I hope you are all having a joyous Advent in preparation for Christmas. As the feast of the Immaculate Conception was approaching, I got a few notes of inspiration in my head (even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while...) and developed it into a setting of Ave Maris Stella with mixed chant and choral sections for SATB.
Very moving! Beautiful writing, and so very text-sensitive. Of all the repertory of Marian hymns and antiphons Ave Maris Stella is my favourite. There are a few little slips in voice leading here and there, but your work is truly admirable. I will recommend this to our choirmaster at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham. I hope that you do more!
Thank you all for the very kind comments. They really made my day. M. Jackson Osborn, I am honored that you would recommend my work to your choirmaster. I thank you also for the note about voice leading, which led me to read more about the topic and will be helpful in improving. There are more rules and guidelines than I was aware of. My rather unscientific approach to composition has been to answer the questions: a) what do the words say, and what is the overall sound to convey? b) does each voice generally sound like an independent line? c) do the parts play against one another while achieving a sonorous harmony? d) can I learn each line to sing it myself? e) have I avoided parallel 5ths (as much as possible)? There is always something more to learn, which is great.
JoeM, it is a video produced by recording a section of the screen with QuickTime Player during Finale playback in single-page view. For this video, I finally figured out how to record the audio at the same time as the screen capture (had to install a utility called Soundflower that redirects audio out to audio in). Heretofore, I had exported the audio, captured the screen recording, and tediously tried to sew them together with iMovie. I'm not in front of the computer I used right now, but the instrument is one of the string ensembles from the Garritan Personal Orchestra--something like "Long Strings" if I remember correctly.
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