Symphony no2 (first 3 movements)

1. Techniques used
as with most of my music, heavily contrapuntal, even in parts that may seem "chordal". much use of polyharmony and stacked/layered chords, as well as brief forays into quartal harmony (which happens to marry well with polyharmony).

2. How long it took to compose
incredibly short time! this is the first time in over 20 years that I've completed a piece in such a brief time, actually. While the structural ideas have been in my head for over 10 years, I worked on these two movements over the space of one month. Although, since I work as a composer "full-time", that means 12-15 hours a day, 7 days a week.

3. The piece's structure
The first movement is sort of my take on a classical sonata form, while remaining "impressionist" in content. fanfare introduction supplies part of the thematic material, long "stately" main theme in the strings follows. A dreamy clarinet solo gives us the "second theme" over softly pulsing strings and harp, with bird chirps in the flute. This scond theme only returns before the recapitulation, again in solo clarinet, but with the low strings, horns and bassons playing a sort of aggressive fugal exposition based on the dreamy theme.

The first movement is called "Forêts Boréales" (Northern Forest) and tries to describe the grandeur and sense of depth I had while driving through the Laurentians. The mountains are absolutely gorgeous.

The second movement is a simple A-B-A "song form". An adagio, with cor anglais singing a melody full of suspensions and harmonic passing tones against a heavily quartal and polychordal string background.

This adagio (the first of two planned adagios in the symphony) is entitled "Prairies" and quite simply describes sunrise on the prairie, the approach, at first distant then gradually closer and then thundering by, of threshing machinery, and then sunset on the prairie.

The third movement is a sort of loose scherzo/rondo structure. It incorporates bits and pieces of various "national" songs from the maritime provinces as well as fragments of the Canadian national anthem.

4. Obstacles you ran into when composing
surprisingly few so far.... I think the difficulties will come when I tackle the next movement! I'm having a bit of writer's block at this point... I think it's more of a "writer's fatigue" than an actual block. I recently finished two movements of a viola sonata as well, so I should be happy at least that I'm producing more, and better quality, this year than I have in the last 10!

5. An overall summary

This is the "Sinfonia Canadensis: A Canadian Symphony / Une Symphonie canadienne" that I've dreamt of composing for nearly 15 years (since I drove across the country on a business trip). Each movement is meant to be able to stand alone as well, so there will be very little cross-referencing of themes, other than my normal use of thematic association. Which means, no cyclical form which is my favourite approach.

1st movement "Forêts boréales" (Northern Forests)
http://www.dosblanc.ca/music/symphon...s_boreales.mp3

2nd movement "Prairies"
http://www.dosblanc.ca/music/symphon...2_Prairies.mp3

3rd movement "Maritimes"
http://www.dosblanc.ca/music/symphon..._Maritimes.mp3

the subsequant planned movements are

4 - Mist and Mountains (Pacific Interlude) the second adagio
5 - Tundra and Glaciers (Northern Variations)

Simply....divine.

First Mv't - My goodness I don't even know what to call this....it doesn't fit really into any category of music that well. I honestly have never heard anyhting like this before. Maybe by Resphigi, but not really. This was great, thank you. I really have nothing to say about it. Your work shows. The clarinet solo really reminds me of Pines of Rome. The fanfare is great. The marimba is a bit much, though. The ending doesn't really go anywhere. It builds up for a glorious finish, but it doesn't really go anywhere before that. Nice job!! I really liked it.

Where are you from? Normally I would scoff at your use of French if you are not french, but since it is Canada...I see where you are going.

no marimba, just xylophone. I rarely use marimba.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a bit much", but I'm presuming you don't like it.
as to "doesn't go anywhere", well, I don't really know how to answer that.
it goes exactly where I wanted it to go! :-)
unlike the first symphony, this is a work that requires somewhat shorter, more concise movements, so I didn't have quite as much leeway for development.

yes, I'm from Québec, so French is one of my mother tongues.

Everybody listen to this. We are in the semi-presence of a true genius.

At last a chunk of time long enough to absorb this work.

Very little to comment - this is the work of a professional. Shame the dynamics are compressed by the use of electronic playback and I think human performance would render some passages more expressive, like the first movement clarinet solos around 2.00.

Enjoyable with interesting harmonic turns and cadences. Restrained use of brass in the first movement. Again, live playback would give some of the suspensions and decorations a chance to speak through.

Second movement - airy. .The lower brass, snare and other percussion building toward the climax at 3.00 seemed a bit heavy and too rhythmic given the scale of the opening. Were you portraying something particular on the prairie?
Lovely ending. I'll always appreciate a piece that doesn't end on Ia with no decorations!

Great. Look forward to hearing more.

....But you should have put up a score so we could learn a bit!

M

....But you should have put up a score so we could learn a bit!

M

I agree. There's not much to be gained without a score. I have written all kinds of music I could be posting here, but don't see the point without posting a score along with it.

Were you portraying something particular on the prairie?
Lovely ending. I'll always appreciate a piece that doesn't end on Ia with no decorations!

Great. Look forward to hearing more.

....But you should have put up a score so we could learn a bit!

M

yes, in the description of that movement, posted in the first post...

at first distant then gradually closer and then thundering by, of threshing machinery

I'd like to put up a score, but for the time being I can't.

yes, in the description of that movement, posted in the first post...

Yes, that was my fault. It probably caught my glance but I tend to avoid descriptive programme notes before listening, beyond the title. Apologies.

M

Actually, a score is required for a piece in Major Works. Even those that are of a more professional quality such as this require a score.

Once I have time and a score () I will check this out, although I'm sure it will be as inspiring and well-crafted as your first symphony.

A score isn't exactly required, but the guidelines do state that no review should be expected if there is no score, which is fair enough in my opinion.

It used to be that a score was absolutely mandatory, but that rule was changed in light of the fact that there are many legitimate reasons for people not being able to or willing to submit scores. Often, it's fear of plagiarism. In Qccowboy's case, I believe it has something to do with copyright, can't quite remember what exactly.

Still, I think it's better this way. After all, stunning works like this are what make the Major Works forum credible. And it would just be plain silly to move this work to another forum.