Persichetti Exercise 4 - 5 for Women's Choir

I've written another composition/song prompted by an exercise from Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony".  This time it is for women's choir.  The prompt was "Compose an original piece for women's voices (SSA) featuring chords by fourths.  Other textures may be included.  Use the following text, Psalm 107:  'They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths:  their soul is melted because of trouble.'"

Thanks for listening and I'd appreciate any comments, suggestions, critiques, or just observations!

Very serene, and sad at the same time. I feel like this style can be a candidate for some Zelda music perhaps. Or maybe a segue scene in an RPG game. Peaceful, yet you can tell there's still friction in the air.

This one is a joy to listen to. The fourths are used with great effect esp. in b.5 and b.14 where the sudden modulation to flats chords are great. I also love the imitations between the voice-clearly you build on the exercise to real music with reference to the tradition of motets with the imitations. Thx for sharing!

Henry

A very fun sound world!  

You might be letting yourself in for some trouble at bar 13 beat 4, since all parts have big leaps simultaneously.  There is a big chance of the tuning suffering in a live performance.  That said, since this is a very short exercise, people could just devote a lot of practice time to that one spot.  

For those playing along at home, some things that might help a choir tune big leaps:

1.  Use accompaniment to help singers seize the key again quickly if they miss their jump.  

2.  Only leap with one part at a time, so that if they don't stick the landing, the other parts will easily provide a steady foundation to help them readjust quickly.  

3.  Give a part a brief rest so they can prepare their vocal placement to leap more gracefully.  Even just a tiny moment of disconnect will help.  Here, the way you have set the text to the music gives a natural pause if you just read the line aloud, which means singers could either disconnect the two notes of the leap, (do it non legato), add an eighth rest to take a full breath, or, given the nature of the piece, even take it out of time with a longer pause (rubato) to get as much time as they need to reset vocally and have their next note firmly in mind.  If someone sings your exercise, they would probably take some sort of a pause, since the text allows it, so nice job there!

Also, I particularly love your first "their soul is melted."  The harmony sounds very melty. 🙂