Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae – Jaakko Mantyjarvi
 
This is a challenging piece. The most important thing that you will do when you mark up this piece is to make note of half-steps versus whole steps. I recommend making this mark between notes that are a half-step apart (       ) and this mark between notes that are a whole-step apart (       ). The most common type of scale in the piece is a half-step/whole-step alternating scale, usually starting on G. I will refer to them as H and W in the markings. The full scale looks like this:
 
G (H) Ab (W) Bb (H) B (W) C# (H) D (W) E (H) F (W) G
 
If you mark in your half-steps and whole-steps every time these strange scales with lots of accidentals appear, you will make everyone’s lives much easier.
 
The MIDI file starts on page four, system one, bar 2. Bar numbers, for some reason, start on page 6. Everyone should look at all of the following notes, whether it’s your part or not.
 
Look at bar 8 in the T1 line. This idea recurs frequently. H/W/H up, then down H/W, then back up W. These are the notes in an alternating half-step/whole-step scale, beginning on G. G (H) Ab (W) Bb (H) B (H) Bb (W) Ab (W) Bb.
 
Bar 11 in S1 and T2 is awkward. E (H) Eb (H) E (H) Eb (W) Db (H) D (H) Db. The D-natural breaks the pattern, making it awkward.
 
Bar 12 in T1 is the first perfect and complete H/W scale on G, descending.
 
Bar 22 begins a canon that lasts for this page and the next page in the women. S1 and S2 have the same notes, A1 and A2 the same notes.
 
In bar 24, the men begin in unison, but that only lasts for a bar.
 
In bar 28, A2, the fourth note is an A-natural. This breaks the pattern, because you have two half-steps in a row, but it’s an important note to get right.
 
The first note of bar 29 is either an E-flat or a B-flat, which means we start with a Perfect 5th. Everyone stays on the same note through the bar, except the S1’s and T1’s, who ascend by half steps. In moving to the next bar, it gets tricky. S2 goes down H, A1 goes down W, A2 goes up a minor third, T1 goes down W, T2 goes down a major third, B1 goes up W, and B2 goes down W. This makes a very, very strange chord, that has to be perfectly in tune. Then in the next two bars, everyone goes up a minor third, back down a minor third, then up W, and finally down H. Bars 29-31 are the hardest in the piece. Oh, and the note that ends bar 31 is a unison G. Go figure.
 
Bars 32-33 are entirely alternating H’s and W’s, just like before, except Ab is sometimes re-spelled as G# and Bb as A#. Also, everyone is not moving the same distance at the same time; while one voice is moving H, others are moving W.
 
Bar 42 begins another canon. The theme begins in the S1 line, then is presented in order by S2, A1, A2, S1/T1, S2/T2, A1, and A2. Everything comes together in homophony in bar 49, where every chord is a fully-diminished seventh. Everyone moves by the same distance throughout bars 49-55, as every chord is the same type. TENORS: There is a mistake in bar 49, your sixth note is a C#, not a C.
 
Bar 56 begins some very rich chords, mostly triadic. S1 is the same as T1, S2 = A1 = T2 = B1, and A2 = B2.
 
In bar 62, the first quarter note is a C# for everyone, so please put a big circle around all six notes in al the lines. Likewise, the last note of bar 71 is a unison G.