Daniel Moe's choral works with brass accompaniment.

Abstract

Many twentieth-century American composers have written works for chorus with brass accompaniment. This study focuses on the compositional techniques Daniel Moe applies to his brass and choral works and the musical and religious influences that aided in the development of Moe's composition language. Eight of Daniel Moe's works for brass and chorus are analyzed to determine the influences and techniques employed in his style of composition. The analysis reveals: the choir and brass remain independent and never dominate each other, the brass consistently play at their loudest dynamic levels while the choir is not singing, the heights of the choral phrases are unaccompanied, and final cadences are voiced with the highest pitches in the choral writing which allows an equality of forces. As a conductor, Moe has encountered many Venetian and contemporary works for brass and chorus that had a direct result on the techniques he applied to his brass and choral works. The evidence suggests that Daniel Moe's choral works with brass accompaniment involve a combination of twentieth-century harmonies and rhythms, Biblical and liturgical texts influenced by his strong Lutheran heritage, and a style of transparent scoring which carefully integrates the brass instruments into the overall texture of his compositions.