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If you've already read the program notes immediately below, or want to skip them for now, you can click --> to be taken immediately to the MP3 and MIDI files.

Table of Contents (TOC) of these Program Notes

• The Basics
  • Parts
  • Duration
  • Composition date
  • Introduction
  • Keys
  • The Words
  • Computer performers (when human ones are absent)
  
  
• Structure notes
  
• MP3 and MIDI files
  
• Score package
  

The Basics

Parts

Sopranos
Altos
Tenors
Basses

Duration

3 minutes

Composition date

October 2002.

Introduction

This is a piece, written in October 2002, adapted from a 1987 poem "Angel", which had appeared in my poetry book Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow (Wolsak & Wynn, Toronto, 1989).

The narrator of the poem was a parent who had lost a young daughter to cancer. I hasten to point out the this is not autobiographical and my own daughter is alive and well and living in (no longer Paris but) Toronto with her husband and three sons. But we can all at least partially imagine less fortunate circumstances than our own.

Cancer is the disease where cells divide out of control - one might say: where they 'grow forever'. Cancer (the sideways-walking crab) is also, of course, a constellation of the Zodiac, which looks down at us from the night sky.

Keys

The harmony tends to be gently atonal in some places but generally coming together in concords at the cadences. Thus the opening two chords EBEA and GBF#D do not neatly fit into classical chord symbols -- and for that reason I have avoided any key signature. However, the initial phrase ends with a straightforward D major chord and one can think of Theme 1, therefore, as being vaguely in D major and its final repetition (in measures 79 to 82) as being vaguely in D minor.

The Words

The words [in 2nd window] are adapted from my poem. Of course, the computer doesn't know how to sing the actual words yet.

Computer performers (when human ones are absent)

Like all the MIDI files here, it is in General MIDI form. The General MIDI patches are:

	Part	General MIDI patch
		name	#
	Sopranos	Choir Aahs	52
	Altos	Choir Aahs	52
	Tenors	Choir Aahs	52
	Basses	Choir Aahs	52

How they sound will depend on your own playback software.

On my own synth I used the following patches:

	Part	Sound Module	Patch
			name	#
	Sopranos	Roland JV880	V Boys Choir from Roland Sound Library Card "Rich Sound Collection 3" (RS)	31
	Altos	Roland JV880	Choir1 from Orchestral Expansion Board (OEB)	227
	Tenors	Roland JV880	Choir2 from OEB	228
	Basses	Roland JV880	Full Choir from RS	71

These are what you hear on the mp3 files.

Structure notes

Overall Structure

Overall the piece is structured:
	Narrator opening section:
		Theme 1
		Theme 1 Extension
	Cancer calling:
		Slow
		Theme 2
		Theme 2
	Moderate
		Theme 2 bits
	Fast
		Theme 2a (ST)
		Theme 2b (STB)
		Theme 2c (SATB) 
		Theme 2 coda
	Narrator closing section:
		Theme 1
		Theme 1 extension
		Theme 1 in minor  (solo)
		Theme 1 in minor  (SATB)

Detailed Structure

The first four measures introduce the opening (and later to be the closing) thought: "how can she hear such a small voice" - an image of the parent looking up to the night sky.

The Extension introduces Angel and her naive, child's wish to keep growing. The vaguely D major progresses through A into D minor (and perhaps Bb) before returning to D major.

Theme 2 (with slow half notes) begins the seductive call of the crabs (cancer) and "their playful claws". Four slow measures.

Repeated.

Theme 2 now speeded up to quarter notes. First S, then B, then A, then T.

Theme 2 now speeded up to eighth notes and treated slightly contrapuntally. Initially just S and T.

Now S and T and B.

Finally the addition of the altos (very loud - to stand out from the others).

The conclusion of the wild seductive calls of the crabs.

A return to Theme 1 but with the words now focusing on the night sky.

Music as in Theme 1 Extension before but the words now dealing with the up-down communication between earth-bound parent and sky-bound child and constellations.

Solo tenor voice softly repeats the opening line: "How can she hear such a small voice".

The choir indicating some response for Angel - and introduction of the word "daughter": "Angel, daughter, she smiles at my small voice"

MP3 and MIDI files
(Click on icons below to play MIDI and/or download MP3 files)

Year	Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts	Min: Sec	Complete MP3 files (better sound)** file size	MP3 file extracts (better sound)** file size	Complete MIDI file (not as good sound but quick)**
	The complete piece:
2002	Angel ... for unaccompanied SATB choir	3:07	1.7 MB
	How the MIDI file sounds depends, of course, on your playback mechanism. In addition, one of the serious limitations of a MIDI file rendition is that the synthesizer patches are each for a hypothetically universal pitch-sensitive voice. That is, the very high notes sound like a soprano and the very low notes like a bass. But there is no way to distinguish between middle C sung by a soprano at the bottom of her range or middle C sung by a bass at the top of his. They both sound identical on the synthesizer. Thus one loses considerable clarity of the intended vocal timbre. This limitation affects both the embedded MIDI file and the mp3 files. The mp3 files are not quite as bad because I have used four different patches (one for each of the S, A, T, and B) in order to provide some timbre difference. In addition, the embedded MIDI file tends to be a little unbalanced, funny in the low bass notes, and a bit beepy in the high soprano. Of course, if you have a synthesizer, you can download the MIDI file and set the instruments to your own preferred patches -- but that's more work than downloading the complete mp3 file. In any case, the computer doesn't know how to sing the words (a limitation on both the embedded MIDI file and the mp3 files).
	Short extracts:
	...... opening and Theme 1	0:39		0.4 MB
	The choral effects are better balanced in this mp3 excerpt of the opening and the first theme.
	...... some of Theme 2 "bits"	0:29		0.3 MB
	The separate voices (particularly the bass) are better in the mp3 excerpt from parts of the second theme than the usual playback sound of the embedded MIDI file.
	...... ending	0:42		0.4 MB
	This mp3 excerpt is of the final ending where (just before the end) a solo tenor voice sings: "How can she hear such a small voice?".

** If you have a high-speed connection, forget about the MIDI files and just use the MP3 files (better). If you have a dial-up connection, consider the faster (but not as good) MIDI file only if the MP3 files seem to be taking too long to play or download.

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Score Package
(Click on icons below to download pdf and rtf files)

Year	Title ... Instrumentation	Description	No. of score pages	Score (pdf file) file size	No. of text pages	Text (rtf file) file size
2002	Angel ... for unaccompanied SATB choir	Complete score *	13	0.4 MB	6	0.04 MB
	* email me if you would like any part extractions

(you will need the free Stuffit Expander for decompressing the rtf.sitx files)
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http://www.rodmer.com/RodMusic/ProgramNotes/AngelNotes.html -- Revised Jul 28, 2005
Copyright © 2002 - 2005 Rod Anderson
rod@rodmer.com

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