New choral work

Quite a nice piece you've done there, Mikael. Is this the first opportunity you've had to write for a choral ensemble?

He's just compensating for you lack of stiff upper lip, Steven.
(What would the Queen say!?)

It's a lovely piece, Mikael, and keeps hovering on the verge of the familiar without "breaking through", so to speak (which of course makes sense, it being an original work!).
I'd be very interested though what your inspiration is?
What sort of choral music do you enjoy listening to?

Oh, kudos to the Haga Motet.
Very nice sound.
I'm guessing they do popular close harmony as well?

Bravo Mikael, that really was lovely!

Without sounding like him, the quieter moments reminds me of the subtlety of John Barry's choral writing.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. To answer your questions:

1) This my the choral third one performed and I've done approximately ten a cappella compositions at this point. It is really something I devote much more time to in comparison with film and tv music. It is just so incredibly rewarding to get it performed live in front of an audience.

2) My inspiration is, of course, first and foremost the text. The lyrics is in Swedish, so obviously most of you don't know what this is about. In short, it's a descpriptive, atmospheric and mystic poem about the night on the beach under the moon...

3) I am a huge fan of Eric Whitacre, who I've interviewed once and whose music I am listening to constantly. As a member in the Haga Motettkor (I'm a 1st tenor) I have also performed many of his pieces (I Thank You God, Sleep, Water Night, With a Lily in Your Hand, etc). So he is a pretty big influence. Others I like are Morten Lauridsen (although his tenor lines is a pain), Poulenc, Rautavaara, Holst, Hindemith, Brahms, Rachmaninov...

4) Not sure what popular close harmony is, but if you are referring to the popular modern style of a cappella writing in teh Whitacre tradition, you are right - we are doing a lot of that stuff.

5) The performance was great - my piece was part of a programme devoted to "night music" and it all went very well!

So glad you like the sound of the choir! I put a few more performances (none of them is perfect but okay live performances) on my site for your listening pleasure:

Water Night (Eric Whitacre): http://www.moviescoremedia.com/mikaelca … rnight.mp3
With a Lily in Your Hand (Eric Whitacre): http://www.moviescoremedia.com/mikaelca … o/lily.mp3
Sleep (Eric Whitacre): http://www.moviescoremedia.com/mikaelca … /sleep.mp3
Nachtreigen (Fanny Hensel): http://www.moviescoremedia.com/mikaelca … reigen.mp3

Cheers,

mc

I actually thought my reply would sound like more convincing praise than if I'd said 'wonderful!', which is usually the kind of posts that result when someone posts their work. I like it as much as you do, I just express that differently. It's a very good piece.

Simply beautiful, Mikael.

I can't say anything more than that. Beautiful.

You think too much.

Steven, this is the proof he doesn't think the whole time.

I think you just created a paradox.

We should think about this.

Btw, is that its sound or did you deliberately drop the quality in order to post online? 'Cause if it is, it's a pretty bad recording. Next time bring more microphones and place them over the choir plus a stereophonic system located in the centre and much higher than the others, still aiming slightly downwards too though, so you can capture the natural reverberations of the hall (esp. if it's in a church or something). Mics close to and over the choir will you give much more clarity and it won't be so distant and shallow and the extra stereophonic system will give you depth and natural reverb, crucial for this kind of slow, adagio-like choral music.

Mikael, i'll check out the other piece and i'll also try to restore the sound to the one you have a bit, will tell you what i did

Keep it up!

D

Thanks for your work, Demetris. Interesting! I can hear that you added a little reverb and that there is more treble (which brings out more of the full spectrum but also gives some spikey sounds, in particular the letter "s", which is the only thing I don't fancy).

Did you do any overdubbing? No?

Also you managed to get rid of some of the compression flutter, which is the biggest mystery... how did you do that?

I can tell you that I really look forward to doing a top-notch professional recording of my music some day (next year hopefully)!!!

mc

Which sound version you liked best?

Count me in, even remotely

I think Zimmer could have done a better job!







In all seriousness, that is a wonderful piece. So professional too!? Belongs on any Christmasy playlist.