Setting a musical landscape

So I've been thinking a lot about my music lately, and the particular moods I want to set for specific things. I think a lot of my compositions seem to come from a similar musical space in my brain, I tend to write good mellow and happy songs. I love tonality more than constant modulation and I tend to use accidentals sparingly and for only specific purposes, usually to extend a suspension and create tension for a fuller catharsis on the resolution. I like to use the dissonance created within the tonal scale to produce most of the interest in my pieces. In fact, one of my favorite pieces I've written so far is a setting for 6-part women's choir of James Agee's "Sure on this Shining Night," an arrangement that contains not a single accidental, all the dissonance is based up stepwise movements and the interplay between half/whole steps. One of my favorite progressions is to overlap Do-ti-sol in the scale to produce this naturally beautiful harmony full of dissonance, but also well grounded in the tonal center. Anyway, a lot of my music tends to ebb and flow very well, slowly building and backing down, utilizing a lot of pedal motions and "blooming figures" where on note separates and "blooms" into a full chord.

My newest re-write of a piece uses this effect a few times throughout. I incorporated the lullaby idea into a new version of "O Nata Lux" which is about the birth of Jesus. I also used echo effects to link sections together, which creates tension through suspension (the pedal action I employ a lot, this time basically used in reverse, from top to bottom instead of vice versa). This creates a simple but effective palette of sound, which is exactly what I wanted to convey for a small little lullaby about a baby lying in a manger. I leave the ending unresolved for a specific reason: that even though Jesus came down to redeem us all, right now he is still a baby and there is so much left for Him to do in the world. (I know I keep talking about him as a child, even though it's not mentioned in the text, but the "O Nata Lux" is often done during advent, the preparations for Christmas, so I have that in mind as well.) Here is the Latin text with English translation (thanks to CPDL):

O nata lux de lumine,
Jesu redemptor saeculi,
Dignare clemens supplicum
Laudes precesque sumere.

Qui carne quondam contegi
Dignatus es pro perditis,
Nos membra confer effici
Tui beati corporis.

O Light born of Light,
Jesus, redeemer of the world,
with loving-kindness deign to receive
suppliant praise and prayer.

Thou who once deigned to be clothed in flesh
for the sake of the lost,
grant us to be members
of thy blessed body.

I use a lot of sacred texts, not because I'm overtly religious (I'm more covertly religious), but rather the offer a great text that has been refined for hundreds of years and lends the music a more powerful air. Not that I would ever ask anyone to believe the words that are being sung, but I would rather let the music support the sentiment of the writers of the text. I'm very careful to make sure that any piece I put to music retains and supports the overall idea I believe the text is trying to make. This is much easier when I am the one writing the text, but I believe it's just as important for any work I undertake, understanding the meaning of the text, not just from a literal background, but what is implied by every word.

You can listen to the entire composition on my Myspace Music page, I'll put it up in the first position.

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Now playing: Matthew Brockway - O Nata Lux
via FoxyTunes