Sure on This Shining Night

This is my version of Sure on this Shining Night by Samuel Barber

Sure on This Shining Night

I don't know much about vocal music, but this seems like a really solid piece, though you might want to clean the score up a bit at places where the stems and lyrics overlap.

Overall I liked it and found it harmonically interesting!

First off, let me say I've always loved this poem by Samuel Barber. I remember one of the choirs in my high school doing a version of it .

Musically, this was just beautiful. I detected some Sacred music influences which fit the words perfectly. My only concern is that the beginning melody may be a little difficult to sing. Especially the intervals in mm.2. You will need to find a really talented choir to sing this.

Now, the score itself is going to need some work. I found it a bit hard at times to tell what each part was singing. This could be easily solved by putting each part in their own, separate staves. Another smaller problem are some collisions in the score (some stems and words were right on top of each other which made the score somewhat hard to read). Some of them will be fixed if you separate the parts but it's not too big of a deal; more of a problem if you are trying to send this to a publisher. One last issue is some of those hanging ties. They contribute to the clutter of the score and I'm not sure how necessary they are.

That's about all I can say at the moment. The music is beautiful and works very closely with the words. Just fix some of the score and you'll be ready to have this performed.

Excellent work,

J.T. Hanrahan

I agree with JT that the score needs a good deal of cleaning up - best to devote a staff to each part and mark with a voice 2 solo parts for each (eg say soparano solo - soprano staff would have tutti and then when the solo comes - mark it solo).

As for the music very strong start and middle. The end though sounds incomplete. Why?

1) The texture thins out enough to provide a great change in texture. My concern is you then switch textures too soon to low voices and the piece is done. The soprano lines are lovely and you definitely could use some imitation of the some of the texts in the upper voice. You could also break up the lower voice pedal point like line. Also, I am wondering if the word High is going too sound too heavy hand text painting or even a mistake. Why not have the lower voices build up to the A just a little more?

2) As I implied in 1) there is a ton of interesting counterpoint and ebb/flow of vocal textures at the start and middle, but then you switch to a chant with decorative melismas soon followed by homophonic writing to end. To my ears a bit too fast switching textures at the end.

3) You start with great overlapping of text. I think it is a smart thing to have the text overlay stop to hear more clearly the text. My question is WHY? Why not look over your text and see how you could gradually reduce the degree of text overlay by seeing what words are most important to you in the text (also look for stressed syllable and good consonants to propel the music forward (for example a hard h sung at different times can give multiple accents thereby giving the sonic illusion of music accelerating and then decelerating)

4) The whole bar rests are insufficient to create closure. Granted you have eighth note rests early on but two bar rests with the amount of material you have after about the middle of the piece sounds as if you truncated the piece due to lack of time or a sudden lack of inspiration. I actually think it is a good strategy to incorporate long rests to create a long closure but 3 beat rests are more effective if introduced a little slower and start on weak beats and move to strong beats (eg beat 2 a rest, then later beat 3, 1 rests, then a bar rest and even a longer series of rest - say 1 bar plus 2 beats!)

So in sum, really rich rich vocal writing that will be quite gorgeous - you may even find you'll need to make small edits to your dynamics if you find the balance wasn't exactly what you heard. But all of it is disserved by the too abrupt ending which, nevertheless, shows a good initial strategy and potent material but not developed enough or thought out as well as the prior material

With some modest expansion of the last dozen + bars will have a great piece. Keep up the good work

This is an interesting piece. I agree largely with what Chris said above. I want to add though, the score needs cleaned up considerably. I would recommend using 4 staves for each voice - that way you avoid many of the problems notationally. Interesting ideas - I look forward to seeing a more polished version.

Beautiful... somehow reminded me of Schnittke (in a good sense). 9/10

This is great!

I typically don't get into choral pieces but I know if performed live by a great ensemble that can actually sing the words, I'd be moved! This is beautiful from the slight dissonance in the beginning to the chord in the end. I don't have anything else to add to what everyone else has said, the score needs cleaning, but I could understand it. For publishing purposes I would definitely clean it!

Good Work.

everything i would like to say has already been said but the poem is NOT by samuel barber, he simply arranged it in the form of an art song, and you have a lot to live up to since his setting of these words is recognized as being most exquisite. i'd reinvestigate the principles of voice leading for common practice music, as well as ranges - good luck finding a soprano who can sing that high.

great musical potential with these ideas, however you are not there yet.