Puer Natus Est Nobis

A piece I wrote for Christmas. This is my submission for the Christmas event. The lyrics roughly translate to 'A boy is born for us, and a son is given to us, upon whose shoulders authority will be, and his name will be called "The Great Counselor Angel". Sing to the lord a new song for he has done miracles.' I focused on making something beautiful with all those dissonances and chromaticism. I think it's worked to some success and I'm fairly happy with it. Thanks to Fugax Contrapunctus and Ivan1791 for being the source of discovery of the wonderful app Cantamus. Unfortunately, it doesn't like my ritardandi or the caesura at the end and it mispronounced 'super' but it is significantly better hearing the lyrics and I'm NOT going to sing it myself.

I like this one! The blend of dissonance and consonance adds a delicious dark touch.

In terms of the harmony, I think the piece would benefit from a different balance of consonance and dissonance (completely my opinion!). There are a lot of fairly long fully consonant/functional passages, so that the unusual dissonances seem at times like an interruption of the line rather than being integrated into the atmosphere. Maybe this is what you're going for?

I do like the basic idea of a voice and organ solo, it's not something we really see that often. The melody itself is lovely and the word-setting seems good to me. Cantamus obviously sounds great, but I'm not a fan of the organ - it sounds a bit like an accordion (maybe it's supposed to be, I can't tell from the score).

The score is detailed and looks like you've put time into engraving - just make sure the dynamics are above the soprano stave so that the lyrics have all the space below.

20 hours ago, ComposaBoi said:

I focused on making something beautiful with all those dissonances and chromaticism.

I think you've definitely achieved this! Thanks for entering the event.

Hi @ComposaBoi!

I think the vocal rendition is satisfactory but if I had Cantamus I would render my vocals separately from the instruments and combine the two renditions in Reaper.  I would be able to add reverb and hopefully get a better more full-bodied sounding organ than what you have here (assuming this is Cantamus organ?).  Regarding the music - I like the unique dissonances you present here.  Using both a sharp 4th and a natural 4th at the same time is a very daring rub!  I think it fits the kind of sweet and peaceful mood appropriate to the birth of Christ/nativity scene.  Thanks for sharing!

On 12/21/2023 at 5:53 PM, ComposaBoi said:

discovery of the wonderful app Cantamus.

Very cool! If you get around to it, you should make a post about it! (if you haven't already... I didn't check) I'd love to know more, and it's always nice to hear the insight from someone like yourself who uses it with success. 

I'm no expert on this style of writing, but I think you pulled it off well. 🙂 I really like how you experimented with harmony in this, especially the chromaticism as you mentioned. It was a chorale type piece, no? Maybe one day you'll amend this for choir; I think it would be cool is all haha. 

I enjoyed the music, you from what I remember have a knack for creating dramatic music. I can tell a lot goes into your work, as for me there are always a lot of emotional characteristics to all the parts of your music. Your harmonies are interesting and they keep me engaged. Overall, just an all around good ole' Christmas piece 😄

As @aMusicComposer mentioned, the balance of consonance and dissonance was a bit shaky in some spots, but maybe that's just me. I like that you're exploring where your harmony can go, and perhaps over time you'll continue to get better at controlling the amount of each. I continually work on that too. 

Thanks for sharing my friend