Katastrophengesetz is the only piece I wrote without any lyrics at all. I had written lyrics for this piece, but after arranging out the whole piece, it just didn't really make sense with the music, as it is a baritone feature through and through, and I didn't see the reason behing adding lyrics to that, so I kept the voices without words.
Often times, I utilized the voices in a similar way, usually coupled with either the woodwinds or the trumpets (red border).
In the interlude before the head in, the voices sing a chord structure, that is kind of doubled in the trombones. but of course the trombones are playing it one or two octaves lower, as well as playing more into the theory-applying chord arrangement of a trombone section, where I wanted to keep the voices in smaller steps, just kind of sliding together through the two chords that are repeated four times (green border).
I have grouped these two ways together in Example 1, as they are right after each other in the piece.
Example 2 brings a familiar usage of the voices in my music. In "Allconsuming", we already once saw the voices being used as one lead voice versus three backing vocals. Added to that, the backings are also again doubling saxophones and the bass clarinet in a glissando. Since horns with keys can't play a full smooth glissando like a trombone, string instruments or vocalists can, I always like to support the horns in a glissando by adding either one of these instrument groups to the "broken up" glissandi in the woodwinds.
I also played around with the role of the lead voice in this piece. As it is a feature for baritone saxophone, I wanted the bari to also play most of the melodies. But I also added the lead voice to those lines often as a doubling one octave up and/or left some phrases for only the voice or only the baritone saxophone. In this example, the voice sings the first phrase alone and is joined by the bari for the second little phrase before the repeat.
One thing I learned from my experience writing for my large ensemble in Switzerland was, that when writing for strings, one of each will not suffice. We had problems bringing them out and hearing them, both in the live setting as well as the mixing process of the album.
In the future, I will occupy every string seat with multiple players to avoid that mistake again.
For this following example, Example 3, I wanted to utilize the voices as a support for the strings, who are playing accented hits in pizzicato. Strings are already much quieter in pizzicato, so I thought supporting them with the vocals would be a good crutch. In the recording, if one listens closely, one can hear the strings and voices blend nicely together.
