Enigma de la Rosa Op.19

Quote

This is what I referred to when I said there was something of a pressure on composers to go atonal. I'm sorry you have finally yielded to the Dark Side...

I usually measure the success of an atonal piece by how long does it take to trigger a headache in me and how intense the headache is. You were highly successful ...

(End of jokes)

On a more serious note, it seems you did take a lot of pains to 'give birth' to this piece. This is not what just 'comes naturally', but entirely the product of a hard, conscious mental effort - hence giving it a significant worth. It's very hard to keep an atonal piece coherent and unified without the usual 'tools' (tonic, dominant, theme, etc.), but you somehow managed to achieve this despite the additional trouble of the long hiatus in its composition.

Now it's Jason's turn to show up with his part... I'll be waiting for it ...

The composition is not completely atonal as there are some clear points of central pitch, even if just temporary. But this is clearly an orchestral partiture, not a chamber one. And you really use most of the available doublings which makes composition full of interesting colouring.

The part for voice is very difficult. Either the singer has a perfect pitch or is a fantastic solfeggist and knows how to find intonation out of instrumental chords.
Some chords in the early part of composition maybe last too long and could be shortened by at least one bar every time.
I think the piano part is playable by a skillful pianist, except some very fast arppegios will be likely played a bit slower at the piano cadenza. The piano part shows some light influences of Messiaen whose piano parts are also very difficult but "performable".
In general I think it is a solid composition with some exciting craftmanship. Good job.

Crt Sojar Voglar

I can imagine this as the soundtrack of a horror silent film like The cabinet of Dr. Caligari and such interesting piece. I enjoyed the piano parts

Pressure to go Atonal? LOL.......Austenite, were you the one who said earlier that Penderecki started out as an avant garde composer "simply to make a name for himself"?

Cool composition.

Want another go, Phil? Start by reading the rest of my comment ...

We're here to comment SYS65's piece, not Penderecki's career. Anyway, Penderecki did start atonal... during the same years Boulez and Adorno were doing their vociferous proclaims about the tonalism being obsolete and useless. Fat chance he would risk himself at the beginning of his career! Only when he was already being taken seriously did he dare to commit the 'sacrilege' of turning back to Romanticism.

Anyway, I made that 'pressure' comment as sort of a joke. But when every single time someone takes issue at this, and when there are persistent suggestions that our tonal music is 'undeserving' and overrated, and that attention should instead be paid to others (the atonalists, of course ), one can't but wonder...

@Austenite
No I didn't have pressure, pressure by whom ? I'm alone here like Tarzan...

No its just I listened Classical, I paid attention and I wrote classical, I listened Bossa, I paid attention and I wrote Bossa, I listened Salsa and I write salsa, was the same case with this, I listened Varese "Offrandes" and I wanted to write some completely lost melody for a soprano... so is not a copy, just the idea of an atonal piece with voice, if ended in something very bad, that was ok anyway, 1 fail after 1 success, it's even .

Yes, it was hard to write, my brain got hot because I was writing in paper and I could not possibly play in piano what I was writing, and I was in an unknown neighborhood.

@Sojar
Yes is not completely atonal, I couldn't do it, I tried but tonality was like a nice girl on the street...
Yes Vocal part was meant to be very difficult indeed, but those looney ones in IRCAM are the whole day with impossible exercises, I thought some people like them could play it in the XXII century perhaps...

The long chords, I suppose you mean m.33+ ? yeah, that part gets pretty boring doesn't it ? I might change that.

I was veeeeery lazy on writing the piano parts, so I recorded via midi so what you heard is actually me playing the piano part, I just fixed the notes because sibelius wrote something quite ugly. Yes, very messiaen.

@Martha,
haven't seen that movie but last I thought was horror, I'm glad you liked piano parts, just I hope I didn't influence you with this, you write very nicely not like this robotic feeling-less piece that even myself find very cold, I usually write just the opposite.


@Phil,
It was like going to buy the bread, "Oh look, let's taste that one, are these nuts ?"

Thanks all.

....anyway I'm still waiting for Jason.... and Jaap too !!!

EDIT:
Oh, ok, I will move this to Orchestral.

Actually, you and I both know you were attempting to make a very serious point when you first made that claim with Penderecki. I can link you to your post if you'd like!

If you actually knew anything about the composer in question instead of feigning awareness: you'd know that Penderecki didn't "dare to turn to tonality after becoming a serious force", but he did so after feeling he had "hit the ceiling" in regards to experimentation (take note that I am actually quoting the composer here).

You can speculate and draw all the fallacious conclusions you'd like, but the facts are facts.

*moderates his own topic...


ok ok ok ok forget Penderecki ok, don't recall if I knew Penderecki in 2004, I knew Madonna

Anyways, if you have any real rebuttal for me, feel free to shoot me a message! Back to Daniel's piece...

Composer Phil, on 30 January 2012 - 08:46 PM, said:

There it goes again - the "implicitly ignorant" ad-hominem fallacy. Is that the best you have, Phil?

As for Daniel's piece - I've been long a vocal admirer of his hard work and craftmanship, as well as his ability to switch from one style to another. (To clarify: the 'pressure' thing on my first review was kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke out from the shoutbox chat of last night).