Sofia's Scherzo

Here's my new piano piece - a sister piece to my earlier 2009 piano piece, Lale's Lullaby.

It's a playful sort of scherzo, and plays around with the two main ideas: the 7/8 motif (B D C# F# E) and the triplet octaves.

I'd love to hear any thoughts on the music! Hope you can enjoy it.
Again, as with Lale's Lullaby, I tried to find a middle ground between what's really interesting and what the everyday listener wants to hear... though in the end, I wasn't preoccupied with this, and just wrote in my style.

Also, the score is something of a mess at the moment, so I'd appreciate any help on that front - especially when it concerns consistency of a certain notational element.

Cheers

Mp3: http://soundcloud.co.../sofias-scherzo
Score: http://www.box.net/shared/b4cjj16ts1
Youtube vid: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=RCbgJjKd404

I enjoy this very much - very compact introduction of the opening material and a great exploration of it. Nice distribution of voices over the piano to give an orchestral sound. And the rhythmic figures and somewhat dissonant jazzy counterpoint is great.

Love the very short sly reference to chopsticks in the middle of the piece.

Like your idea of the Satie like section to offer a contrast with good reference to the opening material.

Only criticisms - a little more variations of the repeated figure at the end - maybe triplets or some sort of transformation that could be cut short. And there was a point where you just created a harmonic change by transposing a step higher - seemed a little lazy way out to get to the next section. It wasn't a bad thing - it sounded good but not as inventive as everything else you do in this piece.

Hope you get it performed. Would be a wonderful recital piece Daniel. It also shows a great development and direction in your compositional voice. You sound like a far more accomplished and interesting composer compared to what i first heard over a year ago.

Wow, I immensely enjoyed this. Incredible good.
I have no critisism. I could name the things I liked, but then I would be busy for a while. OK, a few goods things then:
I really liked the 7/8 measure. When the motiv is in low octaves the tritone sounds metalish. That contrasting with the sweet triplet-figure works very well.
A nice rest point was the Lento, like satie on LSD. I liked the appoggiatura with then the quirky triplet. I laughed when I heard it. Really scherzo-like.

Are there more pianopieces like this to come?
keep on please!

Hey Daniel!

I already gave you my thoughts on this in an earlier iteration, but I'll update and transcribe them a bit here...

I totally love the quirky and fun nature of the piece, and I enjoy the extensive use you make of that twitchy figure — it really serves the piece well. Your harmonies are as lovely and rich as ever, and they sing especially well in the slower section where you can (or would be able to on a nicer piano sound) make out the resonances and interactions. I think this makes a fantastic performance piece and I would love to hear it performed live at some point!

Really nice work, keep these coming!

good music
cheers 7 up

Thanks Chris, Japp, Marius and Kaka for the nice comments!

@Chris: I see what you mean about your criticisms, but I'm not sure if there's room for more transformations at the end. I will play about with it.

@Japp: Yes, there are more like this to come. This followed Lale's Lullaby, and I will probably do a couple more, and make it a little series.


Note: I've updated the mp3 with a new rendering very kindly done for me by Marius - thanks!

I should be getting this performed in March 2010, so fingers crossed for that!

Dan - Honestly don't change the piece at all. It sounds finished and fine. And I agree there is no room for a transformation. In cases like this I like people to keep my criticisms in mind for the next piano piece or work they do.

Holy sharps!!! (aka measure 129).

I thought it was immensely fun---> did you have any images or thoughts that sparked this song? If so, what are they?

Haha, yes, a lot of sharps there -- it'll take a wee bit of practice to get that bit right!

Glad you thought it was fun.
I didn't really have any extra musical ideas when writing this piece -- I just came up with the two contrasting motifs at the piano ... and their musical logic was sufficiently strong that I could just keep working away at the piece.

I did always have the idea of writing this piece for my friend, Sofia, though, so no doubt some aspects of her personality have filtered in to this.

Thanks for listening.

What can i say? I'm enchanted.

edit: second listen now, still enchanting

Edited by Anders, 29 November 2009 - 10:50 AM.