Views from the Choir Loft

Three part motet for the Assumption by Ravanello

Veronica Brandt · August 8, 2015

HEN I AGREED TO WRITE FOR this blog, little did I know how much I would learn along the way!

I hadn’t heard of Oreste Ravanello until Jeff posted his Ave Maria. Turns out Ravanello wrote a whole book of three part motets. It looks like he composed about half of them and collected similar short pieces from other composers.

Browsing through in an optimistic sort of way, I found an Offertory Antiphon in three parts. I tried tapping out the notes on the piano. It looked promising. I tried getting someone to sing with me. That’s always a challenge! So I turned to my laptop to type it up so I could listen to the midi output.

* * Here is the PDF of Assumpta Est Maria by Oreste Ravanello for three voices (SSA) and here is the computer generated audio in MP3 for: all voices, top voice, middle voice and bottom voice.

The next part of the adventure came in response to Jeff’s Easiest Way to Teach Polyphony. He recommends annotating the score with solfege syllables and mastering those first before moving on to the real words.

I thought maybe there was a shortcut to annotating a score and found this repository of solfeged scores in Lilypond.

* * Here is the PDF of Assumpta est Maria with solfege syllables replacing the text.

It is not as handy as Jeff’s little red annotations as the solfege sheet and the lyrics are on separate versions, but being computer generated from something I already typed up is handy for the one preparing the score.

As a side note, it was interesting singing the solfege syllables – being more aware of where “do” is. I had a go with a piece I was more familiar with and was surprised how tricky it becomes when the key shifts (modulation?) and my ear was confused between the “do” on the page and the “do” which my ear had switched to. A related question is how to handle minor keys, whether to start the scale on “la” or “do”.

I have so much to learn!

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

Dr. Mahrt explains the ‘Spoken’ Propers

In 1970, the Church promulgated a new version of the Roman Missal. It goes by various names: Ordinary Form, Novus Ordo, MISSALE RECENS, and so on. If you examine the very first page, you’ll notice that Pope Saint Paul VI explains the meaning of the ‘Spoken Propers’ (which are for Masses without singing). A quote by Dr. William P. Mahrt is also included in that file. The SPOKEN PROPERS—used at Masses without music—are sometimes called The Adalbert Propers, because they were created in 1969 by Father Adalbert Franquesa Garrós, one of Hannibal Bugnini’s closest friends (according to Yves Chiron).

—Jeff Ostrowski

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—Jeff Ostrowski

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—Jeff Ostrowski

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—Corpus Christi Watershed

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—Corpus Christi Watershed

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