On 27 Dec 2006 at 12:52, Christopher Smith wrote: > On Dec 24, 2006, at 7:02 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > I've been working on a project arranging selected Christmas Carols > > for viols over the past few years, and thought I'd share some of > > them with you as a way of wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. They > > are here: > > > > http://dfenton.com/Carols/ > > I just got around to listening to them now. Very nice! If they sound > that well with the cheesy MIDI band, they must sound spectacular with > live viols.
I haven't actually had the chance to try them out with viols, except for Silent Night, which is eminently sight-readable, and which we read at the last rehearsaly before last Christmas break. > > 2. yes, Virginia, that's parallel 5ths at the end of Silent Night. I > > don't care. > > I think it's been a hundred years or so since anyone cared about > parallel 5ths in modern music, and I think your arrangements > definitely qualify as modern. Well, this is one of those personal things. When I compose/arrange, I know what's appropriate for the style I'm writing in from the standpoint of what's allowable, what would stand out in the style, and so forth, but I depend on my ear's sense of "that's just not right" for so many things. My ear is still vaguely offended by the parallel 5ths, probably not because they are parallel, but because of the progression involved, which goes in reverse direction, V-IV-V-I -- it's the V-IV that produces the parallel 5th with the melody, and that's what bothers me, the direction of the bass line/progression, more than the actual 5ths (which are just a symptom of the questionable progression). But it doesn't sound bad enough for me to rewrite it. So, this is not a case of me worrying about the "rules," so much as a case of my ear being troubled by it for other reasons, but deciding that it's not something I'm going to fix. I'd be interested if others find that progression awkward -- I've heard it so damned many times I can't tell for sure any longer. [] > Anyway, keep it up. I particularly liked the neo-Baroque feel to your > arrangements, while being modern and pleasing to a modern ear. Keep > sharing them with us. Hmm. "Neo-baroque" is an interesting description. I'd really only apply that to the organ variations, which are very clearly using a Baroque form (chorale prelude) and definitely old styles. That piece actually bothers me because I don't feel it completely holds together stylistically -- there are too many variations of style within it and I'm not certain they work as a whole. The opening theme is a simple setting of the chorale tune in (more or less) the style of its time (15th-16th century). The first variation I think of as Handelian (with the running bassline). The second is a pretty clear parody of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (or it seems that way to me, though I didn't realize that until after I'd finished composing it), and pretty much in a strict Baroque style. The third is pre-Baroque in parts, quite Baroque in many others. It's kind of like the difference between Buxtehude and Bach. I'm not sure the pedal tone passage sounds like it belongs, nor if the harmonic minor scale with it's augmented second in the main subject really works or not. I think it sounds cool, but it's so close to an historic style in which it wouldn't be allowed, I'm not sure if it works. The fifth variation is the Vaughan-Williams one, and seems pretty far out of place, as it's the only one with a late 19th-century/early 20th- century use of harmony. The sixth variation is pure Bach, and the finale is again what I think of as Handelian pomposity, though with certain figuration that's early 17th century (the ornamentation is pretty much drawn out of the Christopher Simpson division viol treatise, and at the time I was composing it, we were playing one of the pieces from Simpson's Seasons setting). I don't know if it holds together as a whole or not. I do think it works better as an organ piece than as a viol piece, but we've never actually played it on viols, so I could be pleasantly surprised. Parts of it, are, in fact, fiendishly difficult, whether on viols or organ. As for the other pieces, I don't see any of them as "neo-Baroque." The Divinum Mysterium is straight 19th-century Fauré-type harmony, the Silent Night and the Bleak Midwinter, pure Vaughan-Williams. There's no use of unresolved dissonance except the occasional unresolved 7th chord. All of those sounds come out of my long-time experience in church music, where this is the style used for plainchant harmonization -- uniting very old melodies with more modern harmonic settings. I've got quite a few others on my plate, and am presently working on "Once in royal David's city" and trying to rework an unsatisfactory "Auld lang syne". For that last one, I'll try to have it finished for this weekend! -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
