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Thank you Seni, but I insist it's great that we get to discuss this stuff that lies some layers behind the surface. This is probably the best place I know to overthink stuff in this regard! That's real feedback, something that you can hardly get on Youtube for obvious reasons. Again, many thanks 😊

That's for me to know and for you to find out :)

I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it yet! LoL .. but don't worry .. we'll publish it here when it's done!

ooh what piece is this!

@Grant Weep your comments made my day! I just love that. You totally nailed it. I usually try to write music that sounds spontaneous but also somehow inevitable, structured but also free. I don’t often succeed at achieving this balance, but I appreciate that you felt what I was reaching for. Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment!

A very vivid, lucid and dramatic piece! I thoroughly enjoyed its textures and unique musical gestures. I found the diverse elements of each of the individual instruments in the piece to be somewhat at odds with the desired topic/theme of the competition though. It is definitely a good idea to have the soprano and tenor sing separately first and then together in the last stanza. But the instrumental parts seem to create an atmosphere of tension and the harmony reminds of music for a horror movie or game such as Metroid. The tremolo Viola part especially reminded me of Super Metroid. And the harmonies between the Soprano and Tenor are often not palatable to a sensation of love or summer. The piece is composed quite well however and with quite a bit of craft! It is very intriguing to listen to and definitely holds my attention from beginning to end. Thank you for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 8 9 10 10 10 3 7 Average Score: 8.13

It’s a beautiful trio consisting of Horn, Violin and Piano. I’m sure it’s already been mentioned that for a chamber work like this the proper score order would be Violin, Horn and then Piano at the bottom. Another thing I’m sure has been mentioned is that you should place double bars at key changes and get rid of redundant key changes. The music has a variety of different textures and not all the instruments are playing all the time with plenty of much needed breaks. The horn’s full range is well utilized. As of the writing of this review I am currently playing horn everyday in preparation of recording a solo horn sonata and I can attest to the playability of your horn part. The solo piano Cantabile section at mm. 25 shows off your ability to write a beautiful melody and dress it up through variations in the Violin. The I 6/4 chord at mm. 85 makes one expect a cadenza. Then you have the solo horn come in on the lowest of notes in the whole piece. I wonder if there’s some extra-musical meaning behind this. Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 7.75 9 9 7 9 9 8.25 Average Score: 8.50

A quaint pastorale-like entry with the peace of the summer day channeled through the oboe/soprano voice. The contour of the melody is also very pleasant and made me think of nature. The beginning of the piece functions well as an introduction before the oboe/soprano voice comes in. And the modulation and change of meter are a welcome contrast that develop the piece and bring musical interest! I also like the phrase extensions where you suddenly treat parts of the phrase in half-time (mm. 35). Something I miss that I think could have made the piece more complete is a return to G major at the end to round out the form of the piece into a ternary ABA. As it is, the piece doesn’t really sound finished to me. Granted, it does sound like the end of that particular 6/8, E major section. But it feels like a return to G major and a coda would be in order for the piece to really sound concluded. Minus all the score engraving flaws, the problems with many syllables being sung on a single note, the ensemble patches for the strings instead of individual strings, and the ensemble misnomer since this is a piano quartet with voice rather than a piano trio, this is a very bright and sweet piece of music that quite adequately channels the topic/theme of the competition! Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9.5 9 7.5 8 7 8 9 8 Average Score: 8.25

Writing for a quartet of all the same instrument (not only the same type or from the same family) can be quite challenging but you managed to bring the most important parts out in high relief in your recording which gave the music focus despite the identical tone colors and close harmonic spacing. This listener was hardly ever in doubt about what to listen for. I think each movement of the piece improves upon the previous. Hence, my favorite is III. The Evening. The melancholic hue of this one is just so full of longing and heartache. It’s also obviously a great depiction of the end of a good day/sunset. The music tells me that we don’t want the day to end yet, that it’s too soon. Overall, this entry is full of ideas and contrasts them and sustains musical interest throughout the entirety of its duration. The live recording is another bonus added on top of an entry with an already excellent execution. As of the writing of this review, I’ve been tasked with recording a 4 movement sonata for solo horn. Your live recording is giving me lots of ideas and inspiration to perhaps record my own horn quartet or horn sonata after I finish this gig. Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 9.5 9.5 10 9.5 9 9.5 9.5 Average Score: 9.44

I didn't really get love or summer from this, but to each their own. I guess that's all subjective anyway, and there's no denying your exceptional talent and writing capabilities. It's all superb, and the harp writing is phenomenal. Well done. Good luck in the voting

I am officially going to change your name to “Wieland The Tinkerer” because of this piece! LoL I think the piece is made up of many interlocking contrapuntal parts and took quite a bit of skillful manipulation of motives to put together! My complaint is that usually, in a fugue, the subject gets stated solo before countersubjects or counterpoint is juxtaposed against it. But here, the listener isn’t given a chance to absorb the melodies/motifs/subject before counterpoint comes in to diffuse the identity of the melodic content. That’s why I think the music is hard to grasp at first but grows in quality upon repeated listening. From one perspective the fact that the instruments are constantly coming in and out of the foreground gives the piece more interesting textures and necessary contrast in the thickness of the counterpoint. On the other hand it also seems a little aimless and meandering since the instruments walk all over each other. The beginning especially sounds like a haphazard collection of instruments slowly starting to play together without rhyme or reason. It just seems like you really had to tinker a lot with the material to make it fit your preconceived notions of the kind of piece that it should be instead of letting the music grow organically and instinctively. Perhaps a fugue was not the best choice for depicting the theme of this competition? Perhaps a different genre of music would have been more appropriate? But of course, it’s your choice as the composer and you’ve chosen this form. Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7 8 7 8 8 9 7.5 7.75 Average Score: 7.78

Your melodies have a very lyrical and song-like quality to them (perhaps because they’re .. sung? LoL) They’re quite beautiful and perhaps they’re the strength of this music. The textures you create are also very delicate (most of the time). There are spots where you’re very indelicate however, such as at rehearsal D. Although this didn’t bother me as much once I turned down the volume a bit upon repeated listening. The melodies channeled the spirit of Verlaine’s poem quite effectively I thought! Your score has some collisions between rests and 16th notes in the harp part. And it’s already been mentioned that some of your huge harp chords are unplayable. I do like the middle section of the piece where the harp solo creates a very tranquil and serene atmosphere. Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.6 8.5 8 7.9 6 5 8.5 8 Average Score: 7.56

A very vivacious entry full of life and longing! It depicts the summer love with its brightness and energy. It’s very sweet and vigorous - almost more like spring than summer! I think I’ve just about exhausted my complement of adjectives in describing this piece LoL. There are spots where I feel like there is a missing melody or in hindsight, it seems like the full ensemble should have been playing when only piano was present. I’m talking specifically about mm. 1 - 2 (perhaps I can understand this privation here since it’s the introduction), mm. 18 - 19, mm. 42, 123 & 136 (I feel like here the melody is missing for 3 beats even though the piano has it - it wasn’t brought out enough in the rendition for me to perceive it as present). I really appreciate the interludes (like mm. 50) where the ensemble thins out and a calmer texture is honed for some much needed contrast. I think a more developed denouement could have been achieved with this piece - right now, it seems like the piece just stops in the middle of a main phrase that was heard before. I think for me to perceive a proper coda, it would have to be made up of material that would be related to the main material but varied in a way suggesting the encroaching completion of the piece. Thanks for your idea for this competition and your participation in the creation of the awards as well as for submitting this entry for this contest! Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.25 8.4 8.5 8 10 9 8.9 8.5 Average Score: 8.69

It’s hard for me to imagine “an image of a dreamy Florida sunset over the Gulf of Mexico” with this piece. Also, the piece seems like a concertpiece/show-piece and doesn’t bring to mind Varlaine’s poem nor love. Perhaps it does somewhat exhibit some characteristics of summer because of its brightness and vivacity. As a piece of music it’s certainly quite interesting. Although it’s more full of showy scales and runs than would make sense for a piece on this topic. It makes me question whether the choice of this ensemble and the instruments used are the best for depicting this topic. Although the piece does have its calm and serene sections which could definitely be depictions of your “Pastel Skies”. The sections in triple time at first sound threatening and then deflate into a kind of happy-go-lucky sound one sometimes gets from staying diatonic to major scales. The melodies/themes score isn’t high because their quality was diffuse and I wasn’t able to catch onto and hang onto any sense of a memorable melody in the piece. The harmony is often very basic and diatonic to major scales. One cool thing you have is a riff at pick-ups to bar 145 that is very catchy and memorable. I don’t know if I agree with the enharmonic spelling of some of the chromatics in that riff but it’s nonetheless cool (the D#’s should be Eb’s and the E# should be F’s). Perhaps you approach composition differently using the colors of the instruments themselves to set the desired scene of the music. In that sense the piece is a success! Thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6.9 7.9 6 8.9 7 6 7 7 Average Score: 7.09

It sounds like you just indiscriminately put down diatonic notes in the key of C major. Where you do stray from C major, the chromatic alterations clash with natural notes in some of the other instruments (ex: mm.13 Harp has F# while Viola has F natural) Also, I don’t think the harp can change pedal to F# that quickly while arpeggiating 16th notes at your tempo (in one beat). From your comments, it seems like you deliberately chose not to pay attention to harmony because you were trying to blend “minimalism and 20th century writing”. This doesn’t sound like either of those styles. And you don’t get to just stop paying attention to harmony when composing in any given style. The result is that it sounds like you just randomly and aimlessly started clicking in notes. And the pentatonic/Chinese-like nature of the piece doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the theme of the contest. I’ll repeat what others have said as well: Besides a single F below the staff in treble clef, there’s no justification for using the Viola instead of a Violin. And the clef change to alto clef towards the end is pointless since the range of the part doesn’t change but stays the same. The piece seems to be composed to satisfy just about the bare minimum requirements of the competition - 3 minutes if rounding up and 3 instruments. Nonetheless - thanks for your participation and good luck in the polls. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 3 3 7 3 7 6 3 3 Average Score: 4.38

Your piece is the last I've heard (but not least, just the order I used), and yet you still brought something different from the others. I really appreciate the creativity used with form with this competition. It seems like everyone had such a different take, and splitting the stanzas into an ABA form was a great idea to me. I feel like if I had participated in this competition I would have organized the music in a similar fashion. I enjoyed the tossing around of the LH piano motif to different instruments, and the jovial sense you gave in the composition. A change to the minor mode would have served well as a contrast to me, but the beauty of composing is we all have a different take and direction we feel like the music should go. You give variation in other ways, and I especially love the piano flourishes near the end. Cool ensemble too, the horn was a pleasant change in instrumentation from the other pieces. On a side note, I've listened to basically nothing but Beethoven's late string quartets for the past 4 or 5 months (he's my favorite composer by far). It sounds insane probably, some may even call me a lateBeethovenaddict ( :P ), but I've been obsessed with what I consider to be the greatest music ever composed, always picking up on little details upon every hearing. A profound sadness lingers throughout no.12-16, but also in my opinion a novel and unrepeatable expression we're all lucky Beethoven had the strength to compose in his weakest moments. Good luck with the voting, and thanks for sharing! It was fun to listen to all the different interpretations of the competition, and yours was no exception. Well done :)

To be honest, I'm not 100% certain. On my first listen through it didn't really register as a return A section. The high F in the horn felt like a return, but the section itself felt more like a coda. It was pretty short of a section by itself as well. That being said, this final section was probably my favorite part of the piece. I love the repeating piano figures on p.10, especially when the nice horn melody comes in a few bars later.

Oh interesting, the only time I've seen notehead size relate to dynamics is in some of Percy Grainger's piano pieces.

I realized this too after the fact! It seems like harp was quite a popular instrument for the competition too. Thank you for taking the time to listen and I appreciate your feedback. I find that sometimes I can get away with surprising and unconventional harmonies when there is some thread of connection - that's why I use the recurring motif and ostinatos you mentioned in your comments. I know taste varies from person to person, but I've always found that dissonance can often be quite beautiful.

Wonderful piece! Aside from articulations and key changes as mentioned by others, this was a nice piece to hear and definitely was reminiscent of summer and love. Great advice here :) I hope you learned a lot from our little competition, that is the hopeful achievement after all. No matter the results, you should be proud of a fine piece. I'm not the most versed (pun :D ) with vocal and ensemble music, but it seemed quaint and prudent to the goal of the competition. Good luck with the voting, friend. Hope you stick around

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen and for your comments!

Thanks for providing such a fun challenge! I wasn't familiar with this particular poem, so it was quite fun to analyze and work with. I agree with your thought that it casts more a dream than romance. I initially had the two singers as partners, but decided to go in a more surreal direction with love than the poem may have implied. Also I appreciate those catches in my score - thank you! I wasn't a fan of how the harp chords looked either, but I was running out of time and gave up trying to fix it haha. I'll definitely go in and take a closer look to see if there's a better way to notate them.

Thanks for the comments and for checking out the live stream! As for your notes about the extended techniques: Yes, Xyl. is an abbreviation for xylophonic sounds. It's performed by muting the stings required very close to the soundboard with the other hand while plucking. https://harpnotation.com/de/notation-manual/plucked-sounds/xylophonic-sounds/ The bamboo tone is accomplished by using an alternative fingering to the note. That's why I also have a fingering diagram above in the score. It's a very airy sound with a still defined pitch. https://www.flutecolors.com/techniques/bamboo-tones/ Jet Whistles are a lot of fun! It's mostly air but with a little bit of pitch. You use a full breath and overblow into the flute, so that it goes up, down, or up then down across the first three octaves of partials. I've faked the playback here with hidden harmonic glissandi. https://www.flutexpansions.com/jet-whistle Flute harmonics are weird. You're right, and I've used them in the past to extend the range of the flute. Here I'm asking the flute to play three different partials but all using the same fingering. You get high notes that are possible with other fingerings on the flute, but also able to play incredibly high notes at a very soft and delicate dynamic (with also a slightly different color). https://www.flutetunes.com/articles/flute-harmonics/ Hope that your upcoming orchestral piece goes well and would love to hear it!

no worries, might be wrong. It's just weird, you know?

Okay, you do you man. It's pretty clear that @Ellie Smith is some weird scammer. There have been links hidden in each comment trying to get you to click on them.