All good-sounding, choral 13th chords

Here is a PDF of all good-sounding choral 13th chords (excluding transpositions) along with a MIDI. It contains 203 chords in an extreme choral range: F2 to A5, sorted in an order useful for music composition purposes.

This list also contains about fifteen chords which don't sound as good. However, I didn't detect a pattern I could use, in order to remove them automatically.

I removed all chords containing:

• Minor seconds;
• Minor ninths;
• Tritones;
• Two consecutive major seconds;
• More than two major seconds;
• Major seconds starting lower than F3 or higher than F4;
• Gaps greater than an octave which resume higher than F4.

Copyright (c) 2015 Mark D. Blackwell.

Robin Hodson compositions

A acquaintance of mine, Mr. Robin Hodson, has composed quite a number of choral and chamber works worthy of note. Not 'modern' music, these are quite listenable.

One can hear them free of charge on ScoreExchange. Just click the tab labeled 'Scorch plug-in', and install it if necessary. (BTW, Sibelius recently has made their plugin work better):

Truly quite excellent (especially harmonically) are:

• 1993   Wind Quintet (1: Martial Fugue & Western Wind)
• 2002   Verbum Caro Factum Est
• 2003   English Missa Brevis
• 2004   Ave Maria (SB duet)

Here's a chronological list (attempting to be complete) of his compositions (which are available on ScoreExchange):

• 1986   This Is The Day
• 1988   Missa Sancti Pauli
• 1989   There Is No Rose
• 1990   Death, Be Not Proud
• 1993   Diaphonic Mass (organum)
• 1993   Wind Quintet
• 1997   Ave Verum
• 2000   Funeral Sentences
• 2001   Magnificat (Maryland Service)
• 2002   Elegy for Strings
• 2002   Nunc Dimittis (Maryland Service)
• 2002   Verbum Caro Factum Est
• 2003   English Missa Brevis
• 2004   Ave Maria (SB duet)
• 2004   Ave Regina Caelorum
• 2004   Regina Caeli Laetare (Soprano, Piano, Cello)
• 2008   Psalm 111: I Will Give Thanks Unto The Lord

Also I should mention the several CD releases (of steadily increasing quality) of his own popular music compositions. The 2008 album is uniformly excellent. Particularly excellent from his 2003 album are:

• Hold Your Candle Over Me
• Never Coming Home Again

Copyright (c) 2013 Mark D. Blackwell.

Compositions self-nominated to Baker Artist Awards

I nominated my musical compositions for consideration for the various local Baker artist awards and grants (of Baltimore) by adding a page on their site just now.

Please consider looking! As you know, comments are love (there, as ever).   :-)

Copyright (c) 2013 Mark D. Blackwell.

SATB sheet music from Mutopia

I have prepared a selection (twenty-nine numbers) of SATB sheet music, starting from Mutopia's search filter in the vocal category.

All have lyrics in English, Latin, or Spanish (and some French, German, and Italian) in the staff (as opposed to being separately printed).

They are not filtered for quality, nor for content type (such as religious).

They are engraved using the beautiful Lilypond, as everything is on Mutupia.

• Abendruhe—W. A. Mozart (1756–1791)
• Al mormorar de' liquidi cristalli, madrigale a 6 voci—G. Gastoldi (1556–1622)
• Alas! and did my savior bleed?—J. K. Banks (1987–)
• All my heart this night rejoices—C. E. Horsley (1822–1876)
• Ave Maria—P. Benoit (1834–1901)
• Beatus vir—C. Monteverdi (1567–1643)
• Caligaverunt—J. Naujalis (1869–1934)
• Come again—J. Dowland (1563–1626)
• Dies irae—W. A. Mozart (1756–1791)
• Dolcissima mia vita—C. Gesualdo (1566–1613)
• El grillo—J. des Prés (c.1440–1521)
• Es ist ein ros’ entsprungen (Anonymous)
• Fairest isle—H. Purcell (1658–1695)
• Glory to god in the highest—G. B. Pergolesi (1710–1736)
• Magnificat—P. Benoit (1834–1901)
• Musiche per la maddalena—C. Monteverdi (1567–1643)
• O how amiable are thy dwellings—T. Weelkes (1576–1623)
• O nata lux de lumine—T. Tallis (1510–1585)
• Popule meus—J. Naujalis (1869–1934)
• Receive the body of Christ—D. Johnson (?–)
• Sestina—C. Monteverdi (1567–1643)
• Sibylla samia—O. de Lassus (1530 or 1532–1594)
• Silver swan, the—O. Gibbons (1583–1625)
• T'amo mia vita—C. Monteverdi (1567–1643)
• Tantum ergo sacramentum—F. J. Haydn (1732–1809)
• Tantum ergo—F. Schubert (1797–1828)
• To hope—S. Magnenat (1980–)
• Trust and obey—D. B. Towner (1833–1896)
• Unquiet thoughts—J. Dowland (1563–1626)

Copyright (c) 2013 Mark D. Blackwell.

Text-label your measures in LilyPond with YAML

Some music (especially some choral music) is somewhat irregular of measure length. Naturally with this kind of music, while entering (and editing, following one's musical sense), often measures will join or split. Then half of the measure numbers are thrown off. This is especially true of early music, and recent music whose source documents were prepared somewhat in a free way.

Often, given multiple voice parts (or instruments), each, for various purposes, necessitates several source files in parallel (if working in LilyPond): such as for adjustments to piano or organ reductions. Many features not yet done (completely and automatically) well by LilyPond necessitate these additional parallel files.

Whenever information is parallel, it requires careful synchronizing of all the measures (and measure lengths). What a bother!

Obviously, if humans are checking and synchronizing something (with difficulty), this is a good opportunity for computers to do the work instead. In that situation, I wrote a computer program allowing measures to be labeled by (text) strings, instead of (only) by measure numbers.

The program fills each measure (completely) with spacer rests (unless told otherwise). This eases synchronization, because you need only include measures with actual content.

The program uses YAML as its data entry format. YAML's noise (the extra characters you enter) is very spare. It seems cleanest for entering LilyPond source (it interferes only minimally) yet allows measures to be labeled easily by text strings.

Available on my GitHub (and written in Ruby), the program is called, 'yaml2lilypond'. Recently, I successfully used it to engrave (typset) a large work--and it helped a lot!

Copyright (c) 2011 Mark D. Blackwell.

Rare, select chamber music (sheet music and MP3)

Here are some rare, excellent, beautiful, intelligent and select chamber music pieces of famous and once-famous old composers, culled by listening carefully to the sound samples on Edition Silvertrust's website. They also publish The Chamber Music Journal. I audited their full catalog of sheet music in two categories: quite a number of pieces! (I developed the list for some of my acquaintances with whom I play music, and have clarified the titles, somewhat. Originally, it may have been a recommendation from Delicious.com which led me to Edition Silvertrust, but I am not sure.)

All the best, excellent pieces, and only the best ones, are on this list. This is only my educated opinion; and yet, I believe you should enjoy them if you heard them! But merely let me mention my extensive classical music background. I invite you to judge for yourself!

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String and clarinet quintets:

Joseph Eybler (1765-1846), String Quintet for Violin & 2 Violas (or 2 Violins & Viola), Cello & Bass in D Major, Op.6 No.1 (1801)

Friedrich Dotzauer (1783-1860), String Quintet for 2 Violins, Viola & 2 Cellos in d minor, Op.134 (1835)

This one is operatic:
Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842), String Quintet for 2 Violins, Viola & 2 Cellos in e minor (1837)

Johan Svendsen (1840-1911), String Quintet in C Major, Op.5 (1867)

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), String Quintet No.1 in F Major, Op.85 (1903)

Alexander Krein (1883-1951), Three Sketches on Hebrew Themes for Clarinet Quintet Op.12 (1914)

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Piano quintets:

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), Piano Quintet in A Major, Op.14 (1853)

Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929), Piano Quintet in e minor (1865)

Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914), Piano Quintet No.1 in f minor, Op.4 (1866)

Friedrich Kiel (1821-1885), Piano Quintet No.1 in A Major, Op.75 (1873-4)

Hermann Goetz (1840-1876), Quintet for Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass & Piano in c minor, Op.16 (1874)

Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916), Piano Quintet No.1 in d minor, Op.35 (1877)

Zdenek Fibich (1850-1950), Quintet for Violin, Clarinet & Horn (or 2 Violins & Viola), Cello & Piano in D Major, Op.42 (1893)

Carl Frühling (1868-1937), Piano Quintet in f sharp minor, Op.30 (1894)

Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902), Piano Quintet No.3 in g minor, Op.126 (1895)

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948), Piano Quintet in D flat Major, Op.6 (1900)

Wilhelm Berger (1861-1911), Piano Quintet in f minor, Op.95 (1904)

Théodore Dubois (1837-1924), Quintet for Oboe (or Clarinet or Violin), Violin, Viola, Cello & Piano in F Major (1904-5)

Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909), Piano Quintet in C Major, Op.45 (year not found)

Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915), Piano Quintet in g minor, Op.30 (1910-11)

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Piano sextets:

This one is not hard for piano (unlike the usual Glinka), because he intended his Italian doctor's daughter to play it:
Mikhail Glinka (1804-57), Grand Sextet for Piano, String Quartet & Bass in E flat Major (1832)

William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875), Sextet for Cello & Bass (or 2 Cellos), 2 Violins, Viola & Piano in f# minor, Op.8 (1838)

This one has fewer notes than usual for strings:
Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907), Sextet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon & Piano in B flat Major, Op.6 (1888)

Paul Juon (1872-1940), Divertimento (Piano Sextet) for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon & Piano, Op.51 (1913)

Copyright (c) 2009 Mark D. Blackwell.