# 'Libera Me'



## Piers Hudson (Aug 2, 2020)

Hello everyone, I have just uploaded the live performance of my new piece 'Libera Me' for six voices; it is inspired by Renaissance and Romantic music, as well as a hint of Jazz. I devised the piece in a tuning of 31 equal divisions of the octave, much like the late Renaissance musician Nicola Vicentino.

Here's the YouTube link:






EDIT: You can now watch the score video, too:


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Great, immensley moving, powerful and evocative of a favourite period of mine.


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## Piers Hudson (Aug 2, 2020)

mikeh375 said:


> Great, immensley moving, powerful and evocative of a favourite period of mine.


Thanks for kind words! Which period are you referring to, Renaissance or Romantic? (My piece draws upon both)


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Piers Hudson said:


> Thanks for kind words! Which period are you referring to, Renaissance or Romantic? (My piece draws upon both)


I bet you can guess from my avatar picture...
I went into 16thC counterpoint in a big way in my formative years. Had a listen again to the piece, I really like it.


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## Piers Hudson (Aug 2, 2020)

mikeh375 said:


> I bet you can guess from my avatar picture...
> I went into 16thC counterpoint in a big way in my formative years. Had a listen again to the piece, I really like it.


Ah yes, I see! I've been fascinated by counterpoint for a long time now, putting a lot of time and effort into it during my undergrad stidues. I've been recently reading Taneiev's 'Convertible Counterpoint in the Strict Style', which takes the topic of invertible counterpoint and massivly expands upon it, exhausing every possible intervallic shift (beyond just inversion at the 8ve, 10th and 12th), shows how to shift counterpoints horizintally and vertically simultaneously, and more!


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Piers Hudson said:


> Ah yes, I see! I've been fascinated by counterpoint for a long time now, putting a lot of time and effort into it during my undergrad stidues. I've been recently reading Taneiev's 'Convertible Counterpoint in the Strict Style', which takes the topic of invertible counterpoint and massivly expands upon it, exhausing every possible intervallic shift (beyond just inversion at the 8ve, 10th and 12th), shows how to shift counterpoints horizintally and vertically simultaneously, and more!


After all these years, I'm still interested in any unknown text I come across, so I'll hunt the Taneiev out, mostly just out of curiosity. It's the same with books on instrumentation too, no matter how many scores I have or have written....it's a curse. My main source for 16thC studies was R.O Morris' 'Contrapuntal Technique in the 16th century'.

I'm glad you've gone deep into counterpoint. I'll relate if I may, a moment that happened to me at my Alma Mater. I walked into the canteen once and sat next to a composition student a couple of years ahead of me. I had with me Oldroyd's 'Technique and Spirit of Fugue' (highly recommended btw). He saw it and said he'd never studied fugue or counterpoint. I was shocked to hear this being a first year student and sitting next to an alleged 'star' who kept winning prizes. I'm wiser now and more relaxed about what an aspiring composer needs to know, but do believe a good to excellent grounding in the past is of benefit to all, no matter their aesthetics.

EDIT...found the Taneiev here as an archived document free to download for anyone else interested. From a cursory glance, it looks excellent.
Convertible counterpoint in the strict style : Taneev, Sergeĭ Ivanovich, 1856-1915 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive


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## Piers Hudson (Aug 2, 2020)

mikeh375 said:


> After all these years, I'm still interested in any unknown text I come across, so I'll hunt the Taneiev out, mostly just out of curiosity. It's the same with books on instrumentation too, no matter how many scores I have or have written....it's a curse. My main source for 16thC studies was R.O Morris' 'Contrapuntal Technique in the 16th century'.
> 
> I'm glad you've gone deep into counterpoint. I'll relate if I may, a moment that happened to me at my Alma Mater. I walked into the canteen once and sat next to a composition student a couple of years ahead of me. I had with me Oldroyd's 'Technique and Spirit of Fugue' (highly recommended btw). He saw it and said he'd never studied fugue or counterpoint. I was shocked to hear this being a first year student and sitting next to an alleged 'star' who kept winning prizes. I'm wiser now and more relaxed about what an aspiring composer needs to know, but do believe a good to excellent grounding in the past is of benefit to all, no matter their aesthetics.
> 
> ...


I'll definitely follow up on those books you mentioned too (here are the links to those as well for anyone interested):








Contrapuntal technique in the sixteenth century : Morris, R. O. (Reginald Owen), 1886-1948 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive


74, [49] p



archive.org












The Technique And Spirit Of Fugue An Historical Study : George Oldroyd : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive


Book Source: Digital Library of India Item 2015.166045dc.contributor.author: George Oldroyddc.date.accessioned: 2015-07-07T00:11:34Zdc.date.available:...



archive.org





And I greatly sympathise with your anecdote, especially regarding aesthetic; I think the sentiment that these traditional techniques are somehow 'irrelevant' to the current day misses the point; one can apply the principles of counterpoint to any other musical form one can imagine, and there's hundreds of years of pedagogy and refinement to draw upon! I remember after I had finished an elective in writing fugues last year, that my overall versatility and flexibility in developing musical ideas drastically improved, manifesting in projects that were as aesthetically remote from the 'study fugue' as one could get.

I think anyone seriously concerned with any domain should reconcile the past, present and future of their given field so as to engender a simultaneous sense of continuity, immanence, and whatever arises from that in posterity.


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