Originally Posted by Zetetic

Mark, I suspect my terminology was flawed in relation to the critique of your composition. What's far more important than terminology, rules or stylistic treatment is whether or not the composition sounds right. It's clear to me from the work itself, as well as from your discussions with echurchill, that you are (whether you confess to it or not) attempting to emulate the baroque style. Some parts of this composition succeeded in that aim, others failed. Whilst you express the desire not to copy the idiom entirely, there were moments where it sounded like you simply weren't succeeding in emulating, rather than actively attempting to be modern.


Bars 1-2 sound unusual because it appears that you have two consecutive, unprepared dissonances. The first is a leap to a non-chord tone, the second an unprepared Ic-V-I cadence. Whether or not you consider this legal or not is a moot point; whilst textbooks and guides are indispensible for compositional exercise, when writing pieces like this for fun, you have to let your ear do at least half the work. If it's legal, but sounds wrong, it is wrong. Likewise, if a pleasing effect can be achieved by flouting the 'rules' of counterpoint, so be it.


This was my mistake. I meant bars 17-19, where the pivot back to the tonic sounds rather eyebrow-raising.