Funeral March in C minor

I've had the themes for this in my head for a year now, playing it on the piano, and only a week ago did I decide to start writing it down for orchestra.

I composed this in four sessions of 10 hours each (from 2 PM to midnight), practically non-stop. It grew up to 15 minutes of music.

The piece is what the title says, a funeral march. It's meant to contrast feelings of deep, savage grief with heavenly utopias that are constantly brought down to harsh reality and exaggerated pain.
There's a brief moment of insanity near the end, maybe a little moment in which one might be deluded by one's own imagination.

The only justification I can give for the weird sound/orchestration at some points is that it's as close as I could get from what I wanted to hear. Not a valid point, but there you go.

Here's the mp3
I'm sorry if I use the esnips player, but I have no other place to upload files above 10MB comfortably. Those who happen to have trouble with esnips page me and I'll try to send them the file through another way.

Here's the score
I'm sorry again, it's dirtier than Bette Midler's jokes...

I love it! Especially the bells! It's so dramatic! The Strings have extrememly nice parts too! Very Berlioz! But the brass! That was just legendary!

The theme was fantastic! Very foreboding! The dissonances were just perfect!

I love the "happier" parts with the very high string bits, very nice contrast.

There is one part with two points of silence that I think could have benefitted from a constant tremolo pedal in the bass. Somewhere near the 8.. something mark...

The longer quiet part around halfway through the 11 minute mark's part is too quiet I think, it's almost like silence.

The only other thing I would change is the number of staves! It's a bit big when you have one for each instrument!


Over-all, I absolutely adore this piece! It's fantasticly done and I didn't think any part sounded "weird" with the orchestration as you stated in your original post, though that's just me!

The melodies are so beatuiful and the atmosphere is absolutely perfect! If I were you, I would be extrememly proud of this fabulous piece of music!

Oh wow berlioz..this piece has a SPECTRUM-FULL of colors in it, so diverse in everything. I absolutely love it, the decieving quieter parts in the strings and the louder more haunting brass sections were lovely as well. There were sections where I just wanted to tear up and others squirm in my seat! Let's see..the bells in the beginning fit perfectly in the piece, reminds me so much of funeral bells. Great job overall..I have nothing to say negative about this.

You know what I think. The orchestration is wonderful and the contrast between themes is great, but some of the counterpoint in the middle section felt a little weird. The big crescendo you did before the fugue-ish part also felt a little bit too long.

I love the menacing use of the brass and that orgasmic D major chord (you know where that is).

Thanks to all so far! (I stress the "so far" )

Originally Posted by wayne-scales

There is one part with two points of silence that I think could have benefitted from a constant tremolo pedal in the bass. Somewhere near the 8.. something mark...

Uhm... If that's what I think it is, it DOES have the double basses doing a low pedal note, only not in tremolo.

The opening was brilliant! Very atmospheric!

The strings were very well used along with the brass! Simply sublime use of the brass. The flute could have been a little too bright in some places... the color wasn't very fitting around 1:20. The harmonies were a little drab until 2:20, to be honest, but the major sevenths and diminished chords gave it the spark of interest it needed. The section around 2:50 was very well placed, but I think that the strings playing that high would produce enough volume to overpower the winds at that register.

At around 4:20, I guess I could have used some change... the low register stuff was getting a bit tiring. Some oboe and trumpet exchanges in that section would give it the perfect punch, imo. However, I did finally begin to feel the march feel at this point and the orchestration was brilliant. Also, the repetitions began to overwhelm me as I think you intended.

At around 6:50 my ears were getting tired from the homophony too. If you are going to do this, you might as well throw in a new theme or a different variation of the theme to catch SOME interest . Maybe some chromaticism would help too. The harmony at 7:45 wasn't very convincing.

From there until 9:34, there wasn't anything that really stood out, good or bad.

At 9:34, the increased rhythmic interest helped. 10:50 was exactly the contrast that I needed to keep me listening. To be honest, that whole section from 7:45 to 9:34 didn't catch my interest at all, which is something almost essential in pieces of this length.

You did manage to beat the theme into my head though , so yay for that!

So, I gave my thoughts on it overall, and I really really think that it could benefit from more counterpoint or more harmonic changes. Look at Beethoven's Funeral March from Eroica, for example... it's so wry and sarcastic when it comes to death and the violins, winds, and brass all have long conversations about the topic. When worst comes to worst, the climax is given by extremely powerful string writing.

Good work, nonetheless!

Um. BWAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH is the best sound in the world. I have to say.

It was excellent.

[quote=Berlioz;254104]I've had the themes for this in my head for a year now, playing it on the piano, and only a week ago did I decide to start writing it down for orchestra.

I composed this in four sessions of 10 hours each (from 2 PM to midnight), practically non-stop. It grew up to 15 minutes of music.

The piece is what the title says, a funeral march. It's meant to contrast feelings of deep, savage grief with heavenly utopias that are constantly brought down to harsh reality and exaggerated pain.
There's a brief moment of insanity near the end, maybe a little moment in which one might be deluded by one's own imagination.

The only justification I can give for the weird sound/orchestration at some points is that it's as close as I could get from what I wanted to hear. Not a valid point, but there you go.
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Hi. I liked it. There are things about writing for orchestra you are probably aware of - or not, I wouldn't know - which could make this piece better (I think there's a little too much low grumbling in the brass writing, the whole triplets passage for bassoon... it did say "high", but that's an understatement . Do you actually do any preliminary work such as sketching, shorthand/condensed scoring, before scoring? Or do you jump right into the full score? It's always wise to have some kind of plan, some way to see or envision the project before you write down "all the notes". One thing is having specific sounds and timbres in your mind appearing at the same time with a melody or an harmony, but, with a little patience, you should also sit down and examine the choices you actually have when scoring for big orchestra. You'll be surprised how common it is to find BETTER solutions - more practical, less hard on the players, same effects with less effort, etc. - once you hold on to your horses! Enthusiasm and inspiration can be good to jot down the main ideas first, even from beginning to end, but for effective and creative scoring, you need time to think. It's also SOOO tempting to fall for orchestral colors while forgetting about form, consistency, melodic and harmonic beauty AND SENSE. Sometimes, while sitting in a movie theater, all I can think of is "this music is really crappy, but the orchestrator did a great job dressing it up" - and sometimes, not even that:-)
It's not your case.

But if your March can be played on a piano from start to finish - with the necessary adjustments and limitation of the instrument - and still "make sense", hold together, then you've got some good music to "dress up" and make even more effective by using a symphonic orchestra. Don't fall for what Berlioz - your idol, I guess - and some "modern composers" could be sometimes held accountable for (clever orchestral sounds for their own sake, but no substance, no "core").

I don't think there's anything you can say to convince him to get rid of the 'low grumbling in the brass'.

Originally Posted by palestrina64

Don't fall for what Berlioz - your idol, I guess - and some "modern composers" could be sometimes hold accountable for (clever orchestral sounds for their own sake, but no substance, no "core").

If you think Berlioz has no substance or core, you're wrong.

But yes, I understand those things about orchestral colours. But it is all playable in the piano, I have done so for a year now until I decided to write it there. I know there are other issues.