Its off a places but overall really nice. I can tell you are a vocalist because of the way you write for chorus, thats not a bad things its a good thing. Maybe next time try to branch and out and expirement with different colors in the chior.

Really beautiful, looking forward to hearing more.

P.S - You are a great singer, and your german is wonderful.

Scott

Hmmm... this is the most interesting choir piece I have seen on this forum. It sounds quite nice, though for some reason I couldn't quite get it very loud. I still have a few things I want to say.

First of, beautiful use of extension chords. This is the kind of thing that makes an amazing choir work!

Don't you think it ends a bit too quickly? Musically, it ends alright, but it sounds like, based off the tempo, that the ending just sort of comes. There is no huge problem with this, but it definitely left me wanting more. That may good, or it may be bad. I'll let you determine that. ;)

Something about formatting-- You have the word "nunc" near the end (Whatever that means ;) ), but there should be a line whenever it is being used for multiple notes. I could understand what you wanted, but it is easier to catch that way. The same thing happens for the rest of the page. I saw it in other places in the score, so I wonder if you just forgot to finish with formatting. :)

This is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Alan, who doesn't usually appreciate choir music.

Going off of what Alan said, maybe you could repeat "amen" a few times and extend the final cadence or something. It just seems like you take great care to draw out all the important parts of the text throughout the piece, and then the final and arguably most important word, "amen," is just sung once. Just an idea, to sort of finalize it a bit better.

Thank you all for the kind words. The reason the "amen" was a bit abrupt was that I was trying to work within the constraints of the situation. The piece had to be relatively short for the baccalaureate ceremony, and that was just one place where I cut some corners. =]

You have fallen prey to The Singers' Malady: pretending to sight read. There are sections where your sopranos are very much on the wrong notes, and while they fit nicely into a a harmony, it's not the one you've written.

That said, it's a pretty piece. I like the parts where your harmony gets very sparse and non-triadic.

First off -

beautiful job on the ich grolle .. great diction and beautiful sound especially contending with the not so sympathetic piano. I really think you will be a bass because I heard the most luscious sound in your mid and lower registers. I heard some extra, unplanned vibrato and a little tension in the upper registers just once in awhile. Overall - Bravo.

Now the composition. You are proficient writing for choir I commend you for fine job given the constraints given. And the work stand well on its own. Yet, this has alot of possibility for further expansion. First off, I agree the Amen seems a short -- the tenor suspension will give you ideas to expand on it. However there other possibilities - the rising triadic motive could be explored much more and I detected from the score a little ambivalence about whether to use a more traditional voice leading or a Medieval/contemporary one (in other words, you use many parallel fifths btw tenor and bass, chains of 2 -3 susp in the upper or middle voices which don't seem to resolve while using a classical language which would demand more "correct" voice leading).

One possible solution is to keep the key but place it in a mode.. See what happens when you transpose every thing to the Dorian with A flat being your Ionian. A review/study of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Mass or Bernstein's Chichester Psalms may be productive. As for the rising triadic figure, some fragmentation or augmentation would help to expand this piece if your wish. Also, I loved what you did with the word nunc. That may provide some ideas on expansion.

So, congrats on having a work for performance and recording as well as something which has much potential for further exploration.

gorgeous!

BTW: I love the other piece with you singing. I played it for someone once. Nice interpretation :)

Beatiful. The harmonies fit very nicely with the idea of the song. However much I like these type of songs arranged for choirs I think I prefer the soloist perform this sticking more to the melody.

Hello all! It's been awhile since I've posted a piece here, but with marching band season and musical season, I haven't had much time for composition.

This piece was written specifically for my honors choir at my high school to be performed at my senior baccalaureate. With that in mind, I intended for it to be short, and singable, while still being very colorful. I kept all of the ranges to the absolute minimum, with the sopranos and tenors going no higher than an Eb and the basses going no lower than an Ab.

I included no phrasings or dynamic markings in the score because I was teaching and conducting this piece and wanted to give that information to the choir verbally. We decided to make a recording of this for posterity last week, so I thought I'd share it with all of you :)

The recording is located on my music myspace here:

MySpace.com - Matthew Sullivan

Sorry about that. I don't currently have any server space anywhere else to upload it.

Thanks for listening!

I like the pacing. I have to admit that many of the harmonies arent my cup of tea. I can appreciate and understand why those who listen to music based in similar harmonic settings might be taken by it.

While I was at it i gave the lamentations a listen. The harmonies reminded me of a piece I wrote, a short dirge-like piece for four strings. I thought this one carried on a bit too long with the same ideas without sufficient changes in texture to keep me from tuning out. I think the way this is composed could carry itself for about a minute and a half but not much more. My 2 cents.

One thing I really like about your music is how much time you give between notes and passages, almost like the music is breathing.

That was very beautiful.

You obviously have hung out around a choir for more time than I have.

I am no expert in vocal pieces certainly, but the pauses were very excellent, right where they needed to be. I happen to enjoy a lot of the progressions you used in vocal music =] good job. Thanks for the live recording.

Hey this is beautifuul... I agree with the person above about the time you give. The breathing part.

It's too fast though, I mean it ends too fast. I like the harmony too! Especially the semitone and tonal clashes between the soprano and alto!