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You are right! Beethoven wrote the theme in the seventh of his 12 Contredenses, WoO 14, then use it in the finale of the Creatures of Prometheus, op. 43, then in the Eroica Variations for Piano, op. 35, then use it in the final movement of his Eroica Symphony! Very economical and "environmental" with all the recycling! 🤪 I do this myself actually, haha! I sometimes transform the themes from my unpublished, unfinished pieces or pieces I don't like to pieces I love!! Actually I have the same feeling with Vince. I know that you have transformed the theme in different ways, but I think the decisive matter here is the texture. I really think there's too many imitations between flute and clarinet, and bassoon should carry some melodic parts! Since the thema itself is very imitative, I would like to see some of the variations less imitative or even homophonic! I will check this out when I have time!! Thanks! I am watching all those details, hehe😎🧐!! Henry

@jawoodruff Thanks SO much! Clearly, to say the least, I'm not a violinist. I can easily eliminate the double stops in the orchestral version by distributing them between the primi and secondi. I'll think of a different solution for the violin and piano. Thanks for the notes about bowing and accents. I'll try and find a violinist friend to help me understand better with concrete examples, but in the meantime I'll just us my imagination and re-bow. Looking forward to writing a new version of this sonata with all the invaluable input of @PeterthePapercomPoser, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu and yours! Thanks!  

You must be thinking of the March variation or something ... ???  You didn't think any of the piece felt melancholic? Yes - I haven't written a fugue in a long time and I don't usually like it.  I did go through a phase where I was crazy about writing fugues!  And I actually wrote an Organ Variations (no - not variations in those types of organs) piece which had a chaconne and a couple of fugues in it that ended up being more than 10 minutes long!  People who reviewed that piece were all like "why did you write so many fugues?"  LoL  But I guess you wouldn't have a problem with that haha. Yes - that kind of imitation made an appearance in a few places throughout the piece.  The March is the first place where it happens.  Then it also recurs in the last 4 variations too. Yes I agree with you that plenty of other elements of the theme could have been varied still.  The piece should actually be over 30 minutes long!  Muhahaha!  But seriously, I do feel like I might return to this theme in another installation of more variations.  I think Beethoven did that too right?  He wrote a set of variations and then appended it with another publication of more variations on the same theme?  I could be wrong.  I do think this piece and the mistakes in it will help me write a future set of variations to be even better!  (I hope)  Btw - this is my 2nd set of variations for Wind Trio.  I have another one in Bb minor too!  Variations for Wind Trio in Bb minor Thanks!  I don't think you're nitpicky.  You're the life of the party!  LoL Thanks so much for reviewing mine as well as sooo many others works with your keen eye for detail!

Thanks!  I listened again paying special attention to these timestamps and I do hear the ones at 3:19, 6:09, 6:46, 6:59 but not the others.  But since some of these are definitely objectively a flaw in the recording my only guess is that my computer did it when it was rendering the mp3.  I am used to these kinds of imperfections happening all the time if I use the playback feature in Musescore 4 with Musesounds.  But I usually expect that to be smoothed out and rendered ideally when the computer has as much time as it needs to create an mp3 rather than playing back in real-time.  Maybe I could try re-rendering it again. I guess part of the reason I did this is to keep the listener aware of the fact that they're hearing the same material over and over, and yet, it's surprisingly different each time.  This juxtaposition between the new and the familiar is what I think attracts me to the variations form.  But I don't think I'd like it so much if the listener lost track at some point in the variations process of how the material is related to the original theme. And I know you're already aware that the flute isn't always the melody but I thought I'd just mention the exceptions to this here:  in II - the Minuet, the Clarinet has the melody until the last recapitulation of the melody in meas. 59 which is taken over by flute; in III - the March, the Clarinet engages in canonic imitation with the Flute taking over the melody for a bar here and there; in VI - the 2nd Minuet, the Clarinet also leads with the melody until the Flute takes it over in meas. 139; in VII - the Scherzo, at meas. 173 the Clarinet takes over the melody from the Flute.   I do write for the flute pretty high!  Up to a high Eb above the staff which proved too high for Musesounds Trumpet patch which is why I switched the instruments.   I don't see how I could have done that since I wrote the whole piece for brass and finished it before I went to the computer and started inputting the piece, only to find out that Musescore won't playback my material as intended because of range issues (which shouldn't have been a problem imo).  The whole thing was finished before I had to decide to switch to woodwinds, so I couldn't have been disappointed by that when writing it!  LoL Thanks!  I'm glad you enjoyed it and your gripes just highlight the fact that no piece is perfect and especially one like this that was originally written for a different ensemble and hence is not presented in it's ideal form.  @jawoodruff didn't know what a Lilt was either.  That's because I made it up.  LoL Thanks!  I personally didn't like the ending myself, I think Musesounds playback can sometimes lack force and hence finality.  Or it could just be my writing - but I did try to create a crescendo to fff at the end and it still wasn't enough ... oof That's music to my ears!  Literally!  LoL  Seriously, I'm greatly indebted to you for your high appraisal of my music and the time you take to give your reviews.  This must be the longest review I've seen of anyones music here recently!  It's rare that a music hobbyist like myself can find people who appreciate them during their lifetime!  Now I'm gonna go sit at my old computer and try to dig some old compositions out from oblivion and finish.  Thanks for your review!