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  • Submitted: Nov 30 2011 09:20 PM
  • Last Updated: Feb 03 2012 10:44 PM
  • File Size: 6.92MB
  • Views: 3079
  • Downloads: 945
  • Genre: Romanticism
  • Sub Genre: Neo-romanticism
  • Form: Nocturne

Nocturne in G Minor for piano, Op. 18

* * * * - 9 Votes

Scores

Score for Nocturne, Op. 18




This is the latest version of a Nocturne I've been working in for a while. I've uploaded the score as well. I submited it in time for October's Monthly Competition.

Pitifully, the MIDI file seems to skip some notes. I have not been able to fix it, so I uploaded it just like that.

UPDATE: I've have replaced the old, pitiful MIDI file with a new, much improved rendition (thanks a lot, SergeOfArniVillage!)... Enjoy...

ANOTHER UPDATE: Voted by the community as Top Keyboard Piece, YC Awards 2011.



Thank you for sharing :) I absolutely loved this. I...really don't have anything to say but that I loved it. I can't wait to hear your other music- you are truely gifted. :)
Thanks, Liz...! It's wonderful to hear that you loved my work. I still have to improve a couple of minor details here and there (mostly counterpoint issues), but this is pretty much the final version.

Elizabeth, on 03 December 2011 - 01:55 AM, said:

I can't wait to hear your other music- you are truely gifted. :)

I'm very willing to submit other pieces - I need feedback.
BTW, you play the piano, don't you? Perhaps you could play this one...
Austenite --

Nice work! :) I took pity on your woeful MIDI rendition here, since the actual music here was pretty darn good. Here's a link to a higher-quality version.

http://www.box.com/s...haljxlebs81cbzr

Hope you enjoy it :happy:

I liked the piece a lot, but I do have some mostly-minor criticisms. For example, there are some really nice set-ups for some contrary motion that are left undone. Not that there's no contrary motion in the piece -- there is a great deal, actually, and it's generally well done. But the section at bars 152-162 felt out-of-place as a result -- some parallel motion for variety is a good thought, but that passage seems to lend itself to contrary motion rather than the parallel motion you opted for. I think you achieved parallel motion in a good way already at measures 58-64, so I thought it wasn't really necessary for you to do that later at measures 152-162.

I also find it strange that with such a dramatic and powerful piece, you neglect bass notes further down than two octaves below middle C. I'm not saying there has to be a deep bass note every two measures -- I can see that while the piece has a lot of emotion, it is also going for a sophisticated feel too. But some rumbling bass notes at significant parts of the piece could add a lot of color and vibrancy.

Overall, though, I think this piece is quite a success. I has a strong, engaging motif, and a good structure.

Very enjoyable stuff :D Thanks for sharing with us!
Serge: thanks a lot!! I was astounded myself about how well did my music sound through your rendition. In fact I'd love to replace this woeful MIDI version with the newer one, which is by far more credible and does better justice to what I was trying to compose.

Of course, as I told Liz as well, there are some minor issues with what I'd call "missed chances" for a rather good counterpoint. I'd love to take them into account (but that would mean I'd have to make yet another woeful MIDI file and then you'd have to take pity on it again and fix it)...
You forget to transition to other key

makwingka, on 03 December 2011 - 10:22 PM, said:

You forget to transition to other key

Thanks for your input. But there IS a transition to D minor at the very middle of the piece (to which belong the parallel-motion bars criticized by Serge). Of course I could have explored many other keys (as I usually do in longer pieces), but in this case I just didn't...
I thought lots of this piece was quite excellent, but there are too many parts that take away from this for the piece itself to maintain that standard. I've spoken to you about this work before, so some of this will be old, and some will be new.


As I mentioned to you before, it doesn't sound like what I'd call a nocturne. I appreciate a different take on the nocturne, but I wonder if there isn't a way to make it more obvious that that's what you're doing? Start the piece light and softly, like a traditional nocturne, and then bang in the contrast with how the piece begins now? I dunno.

This is another oldie: bar 18 and most (not all) places like it are crying out for some counterpoint in the right hand to get rid of the pause in motion. It sounds unnatural to the music to just stop on the chord like that, and it's very boring.

I thought the chord movement in the right hand moving from bar 32 to 33 sounded a little poppish.

After this part is when I start to feel that the music is repeating too much, and it's even worse 'cause it's repeating a part that I feel already has a problem in it. The piece is longish, considering, so I don't think it'd be the end of the world if you cut out some of the repeated stuff.

I hear the same poppy kinda thing in bars 48-49.

Bars 58-60 were super cool.


Bars 90-93 are what I'm talking about above (bar 18) with regard to the counterpoint. These bars are much more interesting.

I think the accented D in the right hand of measure 108 is unnecessary and jarring.

139-140 has another gesture which I feel is little poppish or folkish or something, but I think this one is the sort of one that some people may like.

It's unfortunate that in 175 you return to the more boring equivalent of 90-93.

Bar 224 was absolutely great. One of my favourite moments in the piece. I think it's easy to make these sort of moves sound cliché, but I think you did a great job, here.

If you're going to bring that idea back, in 279, I think it almost ruins hearing it the first time if it's just repeated. Maybe either don't repeat it at all, or make more of it: have a couple of more bars continuing with it in a more elaborate and dramatic way.

I didn't like the ending, I thought it could've been much better with a different approach to it and with a deeper sounding chord.

Lastly, why are there letters in the score? You only need to add rehearsal marks for ensemble pieces, so the musicians have points of reference; they're out of place in a solo piano piece.

This review might seem negative, but it's not: if the piece was rubbish, and had no potential, I wouldn't bother commenting, and I can't go through every single bar saying whether I liked it or not, so take it that I'm only pointing out things I didn't like, which means that, anything I didn't point out, I liked.
Wayne: thanks a lot. As I told you before, I'd like to take a closer look to what you point out as "repetitive", since it's not intended as such. Your input on counterpoint is also very welcome (and perhaps an introduction can help the 'nightly' atmosphere). Of course I understand your long, detailed review as a sign of how much do you actually value this work.
you are not just transition to other key then the audience will know where it change the key . you have to change the texture and other aspect to strengthen to time which you want to change the key other wise , it just look like someone use chromatic chord
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