A short piece for orchestra

Hi

This is a short piece (5:30) that I have been working on for some time now. After much refining it is at a stage where I feel ready to present it to other people. What I would like as a result is some constructive comments as to where the piece could be improved. I intend to revise it soon, and such comments would be greatly appreciated. Anything that occurs to you when listening is useful. Also, I am stuck for a title for the piece... suggestions?

Attached is a pdf and sibelius file. There is also a midi, but I would advise accessing it only if you can't read sibelius files, as some of the sound sets become a little confused when I export from sibelius. Even just using the sibelius file for listening is better. I think there have been some issues with the installation of GPO on a computer networked to mine. I apologize for any inconvenience here and hope it doesn't put you off listening.

Thanks in advance for listening.

I think large portions of the piece could use some beefing up, it's a bit sparse (the strings, particularly, seem poorly thought out). I don't think the timpani part is particularly well thought out... if played as written, you will most likely not hear what you expect. The Bb Trumpets are an anomaly... the usual orchestral trumpets are in C, and players will usually play them on a C trumpet regardless if you indicate a Bb trumpet.

The score has layout issues. A transposed score is a must, there's no excuse for a C Score. In the Oboe cadenza, you need to put in rests with a fermata for the remainder of the orchestra.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, flint-wwrr. I fully intend to correct layout issues during my next revision of this piece, but I will keep the score in C until then for ease of use.

Your other comments were quite useful - "beefing up" the piece is something that I thought I had done enough of, but I will do more now. As for the Bb trumpets, being a trumpeter myself I wrote the parts with Bb in mind. If players are likely to ignore such an instruction, I think I will make it clearer, but for this piece, I would definitely want the tone of Bb instruments.

Originally Posted by walkingwikipedia

As for the Bb trumpets, being a trumpeter myself I wrote the parts with Bb in mind. If players are likely to ignore such an instruction, I think I will make it clearer, but for this piece, I would definitely want the tone of Bb instruments.

That's fine, of course... just be cognizant of the fact that the players will most likely play it on a C trumpet (or even D, if it's a high part). Trumpeters are odd that way.