introtius Introtius (Requiem)

Here the still unfinished introtius of my requiem.

The opening is inspired by the Requiem in C minor of Haydn.  I would appreciate feedback! 🙂 

Here an update

@Hendrik Meniere

The melody is great. Unfortunately, the flute and oboe are just about useless (in terms of being heard) at such low notes. By the way, the flute can't go below a middle C. Also, I'm 2.5 minutes into this and still haven't heard any singers, just the same motif being repeated over and over again. Might want to give it a little variation if the intro is going to be that long.

The choral part is quite spacey. You have a lot of clustered harmonies in the bass region but very few in the treble/soprano region. This is going to sound unbalanced and heavy. The altos and tenors double quite a bit, with the altos simply singing the same notes one octave higher. Again, this is going to make it sound thin in the high registers.

The score needs some work... all the staves should be on the same page if they share bar numbers. I'm also curious as to why Bass III sings higher than Bass I or Bass II. Conventionally, they get lower as the numbers get higher. Why are the notes in Bass II written as D# instead of E flat?

Your phrasing with the Latin is off. You have Re - quiem _ a - e - ter - nam. The correct syllabication is Re - qui - em _ ae - ter - nam. Same number of syllables, but the stress and pronunciation is different.

Overall, you have a great sense of melody and a good understanding of harmony. All of the issues I've mentioned are quite easily fixed with experience. With practice, I've no doubt you'll become quite a formidable composer!

Keep it up!

I agree that flute and oboe are playing in the extreme low register. I would choose clarinet and english horn instead or even basset horn, which was used in religios music of the period, like in the Requiem in Dm of Mozart. Alternatively, you could replace the woodwinds for 3 trombone to get a dark dramatic color.

I would also fit on the instruments in one page on the score, if you split the instruments in different pages it's very difficult to follow. 

Anyway, I can see an interesting baseline from the bassoon and the character is perfect for a requiem of the classical period, you just need to choose the right instruments.