2 Poems in Finnish - Children's Choir

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

I like challenging myself to a given form with lots of restrictions so I've been working on something rather odd recently. A choir piece in Finnish written for (2) sopranos and alto that is between 2 and 4 minutes. The reason for that is that there is a competition hosted by a children's choir in Finland. Because of the language as well as being very limited because it's a children's choir and you only have voices that have a range of just a little more than 2 octaves, I was a little skeptical first but then I found these two amazing poems are by Eino Leino (I'll be honest, I was almost done with the groundwork when I realized it's not one poem but two that I accidentally picked up as one because I have no clue of Finnish😉). With the help of AI tools I figured out all the pronunciation, phrasing, accented syllables, etc. as well as different translations. I've put the best translation under the lyrics so you can follow along. 

My main issue now is, which non-lexical vocables do I put in mm. 1-6 and 18-24 as well as the alto starting in mm. 25 (I currently have da-ba-dum but I think I could fit something better there). 

Does any of you have any advice regarding the that or even the piece in general?  

Hello @AM-Valkyrie,

On 12/26/2023 at 12:50 PM, AM-Valkyrie said:

A choir piece in Finnish written for (2) sopranos and alto that is between 2 and 4 minutes. The reason for that is that there is a competition hosted by a children's choir in Finland.

I think in a children's choir there will be no distinction between soprano and alto? 

I like some of the harmonic choices you make, for example at the end when you use flattened 3rd and 6ths there and the end thus apperas illuminating. 

For a competition piece, make sure to check the scoring! For example in b.2 I think the tied minims can be written as semibreves? Or many of the rests which can be grouped to make the score tidier? 

Thx for sharing,

Henry

Thank you so much for your feedback!!! The requirements for the competition listed those 3 voices (2 sopranos and 1 alto) so I assume they distinguish between the different ranges of the kids. That's what I thought. I'm not too familiar with those choirs lol.

I love that you pointed out the ending!!! That is one of my favorite parts about it. By shortly going into the flats before going back to the tonic, the final chord is so bright compared to the rest, even though they're all major chords.

Lol the scoring. I really need to take more time to clean my scores up. I was going to do that yet. I was for now more concerned about the music itself than the visuals. Thanks for the hint though.