The Midnight Hour

Here is a work I have been composing for around 2 weeks, off and on. I am just now in the review phase. The text is from a free domain site that I randomly chose. Well, random is a little much but you get the point. It starts slow with open harmonies and moves to a faster section with a hint of "dies irae." From there is moves to a developmental section until the piece climaxes. After the climax the piece turns into a retrograde of itself without "dies irae" section. It finaly ends on the note that began the piece.

Midnight Hour Contest.pdf

MP3

Any comments would be appeciated. This is my first work for choir, so any changes in the score would be nice to know.

Thanks,

Tony

quick text setting comment:

1. "scaf-fold" (you split it at the wrong place)

2. measure 42, forgot a slur over soprano "die"

3. measure 37 or so, you accentuate the "to" in "ready to die". it comes across as awkward.

4. measure 49, again "witnesses" is split in the wrong place. Since "es" is the suffix, it gets split from witness: wit-ness-es

(normally, double consonants are split, but that is when they are in the middle of a word, such as "mas-sive", "at-tack", etc..)

5. measure 116, this is one of those places where you've placed a long emphatic phrase on the sound "oo" which will not work very well sung. Considering that the word "to" in this context is completely secondary, it is also awkward to emphasize it so strongly.

6. measure 129, you forgot the slur over "at"

7. measure 132-133, the suffix "-ing" should be split from ascend... ie: "as-cend-ing" (note the 1st syllable is also improperly split). I notice you got the "-ing" right in the final phrase, although the "a-scend" is still erroneously present.

Ok, this helps emmensly. I was unsure of where to split some of the words, I am still tyring to find a good article or book on text setting (any suggestions?). I will follow these rules now that I know them.

You can only look at a score for so long until everything looks right even if it isn't.

I don't know of any books, unfortunately.

A good dictionary should include the syllabification of words. If you can't find one, the Merriam Webster online has it.

When setting text to music, you need to seriously think about which words are getting emphasis. This is one "problem" with much pop music: the words are tacked on to the melody, regardless of how they fit into the musical scheme.

One very fine place to study text-setting is from the "classic" Broadway shows (My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, etc...) and also those of Stephen Sondheim (the man was a genius when it came time to setting text to music, he has had NO equal at all).

note: PLEASE do not study things like "Les Miz" and "Miss Saigon"... their biggest defects lie in the way the texts are set (if one does not consider the insipid nature of the entire pieces to be their largest defect!)

I love Sondheim, I will study up on him.

I fixed the stuff you mentioned. I was wondering if the "to" in m. 45 was ok. I was wanting an oo to ahh effect but I don't want to have an effect that takes away from the text.

Here is the new score:

Midnight Hour Contest.pdf

Does anybody have any non text comments. This is the first Choir piece I have written and I want some opinions on stuff that you would change or something that you like.

Thank you

note: PLEASE do not study things like "Les Miz" and "Miss Saigon"... their biggest defects lie in the way the texts are set (if one does not consider the insipid nature of the entire pieces to be their largest defect!)

The text setting of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon are not too horrible, at least as far as stresses. Granted, the words in Les Miserables are pretty awful, on account of it was translated from French... I'd say Miss Saigon's faults are due to the pastiche music that Boublil and Schoenberg used to set the text to. But really, I can't recall any places that the text-overlay is truly horrible.