Mass For Treble Voices

This was my very first composition. Not sure what drove me to write a mass for women's voices, other than the fact that Latin is my favorite language, and Women's choirs are one of my favorite mediums to write for, and to hear!I changed the name when we performed a few movements of it for the student composers concert at my school from Mass for Women's Voices to ...for Treble Vocies, because I had a male friend of mine sing 1st alto (not 2nd, which sits very low [borderline too low? :-P ] for females, go figure.. it's a long story)Kyrie, Gloria, Credo: Performed by the ensemble put together for the student composers concert at my schoolSanctus: not yet performed/recorded :(Agnus Dei: Sung by the student run Women's Choral Ensemble club at my scchoolKyrie Soloists: Soprano—Jennifer Thuman, alto— Megan GraneyI'm hoping to get a big, lovely choir to perform this piece in a nice cathedral one day :D (who has more of a chance to rehearse/correctly learn parts)**Since I'm having trouble uploading all the movements, check out the others on my youtube channel! http://www.youtube.com/user/JennyThuman **

Mass For Treble Voices

First off, is there any chance we could see a score? It is so much easier to make specific comments where there are some notes to look at!

Some thoughts, just based on the lovely recording posted:

One of my favorite exercises in Counterpoint class in college was an assignment to write a 3-part Kyrie. Mine wasn't terribly good-- certainly not as good as this one!

I really liked your choice of harmonic language, I thought it was interesting and effective. The cadence on the first "-son" was really heartwarming, and I thought you balanced tension and release really well through the entire piece.

I can't say that I have a lot of critical things to say-- I'd mostly like to hear more in this vein, which is hardly a critique at all! In some places it seemed to drag a bit (mostly on the held notes and the alto solo)-- but I think that would be remedied with a larger ensemble, which would provide a richer tone on the held chords.

So, yeah: really all I'd like to see changed is the length, which is so short, and leaves me wanting to hear so much more.

Certainly my first composition wasn't nearly this good, so congratulations. Really lovely piece-- a tiny gem, if you will. Leaves me hoping you'll have time to revisit it and expand it!

Thanks so much!!

The reason that I did keep this so short, or rather.. did not expand it after I wrote it (one random night in a practice room, thinking "wouldn't it sound cool if....", and went from there.. haha), is that there is definitely more length in the other 4 movements I worked on following this. I have been having issues getting them uploaded, so that's why only the Kyrie is up today. I'm gonna try and get those up soon, as well as maybe a score, too!

But yes, I agree, a lot of the issues you mentioned are that in my head I did imagine a larger ensemble. Nothing huge.. but this recording is 2 to a part (1 to a part when the parts split in some instances in other movements).

I, too, have thought of expanding this one a bit. One thing the composition lacks as a whole was total knowledge of the mass text, common traditions, etc. A lot of times you'll see

Kyrie e leison

Christe e leison

Kyrie e leison

so that repeat of the kyrie text could be a way to expand if I chose to. It's hard to expand things once you already have them "complete"!

Thanks so much for the feedback !