Lo, the full, final sacrifice (Finzi) orchestration

FFS orchestrated.pdf

Hello all, as a church singer I don't really get to interact with the orchestra too often but given that corpus christi is coming up I decided to orchestrate Finzi's Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice as my first proper orchestral work. I literally just picked the basic orchestra template and filled it out based on the organ part, but I think it came along quite nicely. 

I'm also kinda broke (I spent most of my money on one of their organ sounds which was a good investment imo) so I don't have fancy software or sounds so it's literally just the free musesounds... the choir playback has been pretty scraggy recently, and they also happened to have recently published a paid choir soundpack - coincidence?

Once again this is my first proper orchestral work so some feedback/advice would be very nice!!

-develop331, and sorry to the flutes

To those who have not had the pleasure of listening to the original, here is the score https://bnf.cn2.imslp.org/files/imglnks/caimg/a/a2/IMSLP903191-PMLP1420925-Finzi_-_Lo%2C_the_full%2C_final_sacrifice.pdf and it can be found widely on youtube, but my favourite performance is 

I think this is a rather good orchestration; though it's very uncommon to see French horns written in the bass clef. 
Usually you would just write in treble clef, with a whole bunch of ledger lines.

If you wanted a better vocal rendition, I'd recommend cantamus.app (which has a free trial period). That will reproduce the actual spoken lyrics quite well.

You can mix the cantamus audio file with the orchestral MuseScore output using Audials. 

Hello @develop331 and welcome to the forum!

I love this piece's subtlety and how sublime it is!  The choral dissonances are very affecting and the orchestra adds just the right touch of ominousness at times.  You sound like you know what you're doing harmonically and melodically with a clear leading melodic line and well-fitted harmonies underneath including inversions and open voicings of chords.  I'm just giving my first impression on listening without a score btw.  I also agree that cantamus could take your rendition to the next level.  I also hear that you seem to be using different kinds of harmonic voicings for the choir and different voicings for the orchestra which is (I think) the right approach in this kind of piece.  I don't often write for voices though.

2 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

I think this is a rather good orchestration; though it's very uncommon to see French horns written in the bass clef. 
Usually you would just write in treble clef, with a whole bunch of ledger lines.

I played French Horn in college and university and I have to say that it's actually quite common to see bass clef in French Horn literature as it has a huge range!  The only confusion about that is whether the particular literature is using old style bass clef notation or new - there's an octave difference between the two.  But the 2nd and 4th horns in the orchestra are especially likely to encounter bass clef and there are actually different players that specialize in different ranges of the horn more, often buying different mouthpieces to better accommodate the sound and ease of playing they want to accomplish in the range in which they most often play.

The Clarinet on the other hand does stay in treble clef only, opting to only use ledger lines (much like guitar except that Clarinet is a transposing instrument while guitar only transposes at the octave).

Thanks for sharing and I hope to see more of your contributions on the forum!  You could also listen to other composers' pieces and give us your opinion!  Kind regards,

On 6/4/2025 at 2:37 AM, Alex Weidmann said:

If you wanted a better vocal rendition, I'd recommend cantamus.app (which has a free trial period). That will reproduce the actual spoken lyrics quite well.

You can mix the cantamus audio file with the orchestral MuseScore output using Audials. 

 

Thank you, I'll take a look at this to see what I can do. 😃