A fun piece, Simen!
As Michel (QC) mentioned, the 2-part harmony throughout was done rather well for the most part, but it became uninteresting. Some of the chords in the sinfonia kind of caught me by surprise. Thick chords on a harpsichord are not a good idea, nor can harpsichords make accents or anything like you seem to have written in. The Andante is rather nice, again the 2-part harmony is ok, and your harmony is ok, but it's not great. I think you would benefit from reading Fux's "The Study of Counterpoint" or another book on counterpoint. I feel like you have a "feeling" for what is "should" sound like but...aren't quite there yet. The middle "prelude" was fun, exciting, to-the-point. I thought a little more could be developed though, perhaps a bit more adventurousness in the department of direction. Meaning, go somewhere with it, do something with it, give it a goal and take it there, really drive it home. Although its a baroque piece, even Bach experimented with, and succeeded in very exciting climaxes in his works (it's interesting to note that a lot of his climaxes were written near the 5/8 mark...which is a rounded version of the number phi, or "the golden ratio"...but thats for a different time). As Michel said to solve the "prelude" issue, perhaps call the last one a "postlude" and the middle one an intermezzo or perhaps scherzetto. The endings I thought were weakly done also, you have some vivid movement and yet you end your pieces with big clunking chords. Why not end them in such a manner as the rest of the piece? It is important to have, if not, a pre-determined ending (e.g. the "goal" i was talking about earlier), then it is important in non-programmatical music, such as the baroque, to have a
characteristic ending. I feel like a few I-V chords aren't an effective way to end movements or pieces at all, unless you're a mediocre 18th-century composer who lives in a box
, which you're not.
Overall, I think you have quite a good start here. Again, as Michel said, practice makes perfect, and from what other pieces I've listened to of yours here you seem to be making progress
. Again, check out some books, study up a bit, see what you can learn. Experiment, test, and keep writing. Good job!
Nico