I'm beginning to write a small oratorio

Hi @Cafebabe!

I like that you are using the French Overture format for the Oratorio with a slow, dotted passage for the A section and then a fugal fast section after it. I think you can fully extend the A section first by making it in Binary structure, instead of just an 8 bar passage. For the fugal passage of course you can extend it to a full fugue.

I like the walking rhythm of the 2nd movement. The melody is nice, and probably you can extend the movement by turning it to a ternary Aria.

Beware of the parallel 5th in b.4 of Ab-Eb to G-D. 

Thx for sharing!

Henry

“I’m beginning to write a small oratorio,

Everywhere there’s notes!

Take a look at the fifths and tenths, some intervals are immense,

At half past three my laptop screen’s aglow!”

2 minutes ago, JP S. said:

“I’m beginning to write a small oratorio,

Everywhere there’s notes!

Take a look at the fifths and tenths, some intervals are immense,

At half past three my laptop screen’s aglow!”

 

there are*

Hey, this is great and has a lot of potential; I hope you keep writing! Lots of very cool moments and bits like the way you harmonize the very first “Shew me thy ways, O Lord”; vii˚7/vi–vi? How cool is that, especially since it's a lot more harmonically standard the second time around.

I'll mainly focus here on “Shew me...” since it's a little easier to parse the score quickly:

1. m. 5's two-beat long semitonal dissonance is already striking enough, but having the suspension resolve upwards is even more noticeable. Not a strict problem, per se; it's just maybe a little overly noticeable.
2. m. 7, V7 without the third except in an ornamental figure, approached by 4-5 motion in first species.
3. mm. 8–9, “Shew“ is three quarter notes for a one-syllable word. There's a couple other measures where you have one syllable sung on repeated notes.
4. m. 11, unnecessary whole rest break in V1. 
5. mm. 14, 17 & 22, similar issue to Point 2. Also, unnecessary breaking of the quarter rest in vocalist's part in m. 14.
6. m. 26, “O Lord” breaks the more natural setting of the scansion you had in mm. 10–11. 
7. Keep “teach” as one word spelled correctly (don't double the “e”).
8. I would add some bowings; some are great, like the one you have in m. 13 in V2, but take a little time to make sure that the most natural style (down bow at the beginning of the measure, especially with all of these quarter notes) is preserved unless marked otherwise. 

Of course, Points 2 and 4 can be fixed with a continuo part with figures; I heard it in the background, but it just seemed to double the celli and bassi.

Again, it's exciting to see where this could go! Solid start!

1 hour ago, Cafebabe said:

there are*

 

Did you get the joke? Your title reminded me of “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” so I wrote a small parody.

21 minutes ago, JP S. said:

Did you get the joke? Your title reminded me of “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” so I wrote a small parody.

 

Ah, I didn’t catch the reference at first, so your comment felt out of the blue and a little like mocking tbh. Now it makes sense. Rather creative

1 hour ago, Monarcheon said:

Hey, this is great and has a lot of potential; I hope you keep writing! Lots of very cool moments and bits like the way you harmonize the very first “Shew me thy ways, O Lord”; vii˚7/vi–vi? How cool is that, especially since it's a lot more harmonically standard the second time around.

I'll mainly focus here on “Shew me...” since it's a little easier to parse the score quickly:

1. m. 5's two-beat long semitonal dissonance is already striking enough, but having the suspension resolve upwards is even more noticeable. Not a strict problem, per se; it's just maybe a little overly noticeable.
2. m. 7, V7 without the third except in an ornamental figure, approached by 4-5 motion in first species.
3. mm. 8–9, “Shew“ is three quarter notes for a one-syllable word. There's a couple other measures where you have one syllable sung on repeated notes.
4. m. 11, unnecessary whole rest break in V1. 
5. mm. 14, 17 & 22, similar issue to Point 2. Also, unnecessary breaking of the quarter rest in vocalist's part in m. 14.
6. m. 26, “O Lord” breaks the more natural setting of the scansion you had in mm. 10–11. 
7. Keep “teach” as one word spelled correctly (don't double the “e”).
8. I would add some bowings; some are great, like the one you have in m. 13 in V2, but take a little time to make sure that the most natural style (down bow at the beginning of the measure, especially with all of these quarter notes) is preserved unless marked otherwise. 

Of course, Points 2 and 4 can be fixed with a continuo part with figures; I heard it in the background, but it just seemed to double the celli and bassi.

Again, it's exciting to see where this could go! Solid start!

 

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback

@Cafebabe Thanks, and I will give this a helpful review too.

I mean to start you have nice, clear harmonies. It creates a pleasant feel, and I like how you chose a string quintet which can make timbre and rhythmic changes easier to navigate since you have another voice. You also have a consistent tone throughout.

I think the biggest thing you could do differently to make it more pleasant/interesting would be giving more rhythmic variety. The dotted rhythm is almost entirely the same in the beginning, even across all the voices. In the fugue, the running 8ths have little room for “breath” in the melody, so adding variety would make it feel more natural. I think you had more sense of melody & variety from 28 to the end, so nice job there.

Would you mind checking out my piece for feedback please?