haLevi songcycle: Liqrat Meqor

Interesting. The scale you use produces some curious harmonies, rather like Hindemith, but I'm not sure I always liked how it sounded. Perhaps it was a good way of expressing the text though, because the poem seems to be about having a strange feeling and it has a lot of short ideas. Actually, your use of rhythm was a good way of expressing the contrast between the two ideas in the text. I could hear how the texture became clearer and the effect of the counterpoint more simple in the sognando section.

I would use a '2' bracket in places like the end of b.11 rather than have dotted notes. The rhythm looked a little confusing even on my second listen. Also, I didn't like the breaks in the piano part at bars 9 and 2; I think the music needs to keep moving in these places and not have gaps.

I think the main melody (four notes going upwards) needs a slight alteration to it, because you repeat the same phrase three times without a change. Maybe have different harmonies the second and third times, or alter the pitches slightly. It just feels as if it tries to go somewhere and keeps falling back.

Thanks for you input Simon.
The main melody, yeah, that is kind of hard to change I fear. The idea is that the whole octatonic scale the motive is (not as you say the first 4 notes). After two halve tries it finally succeeds. The effect is indeed that it "tries to go somewhere" but it is not meant to fall back, but to break through the threshold.
I did try to use different harmonies. It is accompagnied in ms 5 in C, in ms 18 in Eb, and in ms 41 in G minor. But the build is the same, 2 halve tries, and the 3rd time the whole scale. The 2nd time (in Eb) there is some variation.
So, maybe I am too used to this, or anticipate the 'breakthrough' of the whole scale. I think it is this variation on a larger scale that causes me to feel no need to vary in the smaller scale (i.e. alter notes in say ms 6 or 7). Besides, I am bound by the tonerow...

I disagree on the '2' brackets. I would be honestly disappointed if people misread 2 dotted values in 3part measure for something else. In the case of m.11, the hemiole of 3 quarters made it probably a bit hard to read. I would rather write a tuplet of dotted quarters in the first two beat, than a 'duplet' in the 3rd beat...
But in both alteration I would feel it would make the score harder to read. But this could be a personal preference...?

You did not like the gaps. And you mention measure 9 and 2, I guess you mean the long notes before the con brio sections (in ms 9 en 22)?
I could alter the texture of the piano to have a more continuous movement, but as it is now I do not feel like these are the places that have gaps. I hate the Finale playback of ms 17 and 37 where the fermatas are played too slow. I am going to fix this, and maybe this will solve the general feeling of the gaps?
Anyway, thanks for your feedback, it's appreciated!

My piano teacher mentioned that you pay a teacher to criticize, and not praise, as praise is free. I'll just start with what I did not like about the piece - as there is probably nothing I should criticize

I agree with Simon's observation about stagnation. Here we have a scale that has symmetric properties; modes of limited transposition, if you will. It is very curious that in the first 4 bars we hear a fragment of the row, which is then elaborated on in like rhythms and intervals. And this whole sequence is repeated again, until we hear some motivic development in ms 9. foll. Then, at ms. 18, we hear the same melodic sequence, accompanied by a different key (E flat), and this leads off to a different development episode. It resembles classical ideals of development and phrasing; in particular, it reminds me of Mozart's sense of phrasing (although the variation over the tonal regions here is developed at much more depth, whereas with Mozart it's always tonic-V7-tonic-dominant). Thus structurally I see three occurrences of the principal theme: ms 5, 18 and 41 (which you have so cleverly marked with different accompaniments), and three distinct episodes, one which occurs twice (before ms 18 and after ms 18). The point is you literally repeat the theme and the episode at times, which may provide the sense of stagnation. On the other hand, it clearly underlines the structure introduced by the initial four bars, which is, again, very clever of you. My main grouse is that the piano is in parallel octaves with the voice in bars 5-8; surely you know better than to write something so crude and uninteresting as that.

Performance-wise I would suggest to use less pedal, though this is of course a matter of taste. Too wet, and too blur, for me.

I am sorry for not being able to provide feedback.