Three Short Christmas Pieces

Three short wordless "carols" written for Christmas.  The first two were written on Christmas day 2004, but I tweaked the arrangements slightly the other day.  The third was written just yesterday.  Any feedback would be most appreciated!

For the carol I, I love the mixolydian touch and some parallel fifth. That's give the carol some "medieval" or "folk" touch. I think you can add a phrygian cadence too!

For the carol II, combination of oboe, cello and harpsichord is quite innovative, but I think it will better to give the cello a chance to play the melody too! The oboe is good with its colour.

For the carol III, the flute stays in the lowest register in the middle section with harpsichord over it, and the sound is nearly overwhelmed.Also as in no.2, cello is only an accompaniment! I really wish some melody can be given to the warm cello! Also I feel like some pizz. can be added in no.2 ans no.3.

Great job!

Carol I: Beautiful harmony! I heard some hints of 'Tis the season to be jolly there, was that intentional?

Carol II: My favorite of the set. Nice sounding baroque style, and all the instruments were very clear. That is very important to someone like me, because when I listen to music, I analyze what all the instruments are doing (or not doing).

Carol III: And this leads me to my criticism of this last movement. The flute is just too hard to hear, and I actually think you can get away with removing the flue altogether. As @Henry Ng points out, it is a little overwhelming, but it could also just be the samples you are using as well. With that said, you do emulate the 1700's style really well despite some of the instrumental nuances here.

I enjoyed all 3 movements, and its getting me into the Christmas spirit 🙂

Also, I encourage you to join the Christmas Music Event:

Thanks very much to both of you for listening! 

If the pieces were longer, I certainly would have used the cello more freely in carols II and III, but my intention was to keep these simple.  As for the flute in carol III, I really just added it as a unison with the violin to try to create a different tone colour for the melody.  In the middle section it's intentionally written piano and in a low register to provide a subtle accompaniment to the melody in the harpsichord.  But it may be that the tone of the flute sticks out as something that's "supposed" to be melodic, and leaves the listener feeling like it shouldn't be in the background.

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I think you can add a phrygian cadence too!

I'm not sure I follow - where do you think a Phrygian cadence could be added?  Or do you mean a plagal cadence at the end?  I did think of putting an "amen" plagal cadence at the end, but decided against it.

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Also, I encourage you to join the Christmas Music Event

I had missed this, but I will do so!

Interesting how festive these sound, despite being purely instrumental. Nice to see a mixture of instrumental forces as well, adds some variety to the set.

I agree with maybe only some of what has been said above!

Carol I - Lovely textures, bright joyful spirit. This one was my favourite. Can I ask what soundfont/VST you use? I think a little work on counterpoint and avoiding parallels might be needed here, although you have great independent lines with each interesting part for each instrument.

Carol II - Since you aren't giving the cello a melody, I would be inclined to change it to a double bass. It would be a bit of a richer, more grounded sound, especially as you do use the very low register of the cello. Lovely melody though, and the harmony works well enough for me.

Carol III - Going to directly disagree with what has been said above. a) I think the combination of flute and violin tones works well, a very baroque thing to do and b) if you were to take one of them out, I would take the flute out. There's some very low notes in that middle section which would work better on violin. The harpsichord writing is nicely developed - but I don't think you need the arpeggiated markings, as it's something that harpsichordists often do anyway on larger chords. The instrument can sound very strange and jangly without.

Overall, great work! Some lovely bite-sized pieces here. Thanks so much for submitting it to the event! 

7 hours ago, Aiwendil said:

I'm not sure I follow - where do you think a Phrygian cadence could be added?

I was really thinking of adding a phrygian cadence in bar 16 by changing the harmony to Ab-C-D-F as in the ending of the first movement of Symphony of the Psalms, but that would need to change the melody too, so that's only my personal preference!

22 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Interesting how festive these sound, despite being purely instrumental. Nice to see a mixture of instrumental forces as well, adds some variety to the set.

I agree with maybe only some of what has been said above!

Carol I - Lovely textures, bright joyful spirit. This one was my favourite. Can I ask what soundfont/VST you use? I think a little work on counterpoint and avoiding parallels might be needed here, although you have great independent lines with each interesting part for each instrument.

Carol II - Since you aren't giving the cello a melody, I would be inclined to change it to a double bass. It would be a bit of a richer, more grounded sound, especially as you do use the very low register of the cello. Lovely melody though, and the harmony works well enough for me.

Carol III - Going to directly disagree with what has been said above. a) I think the combination of flute and violin tones works well, a very baroque thing to do and b) if you were to take one of them out, I would take the flute out. There's some very low notes in that middle section which would work better on violin. The harpsichord writing is nicely developed - but I don't think you need the arpeggiated markings, as it's something that harpsichordists often do anyway on larger chords. The instrument can sound very strange and jangly without.

Overall, great work! Some lovely bite-sized pieces here. Thanks so much for submitting it to the event! 

 

Thanks!  The VST is just NotePerformer, though I'm using Waves IR-1 reverb instead of NotePerformer's native reverb.  I also applied some very light compression afterward.

Good point about the arpeggiation markings for harpsichord - I put those in mainly to get NP to play them right, but there's no need for them in the score.

As a former flautist, I do somewhat disagree about the flute in the middle section of number 3.  Those low notes are soft and easily covered up, yes, but the flute is meant to be in the background there.  Initially I wrote it for just the harpsichord, but it felt like a little change in tone colour was needed to articulate the formal structure, when the harpsichord returns to the opening melody.  I like to take advantage of those low notes on the flute when it doesn't need to cut through.