Piano Trio

Here's the first proper work I've composed in about 9 months (judging by that interval, you might say it was gestating inside me ).

It's a piano trio, as the title denotes. Quite a lot of polychordal writing and plenty of chromaticism - this meant I had to spend quite some time making the score readable, so I'd certainly welcome comments in that regard as well as on the music itself.

For inspiration, I looked to a certain other piano trio posted on YC (in the Major Works forum), and although I couldn't match that particular level of quality, I'm fairly satisfied with most elements of this piece. It's hard to imagine how the first listen would sound to someone, since I worked on this piece on such an on-off basis over so many months.

PDF below, and MP3 here: Box.net - Free Online File Storage, Internet File Sharing, Online Storage, Access Documents & Files Anywhere, Backup Data, Send Files

Mike, congrats! really, really nice work there!

Only two little things come to mind.. might you consider inverting the piano parts of the opening string entrances? By this I mean that the violin comes in on a very rich and full piano part, which suddenly becomes more sparse as the cello enters the fray... it seems almost anticlimactic to me. I think that the larger string density would require a slightly denser piano part, while the solo violin of the opening phrase would benefit from an ultra-delicate accompaniment.

(and measure 37, violin seems to be missing part of a beat).

I particularly like the gentle move away from a too-debussyan sonority as the piece advances. (gotta admit, those opening measures could be from some long forgotten work of Claude Achille's!)

I get the impression it could use a few introductory measures, somehow. It's a very sweeping first theme, with a sense of rushing wind, or flowing water (very impressionistic, really). But somehow, listening to it over again, I can't help but think that we are launched just a tad too quickly into that current.

Gorgeous, Mike! really nice.
A few small comments to make, but basically I enjoyed it very much!
Bar 36 - the f# in the violin would be better as a gb because you had used a gb previously, and it matches the harmony etc. in the piano. (Similarly, perhaps some of the sharps in the 'cello there should be flats?)
Bar 39 - no need for that E# in the violin there, really.
From around bar 57 to 60, I felt you could have made more of that climax. At present, it is a beautiful swell in intensity, but I feel it may be the main climax of the movement, so maybe a little more would help. Just a thought.
Some of the bow markings are not strictly necessary. (e.g., b.57-58, 'cello)

Really nice job though... I very much enjoy the big steps you're taking with your harmonic languages, and you've made it very convincing!
Also, I'm envious of the damn fine GPO rendering! You did a good job there too!

Thank you both very much for commenting!

By way of addressing specifics:

Only two little things come to mind.. might you consider inverting the piano parts of the opening string entrances? By this I mean that the violin comes in on a very rich and full piano part, which suddenly becomes more sparse as the cello enters the fray... it seems almost anticlimactic to me. I think that the larger string density would require a slightly denser piano part, while the solo violin of the opening phrase would benefit from an ultra-delicate accompaniment.

You make a good point there. It could well be the bias that comes with hindsight, but I think I did have half an impression of the opening perhaps being a bit too "full on", just that I had no real ideas with the potential to remove that aspect.

Also, you mention an introduction later in your post: I actually had one there a while ago, but I couldn't get it to sound convincing enough. It was a bit too soppy. The whole aesthetic is rather "pretty", possibly bordering on saccharine, so I decided to quit while I was ahead and just jump straight in. But I'll definitely ponder this.

Bar 36 - the f# in the violin would be better as a gb because you had used a gb previously, and it matches the harmony etc. in the piano. (Similarly, perhaps some of the sharps in the 'cello there should be flats?)

Ah, I had a mini debate with myself over that section.

The first two beats of bar 34 are essentially in Cb major, as defined by the piano LH (I realise it's difficult to pin down because of the chromaticism/polychordality), so I gave the violin a Gb because it sounded like the 5th degree of the scale. Then, in about 35-37, the tonality moves more towards D major. Gb makes little sense in this context - in fact, it sounds more like F#, which is the third degree of the scale in D, so I went with that.

In retrospect, I think you're right - the Gb excessively complicates matters, especially given that it's only a single note, so the player is hardly likely to misread it!

Bar 39 - no need for that E# in the violin there, really.

I can only imagine I employed similar enharmonic logic as described above, but again I agree with you - it should probably be changed.

From around bar 57 to 60, I felt you could have made more of that climax. At present, it is a beautiful swell in intensity, but I feel it may be the main climax of the movement, so maybe a little more would help. Just a thought.

Quite possibly. One thing I noted about Alfera's trio is that he engages in a few separate jaunts into the "dark side", so arguably the one isolated incidence in my piece is not good from a harmonic coherence perspective.

Also, I'm envious of the damn fine GPO rendering! You did a good job there too!

Ha, it's very satisfying to read that because I did literally nothing to help GPO along aside from adding the pedalling. Rather more convenient than exporting MIDIs from Sibelius and spending 2 hours in a sequencer manually programming the held note crescendos...

Once again, thanks for the in-depth comments!

Mike

I am not going you tell you do this or that with your work. This is just to let you know I took 3-4 listens and enjoyed it.

Ron

Thanks Ron, I greatly appreciate it.

Hey Mike, I must say this is quite lovely, I simply have to know which program you used to compose this, the sound is spectatular

The score I felt was quite readable, nothing really wrong with it in my opinion.

There were some moments which were very inspiring to me, I think I might write a little guitar piece off the inspiration from this

Anyway, well written Mike

Hey Mike, i have listened to this a few times now, and well there was really nothing i did not like...sorry for the shallow comment lol. you are a very talented man and i admire your work. cheers!

vince

Will and Vince, thank you.

I simply have to know which program you used to compose this, the sound is spectatular

All I used is Finale 2007 plus GPO. Aside from manually adding the pedal markings, Finale handled everything automatically. I just clicked export and it was all done.

Mike, congrats. I love your piano writing and above all your harmonic language. I found this more compelling than many Debussy pieces, and I definitely wouldn't mind a live recording.

Also, from what I hear, Finale 2007 makes some serious playback improvements.