Emily Brontë: "That Wind I Used To Hear It Swelling" | Original choral composition
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- In 2018 London Contemporary Voices had a performance planned at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall, and they asked me to prepare an original choir piece for the show. So I decided to set Emily Brontë's poem "That Wind I Used To Hear It Swelling" to music, as I felt it fell in line with my project of setting poetry written by women to music. I found the nostalgic theme of the poem to be interesting, and it seemed to lend itself well to music.
The show explored themes of mental health, identity, consciousness and ageing, and included performances from guests Orlando Weeks (The Maccabees) and RINNGS.
--
That wind I used to hear it swelling
With joy divinely deep
You might have seen my hot tears welling
But rapture made me weep
I used to love on winter nights
To lie and dream alone
Of all the hopes and real delights
My early years had known
And oh above the rest of those
That coming time should bear
Like heaven's own glorious stars they rose
Still beaming bright and fair
--
Music by
Knut Olav Rygnestad
Performed by
London Contemporary Voices
Soloist:
Elizabeth Howard
Filmed by
Dom Lenoir, Victor Rios, Edmund Jillings, Oliver Watts, Thom Isaacs, JMNI
Sound and video edited by
Knut Olav Rygnestad
Special thanks
Anil Kamalagharan
Didier Rochard
Manuela Twrsnick
Marcel Hunziker
Marit Røkeberg
Ingmar Kamalagharan
Wonderful! A superb choral sound--and LOVE those lush harmonies :-) 2’21”--wow!
Terrific soprano soloist, too!
Thank you very much! The soloist is spectacular; I was very happy that she wanted to sing the solo 😃
@@KnutsMusic a dear friend of mine (MB) you’ve collaborated with told me about you, your music, your channel. Love everything here.
@@Bethmeister59 Yes, he mentioned that he passed along the video to you! I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed it 🙂
Great composition! Very crunchy and powerful with a great choir
Thank you! It's easy to make it sound great with such a good choir! 🙂
hey knut,i am 16 and i recently tried to write a choral piece for the girl from ipanema. i feel i have a decent harmony set up on the piano but i do not know how to make it into a choral piece. i just tried to put the top voices as soprano and the lowest as the bass and the others voices as alto and tenor respectively. but it doesn't sound as good as it sounds on the piano.can you please help me with this task by looking at my score.
Hey! The piano is really useful when arranging, and you can often get really good results when transferring a piano piece onto voices! However, there are some things I'd watch out for when doing this:
1. Make sure that the ranges of the lines are appropriate for the voice parts! For instance, on the piano it's often tempting to use a booming, low bass line, but most singers in a choir's bass section probably won't have lots of projection once you start going below the bass clef, so try to keep it at or above the G on the bottom of the bass clef, unless you know that it's not going to be a problem! Also, it's probably going to sound a bit strange having the melody very high in a bossa nova piece, as songs in this style are generally sung in a fairly low range, so I'd avoid writing it higher than a D in the sopranos.
2. Bossa nova pieces tend to use very complex harmony, which is fine for choirs, just be extra careful that the voice leading in each part makes sense! If necessary, simplify the harmony so that you cover the root (usually sung by the basses in this style), 3rd, and 7th of the chords, with space for a 9th, 13th or other extension if possible and appropriate. If the singers have logical individual lines to sing, they can easily sing complex harmonies, but if they have to do a lot of awkward intervals it might end up out of tune!
3. I'd make sure the samba rhythms I use aren't too complex, as unfortunately it might make things sound stuttery if you don't have singers with very good rhythmic feel! Since this style relies on rhythmic clave, I'd give the backing parts a fairly simple rhythmic ostinato (something akin to the guitar part will work well), with basses mostly singing on 1 and 3, so that it's not too challenging to get it tight! Of course, if your singers are very used to samba rhythms, you can probably make it a bit more complex, but then you have to know the singers and be sure first!
4. If you're working with notation software, don't judge the arrangement based on the result you get from the samples! I encourage people to use relatively poor quality samples when arranging for voices, prioritising samples with an immediate attack and avoiding anything that tries to interpret words (just "aah" the whole time is best), because it forces us to use our imagination. Real voices ALWAYS sound better than samples 😉
The key when it's not working is to simplify, simplify, simplify! Having moved the music from one type of instrumentation to another just means that you adjust it so it fits the new instruments, and it's not that big a leap from a well arranged piano piece to a well arranged choral piece! I hope that helps a little! 🙂
In addition to Knut's tips he posted, check out the very helpful videos on his channel. Great advice and tips for arranging for chorus.
@@Michael-Bennett i have already seen many of his videos....! but thanks for the suggestion anyway!😀
@@KnutsMusic thanks a lot ! that helps a whole ton!
@@KnutsMusic also, i have sent the score to your instagram feed. it would be very helpful if you could critique it.