Anthem For Doomed Youth (Based on the Poem by Wilfred Owen)

So I thought I'd take a different approach to vocal melodies, rather than just plaster some random ones on a harmony and then write the lyrics I'd acctually write the lyrics first, create a melody from them, harmonize it and finnally do the arrangement. To test this I decided to do something like it with one of my favourite poems. This is a two voice arrangement of the first part of the first stanza

"What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons."

I'd really like some comments on

A. Wheater or not the words are singable with the melody and

B. Wheater or not the melody and harmony(I wrote the progression at the end of this post) represent the theme of the poem?

Thank you.

Progression:

I VI V I III I VII I

VI V IV I IVsus2 IV III I VII I

AnthemForDoomedYouthPart1.mid

I listened to your piece. I find the mood quite dark, and that probably suits the words of the poem well. Your use of III gives it an "ancient" touch as well.

I have a comment on the harmonic progression though: in the middle of a phrase, V -> IV should be avoided, because the harmony goes "backwards": the normal progression is IV -> V.

To fix this, you can add a "I" between V and IV, but that will change your remaining chord progression as well.

Finally, at the end of the piece, I would cadence as V I instead of VII I to make the punctuation clearer (the first VII I is OK).

Raphael

Thanks for the advice =).

It is very difficult to critique choral writing without a score that shows your voice leading and text setting. Unless, however, you have a live recording.

you have a live recording.

I'd rather not, my voice would get me banned.

I'm going to continue working on this tommorow now that I've wrapped up a few other projects, fix the harmony and rythm with this part first (Or maybe redo it from the start) and then post the pdf score.