Gaudete omnes

Motet for SSAATTBB and organ. This is the first draft; I'm going to talk to an organist-friend about what needs to be done on the organ part. I'd appreciate any suggestion. :) Gaudete omnes - sheet musicmp3

Gaudete omnes

Love it! great job on creating an mysterious, even eerie athmosphere. If you get this performed please record it and put it here on yc. I'd like to know how that'd work

I definitely will, thanks!

Very nice piece! Why does it go from flats to sharps?

Watch your time signature. Measure 72-74 is in 3/4, (unless there's some other reason to write it how it is). 86 is probably a measure of 5. Generally, if everyone is landing on a beat other than the downbeat together, then that's probably the real downbeat. Some places the rhythm seems a little unclear, you might want to check you got it all exactly how you wanted, but it might just be all the reverb on the rendering (there's way too much).

Organ: Whenever the ostinato-figure changes pitch more than a semi-tone, it won't be as smooth and mechanical like how the computer does it, especially when there's a big leap like in measure 51 or 57, there will be a definite break in the sound.

Choir: The voice crossing on that Bb unison (m. 33) doesn't really make sense to me, somewhat unclear what you're doing in this measure (again the reverb is very obfuscating). I really like the setting of Alleluias at the end, has a large sound. In general this piece seems to me to be very large, sort of meditative, which is an interesting counterpoint to the text.

Great job!

On the flats vs. sharps thing, I'm still thinking of what would work best to smooth that out.

With the time signature thing, I wanted the choir to still feel it in 4, even while singing what appears to be in 3.

On the organ, yeah, I guess I somewhat realized that. We'll see when I talk to my organist friend what kind of breaks we get and whether or not I feel the need to change them then.

The voice crossing had to do with the main motive of the piece, and it wouldn't be very audible in a midi realization.

Sorry about the reverb. It's hard for me to tell when there's too much because I can hear it all clearly in my head when I'm listening.

Thanks for the comment! :)

Marvelous! This has a contemporary British/Anglican savour to it, which I like. Not the kind of treatment I would have expected for this text, but it certainly works. Rather than being boisterous, it has more a feeling of awe and hushed wonder.

The organ part at first looked fiendishly difficult, but at the tempo you set a proficient organist should be able to accomplish it. I probably worry about technical difficulty too much.

This makes me wish I were still singing in an Episcopalian church choir...had I seen this a couple of years ago, I'd have happily suggested it to our choir-master!

Looking forward to hearing more from you. :)

you'll be hard pressed to find an organ player who can play that rh...if you gave this to me, i would say no.

i couldn't play that for any longer than 6 or 7 measures without cramping up my hand.

that said, i love your harmonic language and the chord voicings in the choir are really quite lovely (maybe a bit bottom heavy for the basses..that is rumbly russian bass territory you are entering)

the form is really well done, it's very clear what is happening - however, i think it might be more effective if you returned to some previous material for the alleluia's at the end to provide some more cohesion for the listener? just a suggestion!

i think it might be more effective if you returned to some previous material for the alleluia's at the end to provide some more cohesion for the listener? just a suggestion!

That was actually the original plan, but it seemed to me to be pretty force when I did that.

About the organ part, perhaps it would be easiest if it was played by 2 organists. I'm pretty attached to the way the right hand is now, just because it worked really well to create a shimmering background for the piece and also to create the feeling of anticipation that is called for by the text.

This piece definitely was influenced by modern British choral music. It's ironic, though because I do write in the very low range of the basses (likely due to the fact that I've been around Russian music so much this year), which is not a very British thing to do! :P Luckily, they don't need to be as loud as Russian basses because they are being reinforced by the organ.

it might also work to split up the two dichords into four single notes - you'd avoid some hand-cramping that way - though of course it would generate a different sound, and still be at least a LITTLE difficult to play.

i was just tapping it out on my laptop and if you use 4-2 / 3-1 instead of the obvious 5-2 / 4-1 it is a bit less cumbersome for the hand - but still!

After thinking about it more and reviewing the comments made since, I'm starting to agree that perhaps it might be better to slightly re-voice the semiquaver figures in the right hand somehow.

As effective as it is with its glittering, shimmering quality, the average church organist might find it prohibitive, and most churches nowadays don't have two organists available. In my opinion, once you finish cleaning it up however you intend, this piece will be highly publishable, so I should think you'd want to make it as accessible as possible without watering it down.

My judgment at first was informed by the fact that for many years I worked as a chorister in a wealthy Episcopal church that was fortunate enough to have a fine organ, one of the best choirs in Los Angeles, and a choirmaster and sub-organist who were both virtuosi and could play just about anything. That experience spoiled me for anything more ordinary, but that fortuitous combination of forces is rare nowadays.

Just for kicks, here's a link to the church's music site, with selections from their repertoire, if you're interested. I sing solos in some of them. :D

Great Music at St. James' in the City, Los Angeles

i was just tapping it out on my laptop and if you use 4-2 / 3-1 instead of the obvious 5-2 / 4-1 it is a bit less cumbersome for the hand - but still!

Yeah, that was the fingering I had in mind, but it is pretty tough. I still haven't found an alternative that I like, though...

First and foremost, although I am not an organist by any means, let me echo the thoughts of many of the commenters here regarding difficulty. I think you can achieve the same effects present in this score without the crazy difficulty. (As a pianist, I shudder at some of the larger left hand clusters).

With that out of the way, let me also say: wonderful. I think the text demands a very careful approach: it is beautiful, but austere, approachable, and yet ethereal. You've achieved a setting that manages to translate that feeling and highlights (I think) the subtleties of the text quite well. In particular, I enjoy the Glass-esque nature of the organ part, especially in your abrupt harmonic changes and shimmering harmonies. I am an unapologetic fan of Minimalism, and I see many of its techniques used to great effect here.

And thank you for the beautiful score. Although the music is what is truly important, I find that there is a dearth of beautiful, elegant scores, both here on YC and in the world at large, and I very much appreciate the attention to detail in the engraving. It is clean and open, and as such helps the performer immeasurably.

Although I'm sure these comments are less practically helpful than the discussions on how to improve the organ part, I do think that this is a lovely piece, and I wanted to stop in to say it.

Looking forward to hearing a live recording!

I just want to offer my attempts at debunking the thoughts on the right hand - I performed a handful of times a piece by Rubinstein from his Kammennoi-Ostrow. In particular, number 22 has 40 bars of triplets almost exactly like the sixteenths in this organ part, and a great deal faster and with a wider spread (like, 6ths, 5ths, and 7ths, instead of your 6ths, 5ths, 4ths and 3rds) keeping in mind your tempo is smaller and that an organ doesn't have key weight like a piano does, I think this part is perfectly fine from my standpoint, I'd just worry about it easily becoming uneven.

It's actually quite easy to play if your organist has studied piano from the Isidor Philip book, there are a number of exercises that are just this.

The sound on my computer isn't working at the moment, but I'll comment on the organ part which people are talking about!

The semiquavers in the right hand certainly do look like they will be an issue. The main problem for me wouldn't be that it was such a repetitive movement, but would be the particular fourths (I'll call them fourths since most of them are, I can only see a couple of places where thirds come in at a glance) which you are oscillating between. As for the issue of the hand cramping up due to repetition, I think this could well depend on the organ; I'm guessing you would voice these on the swell rather than the great and quite a few organs have fairly 'light' swell keys which would help reduce any cramping. Most organs I have played have lighter swells, particularly in the range the right hand is within, than a piano.

As for the particular fourths you move between, there are some which look like they'd be OK; personally I find moving from a perfect fourth to a tri-tone (and vice-versa) fairly easy such as you have in bar 43. There's a piano piece by Gershwin called Novelette in Fourths so if you can listen to a recording of that (there's bound to be a few at the minute; it was selected for the new ABRSM piano syllabus I think) it might provide some ideas about what is ergonomically easier to play. I was going to suggest possibly omitting the lower note of the first of the fourths throughout the bar, but from the reviews you've had it looks like it would be a shame to remove it as it could alter the effect you create.

One more note on the organ part is the foot pedal; you keep it very low in it's range throughout the piece. There's nothing wrong with this, but the combination of stops you use could well mean that the foot pedal has a different timbre and exploiting the higher end of it's register is something you could add if you wish. It might be nice in places where the harmony begins to intensify, as the piece reaches it's climax, to add a rising counter melody with the right foot against the full force of the choir whilst the left foot sustains those long bass notes. You'd have to be careful with the intervals you chose though in order to make it sound smooth only using one foot!

It certainly looks interesting! I'm looking forward to fixing my sound and I'll comment more once I've heard the whole thing.

PS - I know it's already been said, but what a fantastically presented score! Do you mind if I ask what software and fonts you used?

I'll post more soon!

Oscar.

Oscar, thanks so much for your enlightening comments!

As for the score, I'm glad you like it! Sometimes I have trouble keeping my scores clean, so it's good to know my efforts have paid off (although I think there's still editing to be done, especially with slurring in the second half). I use Finale on the normal Maestro font. Or did you want to know the text fonts?

Oscar, thanks so much for your enlightening comments!

As for the score, I'm glad you like it! Sometimes I have trouble keeping my scores clean, so it's good to know my efforts have paid off (although I think there's still editing to be done, especially with slurring in the second half). I use Finale on the normal Maestro font. Or did you want to know the text fonts?

I meant the software and the notation font - I've been using Sibelius 6 but it's difficult sometimes to get a score as clear and crisp as this.

I meant the software and the notation font - I've been using Sibelius 6 but it's difficult sometimes to get a score as clear and crisp as this.

I suppose I should specify that I use Finale 2008, just to be clear.

Edit: Also, I think I might have a choir lined up to perform this. The director is just waiting to see if he'll have a good enough organist this year. XD

I fixed my speakers (well sort of, I'm using a set of BlackBerry headphones...)

I'm afraid I can't add much to what has already been said. I enjoyed it, The organ accompaniment worked really well and you controlled any dissonance really well. I was reminded of minimalism with the organ part too, was this the style you were going for? If not I'd probably give it a role other than providing harmonies for a few bars. The only thing I really disliked was that I didn't feel it went full circle, the middle section worked well but I personally would have tried to recap some of the material earlier on in the piece, maybe bringing back the much-discussed right hand part for a time towards the end before dying out, but honestly that's just a personally preference I have.

Great piece! I'll watch out for your future posts ;)

Oscar

This a really fantastic cool-jazz kind of song you got here. I especially like the closing texture. The way you handle the voices in the first half reminds me a little bit of Stravinsky, and the second half of Michael McGlynn (writes most of the stuff for the Irish choir Anuna, and Chanticleer's best hit, "Agnus Dei"). I enjoy it a whole lot.

Everyone has already given you flack about the hand-cramping, so I won't touch that. I think that at the end with the low Ds in the Basses, I would double it in the organ with a foot pedal so that it comes out clearly. Otherwise it will be over-shadowed by the organ and the thick choir texture, and spaces equipped with organs tend to have high reverb and therefore carry higher notes a lot stronger than lower ones.

Great job.

This a really fantastic cool-jazz kind of song you got here. I especially like the closing texture. The way you handle the voices in the first half reminds me a little bit of Stravinsky, and the second half of Michael McGlynn (writes most of the stuff for the Irish choir Anuna, and Chanticleer's best hit, "Agnus Dei"). I enjoy it a whole lot.

Everyone has already given you flack about the hand-cramping, so I won't touch that. I think that at the end with the low Ds in the Basses, I would double it in the organ with a foot pedal so that it comes out clearly. Otherwise it will be over-shadowed by the organ and the thick choir texture, and spaces equipped with organs tend to have high reverb and therefore carry higher notes a lot stronger than lower ones.

Great job.

Ah, thanks! I think I fixed the hand-cramping issue, anyway. It's actually being premiered this coming Wednesday at Utah State University so I guess we'll see! The space that it's being premiered in actually has a fairly low reverb, but they're bringing in an electric organ, so it could be a little interesting. I think it will go well, though. :)

Also, on a side note, I love Michael McGlynn! Actually, the choir that is premiering my piece will also be performing his "Christus Resurgens". The director of the choir is practically obsessed with Michael McGlynn, and that's how I was exposed. Good stuff, although I hadn't realized a similarity to his work in "Gaudete omnes" until now.

Yeah, he really is a fantastic composer, so I'm glad you drew upon some of his best elements for your song. I love the zen-like quality, and I think you took it a nice step further.

Looking forward to the recording, fo sho.

Just got the recording of Wednesday's performance! The organist kind of made a major boo-boo in the middle, but besides that it went really well. :)

BTW, they ended up doing a hybrid accompaniment using piano and organ. It ended up creating a really nice effect.

Gaudete omnes - performance by USU Chamber Singers

This was fantastic. The performance was lovely (I forgot about the organ mistake as soon as the beautiful unfolding section right after it started!) I don't have much to add from what has already been said, but its really a superb piece-- thank you for it.

(I forgot about the organ mistake as soon as the beautiful unfolding section right after it started!)

That's exactly how I felt during the performance!