Short Lutheran chorale I made yesterday

Haven't really written anything in quite some time, but I felt like writing this after imagining the melody. The choice of hymn was arbitrary (just something I already knew), but it was really easy to set to music.

Hi @mossy84!

What an amazingly realistic sound rendition!  It's too bad you're only using it to write traditional chorales.  Imagine what kind of amazing choral pieces you could make if you weren't limited by common practice harmony!  Thanks for sharing.

Wonderful little work. The <sol, fa, me> imitation at the end is one of those little things that make me smile when I hear them.
Not sure if you're a stickler for conventions. It's entirely possible you know better than me; I'm sure they're likely one of those things that you see in the repertoire and you teach students not to do it anyway (happens a lot), but:
1. I notice an augmented second in m. 3. Odder still is that it's followed by a leap.
2. In m. 7, the second beat has one of two potential issues: either it's a iv chord without a third (!!!) or it's a iiø6/5 without the fifth, which students are taught that when you have an inverted seventh chord, all the chord tones should be present.

It sounds great so who cares—and like I said, it looks like you probably know more than I do about the actual Baroque conventions—but they're just things that popped out. I'd be interested to know if they are just stylistic norms that I don't know!

On 10/6/2025 at 12:53 AM, Monarcheon said:

1. I notice an augmented second in m. 3. Odder still is that it's followed by a leap.

I spent quite a while deliberating on what to do here, and I concluded that because the Aug 2 happens in the alto that it would be at least saliently permissible (since I couldn't find a better way to get the G# in the chord).

On 10/6/2025 at 12:53 AM, Monarcheon said:

2. In m. 7, the second beat has one of two potential issues: either it's a iv chord without a third (!!!) or it's a iiø6/5 without the fifth, which students are taught that when you have an inverted seventh chord, all the chord tones should be present.

 

I don't really know how to explain this honestly. It's been long enough that I've forgotten a lot of details about my process when I composed it, and looking back I think it sounds fine (despite violating rules of harmony as you stated) because the alto voice passing tone E creates an imperfect interval to essentially "rescue" the beat. That being said, I didn't really adhere to any style (and setting this chorale to text was actually an afterthought), so I just wrote what I felt like, and at the time I had been experimenting a lot with treating P4, m7, and M9 as consonant intervals (see my short fugue from a while back). I haven't actually had any formal training regarding contrapuntal conventions, so my process is essentially just the product of several years of trial and error (and a lot of listening to Bach and other Renaissance/Baroque composers).

That is definitely a NICE sound set and I like your harmonies very much.  It may break convention a bit (I'm not a theorist, so I'll leave that to others), but it seems very singable.  Bravo!

• Beginning a chorale with a V chord on an upbeat is generally considered a mistake. Bach himself would almost certainly harmonise the first two chords as I-I (with an octave leap in the bass).
• The overall tessitura of your tenor and bass parts are approximately a third too low.
• Passing 6-4 chords (m. 2/4) and unprepared sevenths (m. 3/2) are relatively common place in Bach's instrumental music and most of his other vocal music, but not in chorales.
• The melodic interval of an augmented 2nd (m. 3, alto) is completely forbidden. Diminished 4ths (m. 5, alto) are on the other hand fine, but in this context it should be resolved to a G rather than a D.
• The minor sixth in the tenor in m. 7 can be improved by a "passing" C.
• There's a lack of complexity throughout. Nothing wrong with that of course, but complexity would give this more colour. Things you can consider: seventh chords that aren't just dominant sevenths, more 4-3 suspensions, 9-8 suspensions, choosing non-obvious harmonisations, harmonising occasionally in quavers etc.

Of course you can ignore all of this if you're not trying to emulate Bach's style. If I were to do that personally, I'd ask myself "why" before I break these rules. Hymn/chorale writing is an extremely well established style and I'd need a very good reason to deviate from the norm.