Chorale in f minor

I wrote this while bored in atonal music theory class, and I intended this chorale to be sung by an actual choir, hence the attention to breath marks not normally necessary for keyboard instruments. I also gave myself freedom to write things unplayable for just two hands (though any organist is welcome to move the bass to the pedals). Funny thing is this piece probably took me longer to assemble into a bearable audio file than it did for me to actually write the notes.

Quite enjoyable! I don't really like corals but i loved this one.

There are some octaves reached by parallel movements, this is not really a problem but its not estilistic, (like in b.3 and in b12 there are fifths reached by parallel movements) this wouldn't be a problem if the main line didn't 'jump', the bass has a leap in b2-3 that reachs an 8ve, it would be less anoying if the bass didn't have a leap. (Okay it is really difficult to explain this in english 😞 )  

The hrmony is beautiful, nothing to add.

Borroque composers try to delay the end as much as possible, try using some apoggiaturas and line movement in the final bar!

34 minutes ago, Samuel_vangogh said:

the bass has a leap in b2-3 that reachs an 8ve, it would be less anoying if the bass didn't have a leap.

 

 

 

I normally try to avoid motions like this, but I felt like exploring the i-VII-iv-i progression a bit more here, which in my mind necessitated somewhat awkward movements in the inner voices with relation to the bass. As you pointed out, the result in this piece is that the tenor and bass form direct octaves; I justified this while writing by having both voices go in contrary motion, though having some sort of awkwardness was largely unavoidable.

That's pretty nice, I could not compose something like that without a keyboard. Keep going and let us know if you use it for a biger choral piece.

Solemn in character, but also beautifully emotional and sublime. Though there are a few spots where I feel a tiny little bit more harmonic variation could be added, on the front of the overall harmonic progressions in this chorale I have barely anything to add except a sound "bravo!".

The same goes for your masterful use of apoggiaturas and expressive dissonance throughout the contrapuntal scaffolding. I wish I could get my ear and brain to cope with a certain set of very crunchy but delicious dissonances in my own compositions as you have in your own. Sadly, I have not reached a point with regards to my aesthetic preferences as applied to my own compositional process where I feel safe using such bold yet mesmerizing voice-leading devices.

As already pointed out by Samuel_vangogh, there appear to be some instances of voice-leading errors, but nothing a little polishing cannot swiftly fix. I also tend to forget checking for these little technical nuisances when first publishing my work, as evidenced by the vast majority of my YouTube uploads, whose video files, unfortunately enough, cannot be replaced once published. It happens to me all the time. Thankfully, this forum's editing features allow me to revamp my works if needed afterwards in order to achieve more definitive results.

As for the ending, again I feel Samuel has a point. In my humble opinion, the ending of such a harmonically lush chorale ought to include a climactic combination of apoggiaturas, suspensions and balanced-out dissonances in order to fully reward the listener's attention. For example, the absence of a dominant 7th in the final cadence felt like a bit of a letdown. Though strict and pure in its bare form, with or without 6/4 suspension, I missed that spark of tension in the closing cadence due to that. Adding a ritardando/rallentando so as to delay the ending (which. yet again, was also indicated in Samuel-vangogh's comment) would also contribute to furthering the authenticity of the style whilst keeping the audience holding their breath to the very final chord. Most of this paragraph is just nitpicking on my part anyway, so my advice therein really isn't that big of a deal.

In summary, besides a few minor criticisms and overlooked intricacies, this chorale is gorgeous to listen to, truly.

I just realized that this is an older version. Here's the version I currently use:
Anyway, I recently posted a "chorale" in d minor (which I have since renamed to a prelude), which I will repost here since the other one also has a mistake. This one should have a lot more interesting harmonies since it was composed specifically to experiment with them.

Hi @mossy84,

I think for the D minor prelude the most interesting part would be the modulation to F minor which kind of reminds the one in f minor.

Henry