Intermezzo

For me the piece has most of the time about the same intensity. There is a slight increase near the ending, but not so much.
Textures keep about the same. Strings providing a steady background with above. With more faster notes above that. Because all stayed so much the same it seemed to lack form. That might be just the property of night music, contributing to the blurry hazy soundscape. But I didn't like that so much.

In terms of orchestration it seemed ok. But you could use a little more variety in the use of instruments. Maybe that would provide the contrast I seek.

Yes, I'm kind of torn because on the one hand I do want that static, blurry soundscape but not at the cost of a sense of form. I was thinking maybe I could do something with the strings rather than always just held notes to give a feeling of building intensity but I'm not sure what without losing the harmonic background.

I was going to call this one "Intermezzo" which might actually make more sense now. A sort of static break sandwiched between two more lively movements that I haven't written yet.

Thanks for commenting!

Ah, that makes sense, standing in the fine Bartokian tradition of Nightmusic in 2nd movements. Textural ideas are to give broken chords to the strings, that will maintain the static harmony but adds to the intesity and alters the texture. Alternatively you could give some holding chords to some woodwind or even the piano in some nice ostinato rythm?

I like your melodic material, how did you create it? Do you use a tone row? How did you develop your material? I really like to know.

Bar 1 to 7 sounds great and I like the brass chords that starts in bar 55.

However, you seem to stick to phrases consisting of around 5 notes, and most of the time in 32nd notes. That does not sound that good to me.

As for the string background, I feel it is a bit too much detached from the other music. What about having them change harmonies more often? Then it could be a more transparent background that blends in better.

Listening to the midi mockup I experience that it lacks dynamics, but I you got them in the score so that is not a problem.

Ok, I've thought about what you have both said and changed some things:

I changed the title back to Intermezzo. It seemed more fitting.

I've had the strings start to arpeggiate the chords to attempt to increase the intensity at certain points.

I've also replaced the strings with quiet brass in the middle of the piece to give the listener a break from the string texture and highlight the piano as the solo instrument, as was originally intended. I've also introduced some brass 'stabs' as the piece moves towards its climax, again to increase the intensity.

I don't think the strings will be as invasive in real life as they are in the midi as they are for the most part marked PP but I can't seem to get any dynamics on the playback so apologies if it all sounds a bit unbalanced but it shouldn't be like that.

Nlungberg, I didn't use a row for my melodic material but I did consciously try to keep repetitions of any of the 6 available melodic notes as far away from each other as possible so I imagine that would give it a row-like quality. The 32nd notes are designed to play off against the piano's clusters which are arranged in a way as to suggest being in a different tempo but maybe this doesn't come across very well.

Ok, this is my last update. I would have loved to spend more time with this piece but deadlines are closing in so I've had to leave it here but I'm still reasonably happy with it. I think I've managed to get the increasing intensity across this time. I removed the middle brass/cadenza section as it disrupts the building momentum. Hopefully the piece now sounds a bit more unified. My next task is to write the outer movements to go with this which I should do over the summer.

This sounds like a cage piece on acid! LOL.

This sounds like a cage piece on acid! LOL.

I think Cage was on acid anyway!

That may be very true

In general, I find some similarities with Lutoslawski's Postludes for orchestra, especially no. 1, due to dense dissonant textures in strings and fast passages of winds and percussion.
I do believe in live performance the stings would not sound the same in dynamic aspect.

Yes, I was really influenced by Lutoslawski at the time of writing this. I didn't think of the postludes but that is definitely the sort of texture I was imagining with the strings. I want them to provide an almost ghostly background whereas the midi makes the strings sound really intrusive here.
Thanks for listening!