Christmas Village - Composition Walkthrough - Part 1

By popular demand, we're going to dissect my piece CHRISTMAS VILLAGE today. I had the pleasure of recording it with the Tokyo Studio Symphony Orchestra. Score sheet, Midi, MusicXML and Dorico File is attached at the bottom of the post so you can follow along in whatever form you like.

So let's dive straight into it. As usual, we're working with a piano reduction to make things a bit easier to digest. This time I needed three systems and I still left out a few elements so it should be useful to follow along to the score sheet as well. That piece started its life as a pitch for a commercial campaign, however the client eventually went with another musical approach but I liked the theme quite a bit so I extended it into a longer version (which is still quite short).

Bar 1-4

The main melodic motif of this piece is constructed from an Asus4 or Dsus2 (depending on how you look at it) chord with two descending fifths (a-d and e-a). I use this motif right away at the very start to create a dominant to the following theme entrance in bar 5. The horns start out with this relatively typical bell-like chord where they stagger their accented entrances into the chord as can be seen in bar 1 (doubled by violas and tubular bells). The violins already establish the descending fiths as well. A muted trumpet, flutes and oboes play the same motif in an augmented and rhythmically offset way so these first 2 bars establish the material quite strongly and create this cloud of A7sus4. Additionally the clarinets and bassoons as well as celli create some harmonic backdrop. I consciously leave out the bass register here to make it more impactful when it enters in bar 3 with low brass, timpani, low ww and low strings into this sustaining harmonic bed.

Bar 4 leads into the D chord at the downbeat of 5 by (mostly) chromatically moving the A13sus4 of the downbeat upwards. I consciously use this "constant structure" approach from Jazz writing and simply move the entire voicing upwards in chromatic and one diatonic step going from A13sus4 to A#13sus4(or Bb), B13sus4 to C13sus4 to the tonic of D (the last one being a diatonic step, essentially making this a bVII-I cadence in D). There are some additional flourishes in the harp, a choir line and some runs in Piccolo+Celesta. So at it's core, these 4 bars are a dominant to bar 5 with some decoration.

Bar 5-8

A lot of what is going on in these bars uses techniques from Jazz arrangement. In every bar I circle through a I-vi-ii-V progression (essentially in the same way as the famous "I got rhythm" by George Gershwin). This progression is one of the standard "turnarounds" in Jazz and is predominantly used to replace long sustaining I chords because it nicely circles back to it. I break this pattern up every now and then to keep it fresh but at its core we have 3 bars if this turnaround while bar 8 closes this phrase off with a ii-V-I. The desending fifths motif from the melody also fits nicely into this progression.

Two more standard Jazz approaches can be seen in the accompanying patterns in Cl/Vlas/Vc which play on the ands of each beat creating this jolly "oom-pah" rhythm for this piece. What they are playing are so called "shell voicings" which usually consist of the "bare bones" of the harmony that is supposed to be implied. Usually they play third and seventh of the chord (root being provided by the bass instrument) and by that clearly define the harmony. Usually in cadential harmony these thirds and sevenths create nice voice leadings of chromatic or diatonic steps on their own without needing to put much effort into it. And this fact is often expoloited in so called "cliché lines" as can also be seen here in the bassoon. Cliché lines are lines that usually move stepwise in long notes with a strong voice leading and help to outline the chord. They are usually too inactive to be perceived as actual counter melodies to the main melody but provide a melodic gesture that makes the passage more interesting. I rely on such a line which also uses fifths and roots here to create some of this "old timey" quality.

Melodically, the theme in small scale is constructed in a ABAC form, A is that main motif as seen in bar 5. As this motif heavily emphasizes the heavy counts of the bar, to counterbalance that and not fall too much into this oom-pah staticness, I very often leave the downbeat of bars free, as can also be seen here in bar 6 and 8 in the melody.

The orchestration here is relatively self explanatory and quite transparent, of course trying to leave some space to grow towards the end and give the listener some time to get accustomed to the melody.

Bar 9-12

These bars are structually a repetition of the previous 4 bars (except for a slightly different ending in bar 12). I add a few elements like the woodwind/celesta flourishes and the horns that provide a few more higher chord options like ninths and 11ths. In this I-vi-ii-V circle, I sometimes also make the V into a sus chord  to switch around with the chord colors a bit. In Bar 9 another (slightly different) cliché line enters, this time on Bassoon and Clarinet and with a few more spicy notes like the 11th over Em or the 13 over G. So harmonically this repetiton becomes a bit more advanced while at its core remaining the same structure as the first time around.

Regarding the orchestration, these added elements already create a lift in intensity and are enough to make this repetition not feel like it is a boring restatement of the same things again.

Bar 13-18

This little solo was originally written for Euphonium where it sits a bit better than it does on the Tuba (which I had to transfer it to as there was no Euphonium on the recording).

Harmonically in bar 12, the last beat gets a dominant7 of the former tonic which makes it a secondary V for the following G major chord. It all remains in D major but the subdominant (G) receives a higher importance - more or less a classical B section as you would also see it in a Jazz standard. The harmonic frequency slows down a bit by only changing chord every half note (in spite of keeping the quarter pulse alive by using alternative chord tones with the bass on count 2 and 4). The off beats are being put into the strings at a relatively low register and relatively soft dynamics to leave space for the tuba solo (and to also create some dynamic contrast which helps to keep the piece exciting). A moment of melodic rest in the melody in bar 14 gets filled by a little woodwind flourish.

Bar 16 which lands back on the tonic receives yet another cliché which is the bass line that we see leading back to Gmajor in 17: D-E-F-F#. Especially the added tenth on top (e.g. Trombone 1) is a very common device in classical big band writing. I wanted to give it a little bit of a special touch by also establishing a countermotion to that line (seen in the Horns and clarinets): F#-E-D-C#. These three linear motions shape the chords that are being used in this bar. So this progression there is simply a "harmonic fill up" of these three lines, in spite of the chords looking relatively complex.

Melodically, there is another joyful woodwind line on top which creates some consequence to that little line in bar 14.

The linear bass motion leads very strongly back to G major in bar 17 where the violins take over the melody from the tuba (with some motivic mirroring (see bar 13 Tba vs bar 17 Violins) to create some thematic cohesion). Harmonically, the path changes a bit from the tuba part with the E/G#, again establishing some linear motion in the bass targeting the Em in which is being reached over a V-I bass motion (even if its in minor a very strong harmonic device).

Part 2 of this Walkthrough will follow in the coming days, so stay tuned!