4 Bagatelles for choir:

Just 4 short pieces for choir depicting certain traits of the seasons.

Spring focuses on the rain that makes the plants blossom.

Summer is about the slow and lazy days in which everything is like an effort and you would rather stay put and take naps than sweating in any kind of effort.

Autumn focuses on the wavy dance of the leaves as they fall to the floor because of the wind.

Winter speaks for itself and then ends with Spring coming back.

I apologize for the lack of fluidity, but my choir samples suck.

4 Bagatelles for choir:

This is a very nice set of part songs for a cappella chorus! Generally, very good work! I can hear how well this would work with a live choir. The overall feeling is one of tonality, yet you weave in some very effective modern dissonances. You're not afraid to differ the texture between the parts, with one or two parts singing rapid passages while another one or two sustain; overall you've done this very well.

Some thoughts I had:

Spring: In measures 3 and 14, you have tied two quarter notes in the bass part together in the middle of the bar. It would be clearer to just write a half note here.

Similarly, in measure 8 and other places, you've written a dotted half-rest on the bass line. Singers aren't used to seeing something like that...might be better to write a half-rest and a quarter-rest.

Summer: As a choral singer, I know it would be more helpful for me to see the figures you've written as dotted notes like this...

...written out like this:

Your choir is more likely to grasp your intention this way, in my experience. Other similar dotted figures off-the-beat elsewhere would be better treated similarly.

While I grasp what you're trying to convey in the final phrase about summer midnight, I think you miss out on an opportunity for a quiet, lovely and lush final chord by not having all four voices sing that final measure in harmony. A well-trained choir is capable of an absolutely lovely pianissimo on a fully fleshed-out chord. They'll understand what you're trying to convey...a beautiful summer night is something we've all experienced. I hope you'll consider fleshing it out. It seems bare and stark as it is.

Winter: The G-flat in the tenors at the beginning and later in similar instances would be better written as an F-sharp for clarity.

Did you write the poems? I love how the end of Winter ties in to Spring and brings everything full circle!

Very nice work, Miguel!

Feeling a little inspired of Vivaldi? or maby Grieg??

Love how you keep things compact, cutting the crap, and just use your themes wise! you dont overuse things. Thats why I like you pieces so much. This should be preformed!

your cromatic parts in the 3rd movement "autumn" reminds me of Grieg somewhat!maby not when you made the cromatics in 3rds, but the rest is ok And that is good!

nice thinking putting the first theme in the first movement at the last movements ending... meaning you can play this over and over XD

Very good, after this I would suggest to you even bigger pieces. This is like a short tast of what you are capable of!

Tell me when you post a new piece! I asum you are aiming for the 10/10....And... you got one!

Hello,

I'm so sorry it took this long... I've been so busy. I'm so sorry! :(

Ok, so spring... I like the concept that you are implementing, but you seem to be forgetting one thing, and that's for breathing space! You should give the altos and sopranos a break otherwise you'll have weird cutting-out during a performance. As for the orchestration, it is really good I'd say. The voice ranges are perfect for the important lines to be brought out and the texture is varied enough for interest. I really liked the section where you included some chromatic harmony, and I kind of wished you brought that back out. Maybe a little bit to light for Spring's character as well? Just my take.

Summer: Someone already pointed out the notation thing. Ok, the other thing I would say right off the bat is that your sopranos are out of their power/control range, so they could be covered up by the tenors and baritones that are in their best range. I don't like the mainly homophonic texture. You can always add an interesting alto/tenor line to spruce things up. I see what you're trying to do with the harmony here, but it just doesn't work for me because of how you treat the voices. However, the music around 16 displayed some good harmonic substance. Notation in Bar 26 of the altos is an issue.

Autumn: It would get incredibly tiring to continually sing those off beat notes in the beginning in the alto and soprano, just letting you know. Again, I like the chromatic bass movement. Very interesting. At this point in the overall work, it's apparent that your voicing is altogether too dense too much of the time. Your sopranos very rarely go into a high range and your altos are in the depths a lot of the time... Something to work on for future writing.

Winter: Ok, here's the variety haha. I think that this is your most inspired choral writing yet. The textures would sound lovely and the soprano in such a register would sound ethereal. I like how there isn't quite a tonal resolution when you return to the original material. Hahaha, the ending was nice, made me laugh.

Overall, nothing was too deep, which was nice. A lot of the music as I pointed out was too dense, and you can work on that in the future. The poetry (that I think you wrote) is nice, and again not too deep and pensive, which is fine.

An enjoyable listen. :)

About Spring: I'll either use choral breathing or allow the last note to be barely sung to give room for breathing (I can sing the soprano line fine in terms of breathing).

Summer: Voice balance can achieve all in a small choir. The homophonic texture is precisely what Summer is about for me. :P

Autumn: I agree. I need to train on all of that. But about the tiresome thing, come on, musicians who don't get exhausted aren't musicians. xD

Winter: Why did it make you laugh?

I liked Spring a lot, it's so refreshing!

The Winter's harmony is very impressive. I liked it.