Fantasy for piano and Orchestra

Wow - this is fantastic stuff!
At the risk of saying more about me than about the piece, I'm hearing echoes of Rachmaninov Concerto no. 4, Dohnanyi Concerto no. 2, and of all things, Joel McNeely. Congratulations on having the piece performed live as well! (I believe you were at the keyboard ?)

Some random things I want to note:
1. Not sure what's happening in bar 61 (2:56). The orchestra couldn't keep up with the rhythm perhaps?
2. Harp and celesta barely audible. The harp is silent (?) in places.
3. Piano right hand is playing in bars 101-106 but empty in the score.
3. I'm 'hearing voices' in bars 111-119 (5:09 - 5:36). Are there sopranos hidden in the forces????
4. Bars 200-207 (7:58 - 8:22) I was expecting pedal sustain on the lowest notes of the tuplets.

Originally Posted by cygnusdei

Some random things I want to note:
1. Not sure what's happening in bar 61 (2:56). The orchestra couldn't keep up with the rhythm perhaps?
2. Harp and celesta barely audible. The harp is silent (?) in places.
3. Piano right hand is playing in bars 101-106 but empty in the score.
3. I'm 'hearing voices' in bars 111-119 (5:09 - 5:36). Are there sopranos hidden in the forces????
4. Bars 200-207 (7:58 - 8:22) I was expecting pedal sustain on the lowest notes of the tuplets.

To clear things up a little bit

1) Bar 61 was surely a problem for the orchestra, if played correctly it is a very magical (somewhat unexpected and random) moment in the music

2) As far as the harp goes, the piece calls for 2 and we only had 1 at our disposal so I had to sacrifice some harp parts. The celesta...who know?! :^)

3) Yeah in the percussion 2 part you will see the score call for an offstage soprano. Very good ear! because she is almost inaudible too..

4) Artistic merit by the pianist

I actually wrote the piece for one of my friends who is a pianist (even though I would have loved to have premiered it) So Mitchell Mckay is the soloist in the recording. I just got to sit back and relax in the audience. Actually, relax might be the wrong word......

Sincere and honest and amazing congratulations for the piece. Even more for the live recording. It's an opportunity that not many get, so it sure is a special moment, even if you've already had your share.

It is a great educational opportunity as well, and you appear to already know the orchestra pretty well!

Enough on the theoritical blah blah for now!

The music was fantastic, I will agree to that and admit that I felt jealous! THERE! I SAID IT!

I do enjoy very much neo tonal music and this was no exception. Your theme(s) was very well crafted and taken in various forms, orchestration was more than adequate and... well... the whole thing was excellent! It did remind me of various things, that have been prementioned, so I won't bore you with names. At least not yet.

The score was a bit messy and I'm wondering if this was the score that the conductor used, or this is a sloppy copy for us. Because there are several things clashing, big empty parts of the score, which create unecessary clang of pages, the notes are too close together some times, and some other things. not that it's difficult to read or follow, especially in A3 or B4 size, which I suspect it must've been for the conductor, but it does seem... hastily done. Then again if you wrote this in 2 months time, I wouldn't expect a better score either way.

In all an amazing piece, disregarding your age (which only makes it better, but who cares who you are? It's music that counts!), and anything else. They were right to comission you.

And now

Everybody has said that this piece reminded them of something. A bit of Prokofiev, a bit of Rachmaninov, you also accept your influences very bravely!

Thing is that this piece could have been writen 40-50 years ago. I do feel a slight twist of film music (especially in the beginning and middle parts), but it largely feels... outdated without this being the best of words really.

Here in the UK, especially in academia, they have this word "pastiche" which is pretty much grose for me! I don't like the word, but it does feel somewhat necessary to bring this up!

__________________

But no matter the above, which is theoritical bullshit again (that's why I said I'd be back...) the piece is fabulous! It just feels it's missing "you" a little.

Fabulous though!

Fabulous!

Hello there!

I have to agree with the rest of the people who commented on your work! It's absolutely wonderful! I especially liked the beginning with its beautiful harmonies and the slow pianistic solos. Some of those calmer moments were quite reminiscent of Rautavaara especially m. 196 to 207, while some of the more intense moments did have a charasteristic feel of film music as Nicolas said, which I don't find bad. There is certainly plenty of room for improvement regarding the notation, but I believe this to be of secondary importance...

Alexandros

Hey there,
I think that I am still searching for my voice as a composer...it is kind of a hard thing to do. I enjoy trying new techniques but I really have difficulty with some "modern" music, or advant garde music...i feel that it doesn't communicate and music is a form of communication for me. However, yes, the piece is a little outdated. I don't apologize at all for the film music influence. I want to go into film scoring, plus, I think film music is sort of a link between the lay person and classical music. If you ask anyone to whistle a John Williams tune I bet they could do it...ask them to whistle a Shoenberg tune and no go. So I guess I am sort of a "populist" in that sense.

My engraving skills leave much to be desired, Finale often gets on my nerves and so I put up with a medoicre score. However, this piece I was still printing off parts the morning before rehearsels started so i was in a hurry!!

Don't be fooled by my bio...it is a little misleading about my age. I am actually 24 so I probably should actually be a lot more advanced than I am...anyways

Keep the criticism coming! I take all of your suggestions into consideration and appreciate them as I work on becoming a better composer!

hey man awesome music! I ventured off to your other works and i must say you are a fine musician. enough of that though, you already know youre very good and i really dont have a critique for you. my reason for posting is that you said you should be better at the age of 24. well, im 23 and you are FAR superior to my abilities . just thought i should pat you on the back and welcome. it seems as though you have a good grasp on orchestration and you had better stick around so you can teach me!

vince

Excellent work.
It reminds me the orchestration and harmonies of Rachmaninov. It kept me hooked until the end (and sometimes that's a difficult thing to achieve).
No doubt this work deserved a live performance.
Well done!

regards,
Bruno

Well, well, well. Quite the expansive piece here, both in the literal and metaphoric senses.

Much has been said, and I'd be wasting your time to echo so much sentiment, so I'll wrap up that section of my review simply enough: it was, indeed, a lovely piece; I was also reminded of a few Prokofiev- and Rachmaninoff-like moments... though all-in-all, it held its originality well enough. In my opinion, at least.

On to some other notes...

I've noticed that you've done some film scoring, and you say that's what you're about. Power to ya, mate. This point, and another you made along the lines of "still finding your compositional voice," go together quite nicely in my mind, as I can relate to them both.

In reverse order, I know exactly what it's like to be searching for your own voice, all puns aside. I've only posted one meager little sketch of a very classical sonata here on the forums, but what one would find in my computer files would be incredibly confusing. I'm in between romantic, classical, and modernistic influences; it's very often rather frustrating, as I'll sit down to write one thing, say, an organ sonata, with a classical ideal in mind, and find myself leaning more towards my avant-garde tendencies.

All this mumbo-jumbo of mine aside, let me say that hearing works like this offer me a bit of mental stability, per se. I can hear many influences from many different eras in this, as well as something that seems to be uniquely yours; this is the very goal for which I've been struggling for nearly three years, now. Congratulations and thanks on that point.

As far as the film music aspect is concerned... heh heh. I've always DREAMED of composing music for either one of those post-modern/apocalyptic films (my personal preference), or, alternatively, for a Video Game. (I play the Final Fantasy games more for their music than even for the novel-like plots. I'm a nerd.) So in that vein, I totally know where you're coming from and going to.

Well, I'll step down from my rickety little soap box here... and a final congratulations on such a wonderful piece. I wish you the best - or at least, the continuation - of luck, my friend.

-Dallas

Time for a repost.

I've only done this to QCC and now you, mate.

I just wanted to let you know that I've been listening to your piece, pretty much non stop all day yesterday, half the day before and a little today. I do think that I might've listened to it around 25-30 times! No kidding here!

I don't think there is a better compliment for your music!

About your age: You lying bastard! you're 24? you should be writing masterpieces by now, but you're not! Shame on you! [/sarcasm]

About what I said above: It does stand, as the piece is heavily influenced, but who gives a fuck anyways? It's fantastic music, very much to my liking at least, very well performed and you got a comission from a live orchestra. How many people get this honour? Let alone the first step to a vivid and lovely career!

About the score: The score is in bad shape, you didn't deny it! Time issues, or inexperience, it is. You know it. But all is well, since it is readable...

Nothing else from me.

Everyone else: I'm copying manuscript to Finale so I have time to listen!

Hey, yeah, this was great !

I also heard a lot of influence from Rachmaninoff, but you had some unique and interesting sections in there which I loved. I particularly liked your brass writing. It may not be very original, but it certainly was really good. A nice mixture of writing styles....I loved the lydian section, of course (well, what I heard as lydian...).