Symphony in C Incomplete

Maelstrom,

how long have you been composing? If this is one of your first efforts not bad at all! You seem to have an understanding about form, as your piece is not random or lacking excruciatingly a backbone. It's also not ridiculously disorganized. Well done, even some good composers suffer from this. That said, its extraordinarily musically bland. You start with I and V chords...well...notes, really. Not really the most exciting opening to a piece. In fact, I don't think you could get anymore simple or uninteresting unless you had maybe just the first note. You don't very often change the chords you use. I, V, of course, IV sometimes, plenty of a minors and deceptive cadences. The opening theme in the strings (after your opening) comes back nicely near the 5 minute mark coupled now with the chromatic motif you had going on before, that was a neat idea, but a lot of the development so far is just plain empty. It's just...kind of pointless tones and chords, with no real relation to the theme. You can't just simply repeat your main theme a few times and put some other music in between and call it a piece. Every note has a purpose. You have some cool effects with the orchestra (the triplet motif is nice), but all in all the music means nothing if it has no relevance to the main idea (most of the time, that is).

Also, your orchestration needs some work. The main ideas you have in accordance to orchestration are good (you often vary your instruments, give themes to different instruments, and you use them properly for the most part), good, good! But your counterpoint between the instruments collides a lot and makes it sound unbalanced in this regard. In other words, your contrapuntal sense of harmony is affecting the appearance of your orchestration, I don't know if that makes sense. Read up on counterpoint, you'd be surprised how much you can learn with just a few articles or something.

The piece is far from bad. It needs some work, and really cutting a few things, and replacing it with others I think will be able to bandage what criticisms I had for now, after all, you are a beginning composer, correct?

Keep it up!
Nico

Oh P.S. afterthought - too many tuttis for me. I felt like I needed to breathe somewhere in there I couldn't really since the opening woodwind passages (a good example, by the way, of the counterpoint collisions I was talking about)

Well mael, like i said i realy liked the new stuff, this symphony is so good, best work in this category i have heard on this forum! finish it i want to hear the rest!

Thank you all for your kind words... I really appreciate that. Brooks, Nico: I feel that your criticisms are very "fixable" and they are very constructive. Nico: since you probably didn't see the score, I don't think you saw all of the chord/key variations because I may have masked the changes too much. Also, I don't think you saw/heard the many references and original theme fragments.

As I have yet to add dynamics and timpani, it may seem like there are too many tutti spots, but that can be changed easily.

Nico: your points about my counterpoint is definitely valid and I will try to improve on that.

HAH! Mahlers got your tongue...and quite literally your finale hahahaha

Yes, Roman I did specifically get influenced by mahler when I wrote that part. Instead of melding all of the themes together at the end, I plan to use that as the finale to the first mov.

Mael,
You've done a commendable job developing and building your thematic material--harmoncally, rhythmically and melodically. If "commendable job" sounds like I'm "talking down" at you, remember that you're one up on me in writing symphonically . Nonetheless, speaking as one who is not orchestrally illiterate (listening-wise), I want you to know that, for the most part, your writing here has direction and proceeds in a sensible manner. You have gone beyond an exercise in imitation (cf, our "musical imitation" thread/debate); some very exciting and unexpected moments make this piece your own.
Commendations:
- You added timp! Mostly very good; I have a couple of qualifications below.
- 6:10--great transition around here
- 6:40--very nice melody: stylistically-appropriate, yet with direction and life
- 7:30-50--this was new material that manifested well-developed/recombined themes and ideas; great work
- 8:02--innovative layering of the two fragments of the first theme from the brass at the beginning
-8:00-16--effective, momentum-sustaining modulations
Suggestions:
- 1:25; 4:30--timp use: in both places, the timp seemed to invade the texture instead of supporting it. This especially struck me at 4:30 (and surrounding areas): are the double hits really necessary or just distracting? and does the section with strikes on every beat become grating? You'll have to decide.
- 9:12ff--As I realize you know, the energy here is as low as it gets in the piece: you have 26 seconds or so of pure quarter notes in the strings at about quarter note = 60 (I believe). I'd weigh whether this section serves to create a false lull (calm before the storm idea) before the smashing finish, or whether it simply deflates the forward motion and bogs you down (I didn't listen enough to decide).

Again, bravo. You've steadily kept at this project and pushed yourself to generate and manipulate ideas; such discipline is admirable. I think this movement will become only more effective when pitted against some middle movements and a rousing finale...hint, hint. I suspect it won't be long.
Be glad that you have a work with both structural quality and originality; that takes effort!
Brooks

I would like to thank you so much! I cannot express how grateful I am... You have guided me throughout the writing process and given me enough help to create what I have. You deserve to be glad of yourself too, because you have helped me so much with it. I really don't know how to repay you.

As a future note: the Second Movement will be quite sad and full of despair. With the subsequent movements building up to an astounding finale... I hope.

Thanks again, brooks!

Okay, I've never done an in-depth review before, and I think it would be unfair to subject you to my first, so I'm not going to go over the top.

I'll start by saying that I'm sensing a very large blend of composing influences within you; your handling of the harmonies was very Beethovenish, but on the other hand, the way you opened seemed almost... I don't know, pseudo-Mozart in its dramatic statement of the tonic and dominant tones, but at the same time, not quite Mozart... I can't really explain it better than that.

Your gently flowing melodies (especially that of the A theme... gods, I loved it) were definitely of Mozartian influence, but you again showed a primarily Beethovenish sense of harmonizing that melody; in a way, the harmony was at times as fluid and moving as the melody itself. Until you got to your contrapuntal episodes (in which I tasted a shy edge of Bach, maybe Scarlatti in the airy nature of it all), that is. Said episodes I felt were beginning to get the better of themselves, but it wasn't bad at all; I was pulled right along by the Horn melody which entered around 8:00 after one such (nearly-contrapuntal episode).

And... oh... my... god. Starting at 8:34-ish, you're a devil. Those thin strings melodies over the rolling Bassoon (I think... >_<) harmonies leave me totally unprepared for the chromatic descent down into that misty moor that took place before my favorite section of the entire thing, which began at 9:40 with the rising motif in the Horns.

I need to say that you really handle the horns well; are you perchance a Hornist? Ahhh, I just ~swoon~ at a good, lilting horn melody. Pivotal, that.

I also definitely felt a little Mahler-ish towards the Finale (but I may have been biased by our earlier Mahler conversation and the comments of the others before me; who knows). It was a nicely satisfying end to the piece, buuuuut, I have one tiny little qualm. The last three chords just left me a little... um... well, wanting to flail, for lack of a better phrase. The I chord, with the "do" tone at the top, leading to the V chord with a "re," climbing right up the scale, I expected another I chord, topped by "mi," but to my surprise, there was none! It went straight to what would have logically come next, the tonic blast which does so well to end anything orchestral. But, this is merely my own inner composer, dramatical as he is, stating his preference.

All in all, I feel it was certainly a great start, and as Nico said, even better than great considering how young you are! It's really quite inspiring; your grasp on harmony exceeds that of most of my fellow IB Music examinees (which is my pride and joy of all musicality). Your melodies are delightful, and your thematic grasp is developing; there's room for improvement, but that'll always be true.

I can't wait to see a (non-sibelius because I can't open it!) score, so I can give it an even more detailed analysis. *Hint, hint.*

Keep up the great work,

~Dallas

I think you need to do more melodically with the strings. Look at Mozart for example.

I have just finished the second movement. All I need to do now is add slurs and bowings and then I will put up an mp3 link. The second movement is MUCH shorter than the first for two reasons:

1.) I think the dissonance and agitation of this movement might be too much for the listener because it was too much for me at times

2.)I do NOT want to incorporate any major-key variation of the theme given. I want this movement to be a contrast to the other three.

As said above, the movement is really dissonant and at times it sounds like chaos. This is what I intended, and I tried to make it as cohesive as possible. (To avoid making it sound like crap). It is in D/A phrygian and this is my first REAL venture into modal writing. So... I have two paths here:

1.) Should I write a major-key variation of the theme?

or

2.) Should I call this a finished version

And... final thought... the 6/8 at the end is not random; it is an introduction to the third movement, in scherzo format.