Motet a 5 "Kyrie Eleison - Miserere Mei, Deus" in F minor.

In spite of my last failed attempt at writing vocal counterpoint for 5 voices, I refused to give up my endeavours and thus began a new piece from scratch, though still with a similar setup, as well as part of its lyrics remaining the same, the other part being the first verse of Gregorio Allegri's own Miserere.

However, with this one I decided to try out a few somewhat adventurous modulations, following a transpositional pattern of a semitone upwards between both musical phrases, as well as a rather unusual enharmonic modulation of a downward semitone mid-phrase.

Enjoy!

YouTube video link: 

Hi @Fugax Contrapunctus!

Nice motet!  I think the modulations are smooth although the one in the beginning, to E minor is a bit surprising.  I am not sure when listening to this, if the modulations are justified and needed by the music/melodic line, or whether you just included them because it's something that's on your checklist of features you want some of your pieces to have?

Something else I noticed, is that there isn't a single rest in the entire piece!  LoL - not that there necessarily have to be rests, but it would be expected in a piece for choir where people have to breathe.  On the other hand, many singers would be singing this together, so they'd be able to stagger their breathing.  But it does lend the piece a sort of breathless artificiality because the phrase once started seems to just keep going and going without any rest.  Those are my thoughts.  Thanks for sharing this enjoyable piece!

41 minutes ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

[...] I am not sure when listening to this, if the modulations are justified and needed by the music/melodic line, or whether you just included them because it's something that's on your checklist of features you want some of your pieces to have?

Indeed, said modulations are the focal point of this piece, the base material from which its structure was designed and its counterpoint woven. I am unsure, however, on what you mean by "justified and needed by the music/melodic line", since the level of contrapuntal constraints required for a 5-voice setup was main guiding force behind the final resulting contours the melodies took, aside from the proper individual construction thereof.

41 minutes ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Something else I noticed, is that there isn't a single rest in the entire piece!  LoL - not that there necessarily have to be rests, but it would be expected in a piece for choir where people have to breathe.  On the other hand, many singers would be singing this together, so they'd be able to stagger their breathing.  But it does lend the piece a sort of breathless artificiality because the phrase once started seems to just keep going and going without any rest. [...]

I trust that most professional choirs out there would be able to instinctually find favourably specific moments within the piece to strategically insert breathing commas, such as phrases ending in a half note giving ample space for singers to momentarily stagger their breathing, just as you said. As for the sense of breathless artificiality you mentioned, I suppose it must be a matter o subjective relevance, since it comes off neither as "artificial" nor awkward in any way for me as long as the performing choir can handle it properly, as I hope will be the case under most circumstances.

Regardless of our disagreements, I can only thank you for your thoughts, criticism and kind words, as there will most likely always room for improvement in my compositions no matter how hard I try to perfect my technique and integrate all aspects in which I may find myself lacking, so as to get them as closely as possible to second-nature for me and, by extension, my art.

8 minutes ago, Fugax Contrapunctus said:

I trust that most professional choirs out there would be able to instinctually find favourably specific moments within the piece to strategically insert breathing commas, such as phrases ending in a half note giving ample space for singers to momentarily stagger their breathing, just as you said.

But right now, with the way you've presented the piece, would the performers know whether they should breathe together at certain points to create space (like at the end of half-notes?) or to stagger their breathing, creating the illusion of a continuous line without breath?  I think you as the composer should include breaths/spaces if you mean them to be there, even in an electronic rendition and I think it would grant your music that much more realism and idiomatic-ness.  Space is very important in music for music to sound "alive".

Have a look at your soprano line. Does it sound like a coherent melody? What do you notice about its range?

On 9/8/2024 at 5:35 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I think you as the composer should include breaths/spaces if you mean them to be there, even in an electronic rendition and I think it would grant your music that much more realism and idiomatic-ness.

That could be arranged in the extremely unlikely long-term scenario of my music being performed, if ever. Still, it should be noted that my stance towards setting my compositions to actual, real performances has shifted over the last couple of years, which I supposed must be at least part of the reason why Henry Ng Tsz Kiu stopped reviewing my compositions altogether, once I revealed how my position on this matter had changed. Like I said then and I shall repeat now, computerized performances are good enough for my current intents and purposes. If actual performers in the flesh cannot pause to breathe, that poses no problem at all: the machine shall sing or play what they cannot without issue. Naturally, my usual trade-off with this approach is said sense of "artificiality" to it all. But after every time this has been pointed out without me putting the slightiest bit of effort into mitigating such aspects of my music, it should be evident by now I do not mind it whatsoever, it simply does not bother me. However, if this reasoning does clash with your own perspectives, just as I assume happened to Henry, you are free to join him in leaving me and my works alone.

On 9/8/2024 at 11:44 AM, muchen_ said:

Have a look at your soprano line. Does it sound like a coherent melody? What do you notice about its range?

First things first: this is a five-voice motet. The fact that you implied both the supposed melodic "incoherence" of the soprano line and its relatively high range in the very same comment leads me to believe you should be aware of the constraints set by having five voices in a choral setup. Had I chosen to add more variety to the soprano line in particular, I would have found myself trapped between two different dead ends: either substantial voice crossings between the soprano and mezzosoprano voices, or exceeding even the most extreme ranges for soprano voices. As neither of said options were to be permitted, I had to opt for quite a limited range so as to make rooom for the inner voices. Does this somehow make the resulting melody "incoherent"? Like I have said before, what constitutes a good melody is rather subjctive. All I can point towards in my defense is the meticulous care I put into its construction so as to avoid repeated segments (for example, say, a succession of E F E F with very similar rhythms throughout), that is, the only objective metric by which to judge melodic coherence I could apply in this case.

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 either substantial voice crossings between the soprano and mezzosoprano voices

This is exactly what is permitted in 5-voice counterpoint! Have a look at the Kyrie I and the Cum Sancto Spiritu from BWV 232. You'll see that the voices mostly stay uncrossed, but voice crossing happens very frequently between all parts, and especially between the two soprano parts. You find this in SATB works too, just less frequently. To be honest, my interpretation of voice crossing is that it's more of a guideline: "make voices mostly stay in their lanes".

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relatively high range

Two problems with this. The first is that it's incredibly difficult and tiring to sing something this high for this long - I know you don't care about it but I have to mention this regardless. Second is that your timbre palette is severely limited by having a range of a diminished fifth. It sounds very very odd to my ears - like hearing a violin playing above the ledger line for 2 minutes straight.

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Like I have said before, what constitutes a good melody is rather subjctive. All I can point towards in my defense is the meticulous care I put into its construction so as to avoid repeated segments (for example, say, a succession of E F E F with very similar rhythms throughout), that is, the only objective metric by which to judge melodic coherence I could apply in this case.

I'd like to draw your attention now to your tenor line. This on the other hand, to my ears, is incredibly interesting, fully coherent, and sounds like it was crafted with skill and care. Contrast this with your soprano line. Do you maybe now see what I mean?