Baroque Aria on "Wanderer's Nightsong"

Hi all!

Here's another fragmentary tripartite aria - it's about halfway complete. What do you think about it? What about the word setting?

Edited February 21, 20242 yr by muchen_

I think this is quite good!  I would have liked to hear a harpsichord with it filling out the harmonies - especially where the texture drops out to just two voices it sounds really empty.  I can't say anything about the word setting as I don't (at this moment) speak German.  I once spoke German as a kid though and since I've recently been using Duolingo to learn Spanish I thought I might eventually give German a try again since I heard that it's easier to remember a language you once knew already.  Thanks for sharing and I'm looking forward to hearing the completed version!

Very very beautiful introduction. I love the use of basso continuo! I feel it could use a more lively obbligato (rising Romanesca schema maybe?) to really emphasize the word painting of 'You who come from heaven.' 

My German is not the best, but I believe the 'Der' should be on a pickup and 'du' should land on the strong beat (1 or 3) since we want to emphasize 'him' (Gott und Jesu?)

Again, overall very very nice. I feel studying the text and some of Bach's arias will help a lot. Look into Da Capo aria form as well if you haven't already. It really helps with extending a piece!

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoser and @Hcab5861!

I've modelled the overall texture and soundscape off of the bass aria of BWV 159 (which is imo the most beautiful aria Bach has ever written). The omission of a harpsichord continuo and the strings "harmonic halo" are both completely intentional - I want the mood of the music to be gentle, warm, embracing.

In addition, I'm a little bit torn on Da Capo form. I think it works well in duets but by default I tend to avoid it. From a singer point of view I don't get excited about singing the first part of the piece exactly twice, and from a compositional point of view, your ritornello theme better be REALLY good to warrant a minimum of four exact repetitions (but more typically six to eight repetitions including fragments), at least for those themes that are tonally closed. I much prefer the scheme of ABA' in these cases (e.g. see the alto aria in BWV 197), where A ends in the dominant and A' ends in the tonic.