Ubi Caritas

A small poppy choral music I wrote for fun. Suitable for a choir or just 8 people (two in each parts).

I hope you guys enjoy this piece.

PDF here

and

MIDI here

Steve

It was pretty cool... sadly my midi was destroying it, so I didn't get anything close to a full experience. However, the piece was very calming and whatnot, so that was nice.

I wanted you to go to the liturgical modes that I remembered, and you hinted at them, which made me want it more, and then you came pretty close at the part right before the Amens.

Nice.

Ah thanks, yeah, well the part at the end, that's just the first line of the original Gregorian chant of Ubi Caritas, I didn't compose that part...

I hope I get get a recording of this done, lol.

Thanks!

Hey, this is very nice, I love the first section of your amen, and especially the section bb.45-51; actually I felt these bars were a more well-honed version of the theme you present at the beginning. I like the pedal notes at the beginning but maybe you could transfer some of the harmonic clarity of the later section to it? My favourite bit of the piece though was the piu mosso at 'exultemus' - the rhythmic interest here made the following phrase seem a bit lacklustre. Perhaps you could vary the note values on 'et ex corde diligamus' (and at other points) to represent speech rhythms a little more? This seems vital since you choose to quote the Gregorian chant itself near the end - set the text in more rhythmic freedom to your harmonic language, as to the melodic language of the chant in plainsong. The only bar I really didn't like was b.30 - too much movement going on in every part in what is otherwise a very static piece. Otherwise, I think this is lovely, hope you do manage to get a performance.

One last thing - I really admire you setting both the Latin and the English texts side by side, it's a lovely touch. I remember one Christmas we were doing 'In Dulci Jubilo' (which has alternating lines of Latin and English/German) and my music teacher said he'd give

Ah, I forgot to check the reply and reply to you!

Thanks for the review, I appreciate it. The second Ubi Caritas pedal part is supposed to be an extension of the first one-ish so yeah, if I change the first one, it wouldn't act as that anymore.

I changed the rhythm slightly, as you suggested, after the faster 5/4 bit, but I'm still not very satisfied with that part yet. I'll post the update when I think of something better.

The bar with too much movement at bar.30, is supposed to be a ritenuto and is much slower, but not as slow as a crotchet. It shouldn't be too fast, hmm, I'll try to get this recorded... I'm planning to do that next year!

That is funny, about the mix between two languages, macaronic... lol

Thank you for your review!

Very, very nice piece. You really have a knack for the cluster chords. They are beautiful and I can JUST imagine the choir doing it. My only suggestion to you (since I really noticed no issues) is at measure 40, I really wanted a HUGE chord on "other" of each other... A Huge fermata, almost the 'climax' if you will. I didn't really hear one (unless I missed it) and I think it builds very well to that point. Just throwing that out there. Unison is nice, but I think it breaks the sense of harmony when the climax is in unison. A Nice major chord would suffice, or add a ninth or 4th.

But, other then that, it was wonderful.

Ah thanks for that Morivou, I'll definitely have to check that part out. I agree with you about unison part, I might be out of idea by then lol. I'll post the revised version some time later.