A Child of the Snows: Introduction

As this blog is, at least in part, a means of discussing compositions, I have decided to write a series on a fairly major choral work I am about to undertake.  Over the next year I plan to provide regular progress updates as well as an insight into the composing process in general. The time-scale I have set myself is to have a pretty much complete draft by Easter and to have the whole thing done by the summer, ready for rehearsals to start in the autumn.

In this post I will start by setting out the brief of the project and some initial thoughts stemming from this:

The only definite stipulations of the commission is that I am to compose a cantata for Christmas 2012, which must be suitable for performance by amateur choral societies and modest orchestral forces, and must set G.K. Chesterton's poem A Child of the Snows.  As this text consists of four fairly short stanzas, I have added two additional poems: another Chesterton entitled A Christmas Carol and Bethlehem Town by the American Eugene Field.

The first consideration must be of what forces to write for. Obviously the chorus comes ready provided: an SATB choir of around fifty, which is big enough to allow divisi. Having considered the texts I decide to use a baritone soloist only. The thinking behind this is that I will alternate verses of the two Chesterton poems, as the subject matter of their respective stanzas flow nicely into one another, and so have the soloist sing A Child of the Snows whilst the chorus take A Christmas Carol. This also has the practical result that each gets to rest their voice(s) whilst the other sings, alongside the musical effect. Having another - most likely female - soloist will, I reason, confuse the narrative coherence of each text, as sufficient contrast is already provided through this alternation of forces.

Orchestrally speaking, the main contingent of the chamber orchestra will be a body of strings, probably no more than two desks to a part. This is mostly out of practicality: firstly, the the larger the orchestra, the more people need to be paid for; also, as the chorus is medium-sized - think BBC Singers rather than BBC Symphony Chorus - an overly large ensemble would present issues of balence. This becomes especially important given that I am writing a religious work, most performances of which will take place in churches, which naturally have a large and resonant acoustic.  To the strings I intend to add piano (am toying with the idea of piano four-hands), possibly oboe and a few other instruments.

Other considerations arise from the nature of the performance: the musical material must be within the technical range of the chorus (they're good enough to do big works by Bach, Brahms and Finzi, and do them well, but naturally there is a limit to what one can reasonably expect from non-professional singers rehearsing one evening a week) and the orchestral parts must be able to be brought up to performance standard on only individual practice time and a rehearsal on the day. I know the orchestra, all of whom are of pro standard, will give their best with whatever they are given, but from past experience I know to aim for the maximum effect via the simplest means. Come to think of it, this is actually a pretty good compositional philosophy in general.

This is probably the biggest project I've taken on to date, as although the orchestration is smaller than for The Sun Rising, the performers will be of a comparable number and the piece is planned to be roughly twice the length, with the total performance time approaching half an hour. It's also the first time that 1) I've written a choral work with accompaniment by an ensemble rather than keyboard (the two trumpets and organ in Benedic Domine don't really constitute an 'ensemble'); 2) I've written for solo voice and chorus in the same work (again, the short solos in Beatus vir and various other works were for untrained choir voices and so don't really count); 3) I've written for baritone soloist and 4) I've written with a particular soloist in mind (other than myself).  I hope these sound like relatively minor neologisms, as I consider them to present no real difficulties in the job of writing the music.

There are some 'miscellaneous' considerations which may or may not a have a bearing on the composition: I have been told that for the première the other two pieces in the concert are planned to be Dvořák's Mass in D and some Christmas carols written by a fellow young composer, Tom Daish.  It is probable that the second performance will use a smaller orchestra than for this as the venue and choir are smaller, so I may need to bear in mind the use of ossia passages and the possibility of keyboard(s) substituting for some instruments.

To finish, I can already say I have sketched out some parts of the piece and have some idea of the overall structure.  We will discuss these first steps in the next post.