cschweitzer

You can hear parts of this piece on the Trailer for "The Black Dawn" here:

Magnificent! I just finished your very good setting of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by noting that one thing I would like to see is a use of less conventional techniques. This definitely fits the bill. I loved every minute of it.

In setting Cumming's set of poems "Chansons Innocentes", I have endevoured to approach the text from novel and interesting ways. This setting of "little ghostthings" attempts to emphasize the wit of the text, creating a kind of "halloween" atmosphere-- at once unsettling and fun at the same time. Use of aleatory and extended techniques provides the chorus with interesting textures, and the diminished harmonies a new approach to the Cummings canon.I am attaching an mp3 of a synthesized rendering-- note that most of the aleatory sections are not performed for obvious reasons. from "Chansons Innocentes": ii: little ghostthings

I think this is a really wonderful setting, but I have to admit-- I am somewhat tired of the dissonance-laden pan-diatonic style popularized by Whitacre and his cohorts. In terms of approaching this text from that style, I think you've succeeded admirably, but I don't think that the style has a great deal of legs in a world where we already here "Water Night" and its "wanna-be" pieces (of which this is not a member, I might add) so often. You clearly have a wonderful ear for choral writing, and the performance of this piece is really very good-- in particular, the divisi, which was obviously a challenge for the performing ensemble, is handled with grace and confidence, which I genuinely appreciate. Still, I feel like this kind of texture is becoming a bit boring-- your mastery of it is evidence enough, I think, that you are capable of better. I browsed your other scores as well, and I can see that you are certainly branching out for your newer pieces, so it is wonderful to see you producing more music with an original voice-- I would certainly encourage that kind of writing over this static harmonic and pan-diatonic approach. As I said, that's more an encouragement to branch out rather than a specific criticism of this work, which falls well into the genre that it aspires to and effectively communicates the text using the rather limited vocabulary of the style you've chosen. Excellent, if frustrating.

Certainly approaching this text is a daunting task, given the multitude of wonderful composers that have already attempted to set it. Indeed, the multifarious array of modern settings is of note here, as that is clearly the language that you have chosen to write in. As such, I'd commend you for having the courage to approach a text that has already received so much attention, and indeed, I really appreciate the approach you've taken. The changing meter is interesting, if a bit confusing at times. I suspect this is my own fault, but perhaps a clear indication of exactly how you want the text emphasized, rhythmically, would be a good idea-- under the right kind of ensemble and direction, I suspect this problem might go away. I'm not a huge fan of the "block chord" style of choral writing popularized by Whitacre, et. al., nonetheless, I found your use of it to be well thought-out and largely idiomatic. Excellent job on that front. Indeed, I think one of the biggest assets of this piece is its brevity-- in a world filled with "Lux Aeterna"'s of all stripes, it is refreshing to see a version that is both brief and beautiful-- a glimpse, if you will, into the otherworldly. Notation-wise, might I suggest a different font? San-serif typefaces might look nice, but they vary from the norm in choral publishing, and as such, I think that perhaps the adoption of a serif font such as Adobe Garamond might make your piece both beautiful and easier to read. The letterspacing throughout leaves something to be desired, but that isn't your fault-- switching to a more standard typeface (especially in the lyrics) will alleviate this problem. Altogether a very good, if somewhat traditional setting. I'd be very interested to see what someone with your sensitive ear for choral writing would do with more extended techniques.

The most important thing that you can do to improve this piece is to vary the tonality. You clearly have a wonderful ear for melody-- I think that some of the harmonies you've chosen, though not exactly "daring", are nonetheless very effective, and it would be absolutely wonderful to see you venture a little bit farther from the established ideas in this piece and create something that has more variation throughout. Having said that, I find the melodic writing, especially during the tutti sections, to be absolutely wonderful, and perfect for the text that you've written. Other commenters have already noted that the synthesized piano part does you little favors, however, I do think that it would sound significantly better in concert. If you varied both the tonality and the texture of the accompaniment-- particularly the contstant eights outlining the harmonies-- you could really produce something wonderful. Keep at it! This is definitely a promising piece, and one that I can see becoming very popular in the high-school/middle school market with just a little bit of attention and some luck.

To begin, I love what you've done with the score. The "old-style" notation is carried out perfectly, and looks great! I'm really a stickler for a clean score, so I really enjoyed this one. My only complaint here is the lack of notated repeats. Please, pretty-please, could we have clear ones? As-is, the performance and the score do not match. As for the piece itself: A lovely use of chromatic, rag-time influenced writing. The melodic material is engaging, and while the piece makes little attempt to jump out of the mold, it is nonetheless very effective. I think there is a lot of value in being able to speak in all kinds of voices, musically, and this is a really good example of a piece we can point the YC community to as an example of really top-notch writing within the genre. Bravo, what a fantastic little gem. Thank you for posting!

This was quite enjoyable to listen to, and the audio of particularly noteworthy quality. Thank you very much for that. I think the piece as a whole works tremendously well, from the somber opening to the pious scolding of the rich man to the glorious rejoicing. The jazz elements really worked in your favor, especially the spontaneous solos, which served to give each section of the piece a lot of character. About the only thing I didn't like was the chaotic section (around 94 I think?). It wasn't that I didn't think it was successful structurally, but I found that it disrupted my enjoyment of the piece because it was too over the top in its chaos. I understand that you are trying to accomplish something here, but it was lost on me. Could it have just been the trial audio? Maybe it wasn't as tight, rhythmically, as you'd like? All in all I'm kind of a bad person to critique this, as my jazz theory and appreciation are somewhat underdeveloped. I probably could have more feedback to give you if I were more aware of ways to spice up the piece, but as someone from a distinctly "classical" background, I genuinely enjoyed listening to this (several times!) and think it represents some of the best writing I've seen on YC.

I really like the evocative nature of this soundscape. Especially the watery-background, which works well as a palette for music to be painted on. The opening flutes are divine, with a magnificent ethereal feel. Further in, the more percussive, building section really got my attention, especially given how the regularity of the beat contrasted with the rhythmically free opening. There wasn't much I didn't like in the track. I felt the brass sounds could have been more "full"-- they sound synthy and weak to me, which stands in contrast to the rest of the track. Were you going for a more synthetic sound? I also found that the choir entrance was a bit abrupt-- the introduction of recognizable syllables (even if they aren't english per se) was a bit jarring, and I felt like they didn't gel with the rest of the piece. Perhaps adding more definite choral samples more toward the opening of the piece? I really liked where they took the piece, but it spent so much time building to this part that I felt the ultimate "climax" of the piece was a bit too brief. Obviously nitpicks here, but I think elongation of the latter half (specifically the more rhythmic chants of the choir) would do a lot to make the structure of the piece make more sense. Really great work, glad to see your always-excellent work getting shared! Its a real pleasure to listen to.

First off, is there any chance we could see a score? It is so much easier to make specific comments where there are some notes to look at! Some thoughts, just based on the lovely recording posted: One of my favorite exercises in Counterpoint class in college was an assignment to write a 3-part Kyrie. Mine wasn't terribly good-- certainly not as good as this one! I really liked your choice of harmonic language, I thought it was interesting and effective. The cadence on the first "-son" was really heartwarming, and I thought you balanced tension and release really well through the entire piece. I can't say that I have a lot of critical things to say-- I'd mostly like to hear more in this vein, which is hardly a critique at all! In some places it seemed to drag a bit (mostly on the held notes and the alto solo)-- but I think that would be remedied with a larger ensemble, which would provide a richer tone on the held chords. So, yeah: really all I'd like to see changed is the length, which is so short, and leaves me wanting to hear so much more. Certainly my first composition wasn't nearly this good, so congratulations. Really lovely piece-- a tiny gem, if you will. Leaves me hoping you'll have time to revisit it and expand it!

Usually, this style of choral writing doesn't really do much for me-- I find the style of staggered block chords, often moving in parallel, to be a bit tiresome and overused. So I was ready to not like this piece. But, listening to it, I found myself enjoying it thoroughly. The harmonic language was sufficiently varied throughout-- in particular, I like how you use dissonance not only to build tension, but as a kind of "anti-cadence" (mm. 12-13, not to mention the ending, which I found absolutely delightful). Men's choral music, too, I often find tiring, but both the performance and the writing provided a lot of textural interest to break up the somewhat homogenous nature of the chosen ensemble. I did not find the dona nobis section rushed compositionally-- in your effort to produce this recording, I feel you might have rushed in the performance of it (who could blame you?), but a sufficiently advanced ensemble should be able to pull it off in a sensible and diction-proper manner. MM. 13-15 was my favorite section-- the rhythmic "e-jus/no-vum" was really neat, and I really found myself enjoying that section. Nice work. Good use of range-- I often find myself writing somewhat dicey bass lines, but your vocal writing seemed quite idiomatic throughout. My criticisms: A personal irritant of mine is when people choose to notate 4/4 as common time when switching between time signatures quickly. Why not 4/4 (most notably in m. 8). This isn't necessarily a criticism at a technical mistake, but if you're going to be moving between different time signatures (especially when the eighth is going to be the primary pulse), consider not using shorthand like "c", because it isn't the most precise and clear way of letting the performer see the beat pattern quickly. I do believe that e-jus is pronounced incorrectly in the recording. Not a big deal, but worth mentioning. There are some minor typographical issues in the score. Notably you have a typo in the lyics at m. 9 in the T2 part, where you've put "Cantate co-min-no" as the lyrics. Tiny nitpick, but I didn't even seen it until the 3rd time through, so I figured you might have missed it. There is also a typo in the penultimate measure in the bass part-- since it is tied, the F does not need to be sharped again, and if it is, it should be a cautionary accidental. There is no indicated tempo at the beginning of the score. At mm. 43-45, your performance seems to indicate that you might want to place break-marks between each "Al-le-lu-ia" to ensure that they are separated. Either a breathing comma or the traditional "railroad tracks" would make your intentions clearer-- if that's what you want. You do not sing this part in time, and I think indicating that to future ensembles would be considerate. All in all, anything negative I have to say about the piece is overshadowed by its really great qualities. As I'm sure you've noticed, almost everything I've criticized is largely a nitpick-- I certainly nothing negative to say about the overall tone or structure of the piece. It is truly a really lovely work, and I'd be the first to congratulate you on a really successful execution, both as a composer and a performer. (Thank you for the recording, it was very helpful in reviewing the score-- and lovely performance, you have a very versatile voice and display excellent vocal technique in the recording). Wonderful job.

Not necessarily. There's plenty of other approaches that have made money in the past. Heck, if we're going for straight up copying of another style, why not choose John Williams? He's certainly hauled in enough, and hearing that kind of music instead of Zimmers would probably really set a film apart, and probably pull in gobs o' cash.

As has already been said, it is certainly an intrepid spirit indeed that would set a text that has already been given lovely treatment by more than one composer. For that, I think you deserve a lot of credit-- it certainly takes courage to approach these words after hearing the settings by Whitacre, et. al. (I'm actually not a huge fan of Whitacre, but his setting really is lovely and stirring). I do feel like you are still in the shadow of Whitacre here. That isn't a bad thing-- his treatment of the text is very good, and matches it almost flawlessly, but its only a good starting point. There's a lot you could do to get away from sounding so much like him. For example: -Your setting of "tell her that's young" bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the Whitacre setting, which likewise uses the same "unfolding" technique. It isn't exactly the same, but its close enough that it made me think of Whitacre, which doesn't help your valiant attempt to stand on your own. -The rhythms you use on "small is the worth" are also much like the Whitacre. Admittedly, using text painting at all in this scenario probably will mean sounding a lot like the Whitacre, but I think there's more you could do to really make this yours. -"May read in thee", also very similar to the Whitacre. There are more examples, but you get the point. Take a listen to the Whitacre-- the more you can sound different, the better. Certainly this isn't a "ripoff" of the Whitacre by any means, but I did find myself thinking of the Whiracre setting more often than I think you'd like. Overall, I also felt a distinct lack of a primary motive or theme to really knit the piece together. It largely seems to be a collection of really nice harmonic movements that are wholly unconnected overall. Perhaps a stronger theme? Some sort of harmonic motive that would remind us of something you had done before? I think there's a lot of promise here. You obviously know how to write for choir, and handle the ensemble pretty well overall. I would really love to see the next draft of this piece, as I think you could really make it into something special, especially given the gorgeous text.

The arranging business has always been one that has frustrated me. On one hand, yes, bands/choirs/orchestras of all stripes do need the classic carols and tunes to play (what else are they supposed to put on their Christmas concerts?), but on the other, one would think that after several thousand arrangements in the exceedingly traditional vein even the arrangers would be tired of it. Why can't everyone approach arranging with this kind of panache? I love it. The mad-cap, demented take on some of the more chirpy carols is delightfully wicked-- its as if the entire ensemble were smirking at the audience. This would be great on a Christmas Concert, especially as an opener-- imagine the stunned faces of the audience when the conductor announces that they will be playing a medley of carols to start the concert, then launches into this zany, almost Elfmann-esque adventure! Lovely work, always glad to see arranging done with this kind of flair.

Great first piece. Shows a lot of musical intuition, and some pretty interesting musical ideas. The contemplative figure in the bass gives the piece a nice foundation, and the occasional half-step progressions of your minimalist melody add a lot of color to what could otherwise be a very boring piece. Any chance you've written this down? It would be really great to see a score, as that gives reviewers more room for specific feedback. Lovely first effort, looking forward to more!