Fantasy for Cello and Clarinet in E Flat Minor, Opus 8

Fantasy for Cello and Clarinet in E Flat Minor, Opus 8 (Copyright: 2007, by M. Bulteau, a.k.a. Berlioz)

Composed with Finale 2006.

About 3 days of actual working time (except with the previous week reading thoroughly about each instrument's abilities, although I think there might one or other impossibility).


I'd like to open with a statement:

For every extra 5 to 10 minutes wasted on checking a cello fingering chart to see if a certain chord is possible, I just want to say:
DAMN ALL CELLISTS TO HELL!!!!

(Although I'd like to learn how to play it some day )


Now for the real thing.

This Fantasy is more like a story.
Imagine two people that are initially alone, then they get involved and get closer, but they eventually separate, getting closer a bit after, then separating again, then getting closer, then separating, each time with more strength.
Until when all seems to be going a certain way, it simply turns the other way around (with the sound of the wooden part of the bow hitting the cello's body).

To those who found the second movement of my piano and flute sonata to be too "choppy", well, you're in for "extra-choppiness"...

The digital sound is disgusting compared to what I expect it to sound in real life. Goddamned finale has no rubato, the tempi are marked like a hammering fist, and there is no humanity (logically). Such things take a lot from this, which is supposed to sound much deeper as I can imagine it to be, live.


Here it is.

(Score removed for attachment space issues, do send me a PM if you're interested in seeing it)

Yummy lucious sounding cello sounds. Me like chords.

Jesus how long is it?

About 14 minutes.

Wow, the first review in weeks; this is going to be fun

Since you said that this is like a story, I tried interpreting you motives, ambiance and instrumentation as events in the story.

I like the way your introduce the listener to your piece and how you manage to carry the listeners interest, by changing the overall mood, having different type of dialogues between the instruments, sometimes nice and sweet and sometimes bad tempered - like an awful fight. I really get a feeling of a relation between two people; this relationship being tested by exterior factors.

I like your idea behind the piece, really interesting to see how it would turn out. I found it really awesome, like viewing parts of someone's life, there is however one problem. This piece is a bit long and by the time the listener is halfway through the piece, one starts thinking "Uhm, ok now where are we in the story?" Either this relationship, getting close and separating, could be shortened a bit or just re-write a bit to make it like a life-span. One life long relationship, it would fit perfectly with the bang somewhere in the piece

I love this piece however, it could be better if this history had more varied events, it would really help the listener

Great Job!

P.S A score would be wonderful to have

Ok, here's my honest opinion, although I am not sure how much you'll like it.

To begin with, you should have included a score to the piece. Anyway, here's what I think, without the score:

I think the piece is pretty good for a game. And I am not talking about games like Morrowind or Knights of the Old Republic. It sounds more like the music games such as Zelda have, jumpy, happy, simple.

About simple: you use some pretty cliché chord progressions, and at points the piece gets very predictable, and maybe boring. The writing is very idiomatic for both instruments, and there is not much originality, I believe (not as much as you could give, for sure ). About the story of the fantasy, I can hear the distinction between the chord progressions and I can feel some changes in terms of texture, but that would sound more like a question/reply thing, or just a recurring instance than a "story". It would take a lot more to build up on a "story" (for example, check Brahms' Ballade "Edvard" and search for an analysis of the work).

Bottom line is, I wouldn't like to hear this piece in concert. 14 minutes is a long way, and to make 14 minutes sound interesting you have to try harder than that (I believe).

Sorry if I have offended you in any way with my comment, but this is my honest opinion. I think you should broaden your listening experiences, and listen to more modern stuff, even starting from Debussy and Ravel, and going further to people like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Messiaen etc etc. You really need to get examples of people who did something original. Unless, of course, you wanted to write a piece which would sound like a gameboy game. If this is what you wanted from the beginning, then no problem, it's good stuff. But if you wanted to write good concert music, this is not the way to go, I believe.

Saiming, thanks for your comment.


jujimufu, thanks for yours too. ^^
I only believe that this is not fitting for a game at all. It does lack the emotion I want it to have, digital sound can really ruin a piece.

In terms of story, I actually rely more on what you said it seemed, question/reply. That in my opinion can build up a story, a dialogue. It's like it's totally focused on two elements, without describing anything around them.

About the 14 minutes, I won't be able to answer that until I actually hear it performed, as I said before, there are many nuances that are not audible and become boring with such a poor quality sound.

Harsh criticism is needed and a good thing. ^^

Well....I have a few questions.

Have you studied orchestration at all? Most of the chords you have written on the cello part are pretty much if not totally impossible.

And are you Italian? You aren't a native speaker if you are. And your last name is French. In is "en." And Cello is Violoncello, with two L's. It won't make your music sound or look any better to write the title in Italian.

I liked this piece a lot, but the middle part where it gets faster needs to go. There is this time warp that goes on in this piece. You need to cut the classical mock up themes in there, and then there is this burst of ragtime and jazz that comes out of nowhere, then it suddenly sounds like the theme of some pop song. It happens near the end. I like it, but it doesn't belong in this piece. I suggest writing another piece, but dividing the jazzy/classical/pop stuff. And honestly, I think you should divide the cello part up, and make it a clarinet quartet, for clarinet, violin, viola, and cello. The chords would work better because they can't be played on one cello. Nice piece. Loved the neo-romantic feel of it. Hated the fast parts that came out of nowhere, but c'est la vie. (That's French. LOL.)

I have to agree with jujimufu for the most part...

1) The piece gets very predictable and uninteresting after a while.
2) Some good ideas in there (melodically), but they were lost in the 14 minutes...
3) I couldn't read the score to ascertain whether the cello chords are playable or not...why not post a pdf file?
4) The tempo changes were very abrupt and confused me more than contribute to the variety of the piece.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but I prefer being honest.

Cheers!

I have posted a PDF of the score.

Originally Posted by oboehazzard

Well....I have a few questions.

Have you studied orchestration at all? Most of the chords you have written on the cello part are pretty much if not totally impossible.

And are you Italian? You aren't a native speaker if you are. And your last name is French. In is "en." And Cello is Violoncello, with two L's. It won't make your music sound or look any better to write the title in Italian.

I liked this piece a lot, but the middle part where it gets faster needs to go. There is this time warp that goes on in this piece. You need to cut the classical mock up themes in there, and then there is this burst of ragtime and jazz that comes out of nowhere, then it suddenly sounds like the theme of some pop song. It happens near the end. I like it, but it doesn't belong in this piece. I suggest writing another piece, but dividing the jazzy/classical/pop stuff. And honestly, I think you should divide the cello part up, and make it a clarinet quartet, for clarinet, violin, viola, and cello. The chords would work better because they can't be played on one cello. Nice piece. Loved the neo-romantic feel of it. Hated the fast parts that came out of nowhere, but c'est la vie. (That's French. LOL.)

Meh, I did read about the instrument and had a fingering chart to help me write it, I thought all of them were possible...
Is it because you can't stop two adjacent strings with the same finger? If yes, then I did a couple of those, but if not, I can't see what's impossible... Please explain.

And no, hehe, it's all in portuguese except for the tempo markings, I believe those are correct.

You can attach the pdf directly. All I see is a link to some esnips website in which I don't care to register.