Viri Galilaei

Something I made for the introit for the feast of Ascension. It will be sung after the cantor sings the gregorian 'Viri Galilaei'.

Wow, this is a great piece! On the first chord, I thought "oh here comes another normal piece" but you told me wrong! Some of the chords in here are really cool, ones that I personally use.

I have to say the chords with the 2nds I really liked, and I think it will create a kind of "buzz" that will sound good in the real performance. Post a link of that too, I'd be interested to see how it sounds with real voices with words!

Thanks for posting :)

Heckel

Hi,

I think what you have here is a promising piece of choral music. While some harmonies are very interesting, issues that pertains to performance details were still lacking. Just listening to the mp3 alone is not enough to have, at least, an idea as to what your real performance intentions are. Text affects dynamics and vice versa. Without dynamic indications, there is no way for me to know you intended dramatic effects. The harmonies are real nice; however, in my opinion, choral musicians love good melodies as well, therefore, you must also give them some parts of the melodic material or at least make their part as melodic as possible. But then, my two thumbs up for you very nice music.

TheusII

Wow, this is a great piece! On the first chord, I thought "oh here comes another normal piece" but you told me wrong! Some of the chords in here are really cool, ones that I personally use.

I have to say the chords with the 2nds I really liked, and I think it will create a kind of "buzz" that will sound good in the real performance. Post a link of that too, I'd be interested to see how it sounds with real voices with words!

Thanks for posting :)

Heckel

Hi,

I think what you have here is a promising piece of choral music. While some harmonies are very interesting, issues that pertains to performance details were still lacking. Just listening to the mp3 alone is not enough to have, at least, an idea as to what your real performance intentions are. Text affects dynamics and vice versa. Without dynamic indications, there is no way for me to know you intended dramatic effects. The harmonies are real nice; however, in my opinion, choral musicians love good melodies as well, therefore, you must also give them some parts of the melodic material or at least make their part as melodic as possible. But then, my two thumbs up for you very nice music.

TheusII

Thank you both very much for your replies.

theusii, I agree with you that some dynamics should be added. In my haste to post this, I must admit I completely forgot to add them to the score.

Well thanks to the Internet faeries who shut down my connection half-a-dozen times a day, my original comment was lost. But let's try again.

I say emphatically that this is exactly the sort of music I would like to hear more of in the Catholic Church - simple enough to be accessible to volunteer choirs, yet of significant artistic weight. I'm assuming you're writing specifically for the Catholic Church, and She needs more composers like you, rather than the claque of happy-clappy, guitar-strumming hacks She has now, God help us.

Some of the decisions you made perplexed me at first - for example, taking the basses up so high at the end of each versus; but when I looked up the translation of the Latin text, it became clear. The men of Galilee gaze upward, higher and higher, following their Lord as he rises into Heaven and disappears miraculously from their sight. Therefore, from a word-painting standpoint, writing a narrow chord with a high bass makes perfect sense, and I applaud the choice. I noticed that there were no dynamics, but you've already said something about that to others previously.

I love the warm, mildly contemporary harmonic palate, as well as the lovely, almost chant-like melodic line.

This is an appropriate and inspiring setting of this text, and I congratulate you on a fine motet, eminently suited for parochial use. I would have been proud to sing it in my Catholic Church choir days, and I would love to hear more!