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Good morning, my dear friends! I’m happy to present to you once again my latest work, Binary Sonata No. 28. It is personally one of my favourite sonatas, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do!

Thank you so much, my dear friend! ❤️ I must admit that I haven’t listened to Clementi extensively, although I have heard some of his sonatas that I found truly distinctive and beautiful. The composers who have shaped me the most, and who have had the deepest influence on my musical language, are primarily Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. As for being called Mr. Schubert, I can hardly imagine a more honourable compliment. Schubert is a composer I hold incredibly close to my heart, and to have my music bring him to someone’s mind is deeply moving to me. I could hardly ask for a greater compliment. ❤️ Scarlatti, however, occupies a very special place in my musical life. He was the one who gave me the courage and freedom to explore the binary form in my own way. When I first discovered his sonatas and began studying them, it was almost as if I had seen the light. Discovering his music was a truly defining moment for me. I was overwhelmed by the sheer genius of his writing and by how astonishingly far ahead of his time he seemed to me. His music opened up a whole new world of possibilities, and I began to realise just how much could be expressed within such a concise form. I sometimes wonder whether, had I never discovered Scarlatti, I would have become a composer at all. Through my binary sonatas, I feel that I can express myself with complete freedom, bringing together all the musical elements, influences, and sensibilities that define me. I have always felt that the binary form is somewhat underrated. Despite its apparent simplicity and relatively small scale, it offers enormous possibilities for exploration. Within this framework, a composer can push boundaries, experiment with harmony, develop unexpected transitions, and discover new musical horizons in countless different ways. For me, bringing together all these influences within the binary form has gradually become a personal creative approach, as well as a motivation to explore my own musical voice ever more deeply. Scarlatti gave me the freedom to begin this journey, but the journey itself has become my own. I don’t want merely to imitate the composers I admire; I want everything I have absorbed from their music to become part of something genuinely personal. Ultimately, my hope is that when someone listens to one of my binary sonatas, they can recognise a distinct musical personality and feel that, despite all these influences, the music belongs unmistakably to me. That there is something in it that makes them think: this is truly Vasilis. Thank you again for listening so attentively and for such a thoughtful and generous comment. It means a great deal to me! And being called Mr. Schubert will always remain one of the greatest compliments I could receive. ❤️

Thanks! Glad to hear another potential working on these prompts besides just me and @Luis Hernández ! I don't know if I'll be looking to expand pre-existing pieces that I wrote based on the Persichetti exercises. I think once I sift through the whole book and do exercises from every chapter, I will start the book again at the beginning and comb the exercises for potential prompts that could be utilized to write longer, more substantial works. I still don't know if these exercises are conducive to longer form works honestly. But I am also amassing my own google doc with prompt ideas inspired by these that I could use in the future to write more music, so who knows! Thanks for your comment!

This is super cool! I love the Persichetti book and have done a lot of these exercises in the past. Really nicely done. I personally think you did a great job with the inverted canon - very impressive to keep it in pure canon the entire piece. I wonder that if expanded, it would be interesting to change the distance of the canon the same time you change the modes used. The effect of having multiple articulations (slurred to staccato eighth notes) happening simultaneously is a fun touch.

i would like to have harmony

I do have to admit the general textural density remains quite staunchly homophonic-sounding for quite a good few passages, mostly in the developmental section. As with my previous motet, the main focus here was once again textual intelligibility, so in order to break that lack of variety in note values and durations across voices I would need to add in new passages or modify the existing ones by pruning the underlying counterpoint to accommodate for longer values, which at this point seems... somewhat unfeasible, to put it lightly. I could have added an Amen section at the end but after repeating the same incipit in the stretti and then following up with a Da Capo al Fine at the very end, I doubt it would have made much structural sense compared to, say, placing it right after the "Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum" phrase where it is normally expected to be ennunciated. Nevertheless, pondering your suggestions has made me realize that the underlying structure was not calculated thoroughly enough, and even if it does have a clearer sense of direction, structural integrity, Fortspinnung, etc. than most of my other compositions by my usually fairly chaotic standards, it still falls short in the end. Had you not pointed out the textural flaws I might not have considered the whole absent Amen tangent. Thank you kindly for bringing these points forth.

Thanks for sharing! Just to clarify for myself and others who may view this post, are you looking for comments of any kind?

Thanks for listening and leaving a nice comment. I don’t write in score and I’m really slow at doing it afterwards. I recently finished my first opera and I’m in the process of putting it down into score. So, possibly at some point I’ll upload this one.

You were mentioned!

When did I speak? 🤪

We meet again @Vasilis Michael or should say: Mr. Schubert. ❤️ While it says it sonata, the overall does not follow what we think in that sense. That is why there is the clarification: binary. Binary implies AB. We must ask this follow up question; How did manage write a Binary sonata? Rather easily. Muzio Clemeti wrote plenty of these. However, what I am impressive this time is the dramatic pause after the TR zone that leads up MC. I did not expect to hear that in early classical sonata(binary) form. To me, that is something that Haydn or Mozart would do. As @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu noted this does sound like Scarlatti. But I am extended the olive branch further and saying Clemeti, too. Late barque and early classical sonatas are rare to hear. It is refreshing to hear.

after procrastinating in enough time, I actually had listened to it, and after even more procrastinating, I am now going to write my opinion in review first off this is amazing piece of work and it was all enjoyable. Even the use of extended technique was good and also also the recording quality was also phenomenal. This would be programmed well for an Easter or coming of spring concert and I appreciate all the different tambre in harmonic use you use. especially at the last scene with the use of minor seconds to convey some sort of sour bitterness following jesus’s death. it also had a hymn like feeling to it as well. Great job

This is really delightful; I wish you had included the score as well. I'm not familiar with this Hans Christian Anderson story, but you paint it very clearly.

You do an excellent job here of exploring interesting harmonic ideas and making each line its own interesting melody. I wonder how this would sound with some longer note values as either a pedal in the bass or a slowly ascending or descending line to break up the texture a bit? (This would get your text out of sync between parts and less easily understandable, so maybe that's not something you want to explore). If you have a minute, could you add the full text and translation to your original post to help us all keep track as we listen without needing to open an extra browser window of our own and toggle back and forth? This sounds great, and looks like it would be interesting to sing!

Here my new waltz hope you like it i would like for harmony Waltz.mp3 Waltz.pdf

Thanks again @gmm for your review. I will definitely have a go at extending the piece along the lines you suggest.

Hi @gmm , Many thanks for listening. I'll take another look at that divisi, and revise. It was optimised for midi rendition, as were the dynamics: so I will have to make quite a few adjustments when I come to make a proper orchestral score. Otherwise the dynamic balance doesn't work well for real musicians.

What do you think will neural networks ever be able to learn to generate truly unique vocals that are indistinguishable from a real singer?

Hi @Alex Weidmann , I really like your arrangement! The orchestration is very vivid and colorful, and I overall found it very enjoyable to listen to! The only thing that seemed odd to me: in measure 20-21 the divisi in the violins seems odd. You have effectively four voices, but you have the entire Violin II on one voice, half the Violin I section on another voice, and the other two voices split between the other half of the Violin I section. It would seem simpler to just have these four parts split evenly between the Violin I and II? Either way, great orchestration and very fun to listen to!

As we transitioned into the off-season, I have finished a project that I intended to finish and to start for months ago before the competition on here in the competition on the music conservatory (the discord server with the tournament). So I am very proud to announce my next production in piece titled MORSE (I originally did it without caps, but it just sounds cooler with caps) Program notes: Monday when I was in my maths class with my friend, we were very bored and decided to communicate and make small jokes in Morse code. Of course, I questioned him if he knew any of it which he did sometimes, and we can just joked around teasing each other with it at the end of the day I had a thought. "maybe I could turn this into a actual piece of music." which I did. Other than just blatantly straight out just normal Morse code. There is a larger image to this. It's the idea to find the answer to many things. We may have to look where places where nobody expects us to look to find answers to simple questions. We must use clues in order to decipher ideas. There are, four movements a opening movement, drawing inspiration from infinity, percussion's "resønate" featuring various meditative percussion instruments, a slower, 2nd movement, a 3rd movement, which is to pose as a Scherzo and Minuit and a grand finale with its closing statement almost resembling that of Dvořák's seventh Symphony (which somehow I have transformed from a previous statement of a motif and theme presented in the 2nd movement So, after all these months of stalling and procrastinating and dealing with other stuff, I have present to you, my production MORSE Morse.mp3 Morse.pdf

Cooked up a little metalesque number in honor of the Halloween season. Dead Man's Party .mp3

Hello @Lithl , Someone introduced to me George Crumb recently...he has this fun piece he wrote for his dogs. The best part is the end, where I guess I'm spoiling a bit, as he ends it with a spoken word - "bad dog!". There is another one called Echoes of Time and the River. His scores are beautiful and almost like a work of art themselves. He also uses the instruments in more unique ways. Not totally my cup of tea personally, but can definitely appreciate the genius behind his stuff. So there ya go, hopefully this is avant garde enough for ya :)

Hello all! This is a piece I wrote for college. The first movement was performed, and I was supposed to have the rest performed before the end of the month, but unfortunately, the ensemble that would have played it got too busy. The piece is kind of in a similar vein as my first large scale work, the Seven Sorrow; a program piece based on a traditional Catholic devotion. The difference is, while no other composer had written a piece on the seven sorrows, there are composers who have written pieces about the stations of the cross (Liszt's "Via Crucis" comes to mind), though I approached it quite differently, I think. Rather than a movement for each station, I made it a 3-movement brass quintet where each movement represents several stations. The first 5 stations in movement 1, the next 4 in movement 2, and the final 5 in the finale. The stations are shown both in the score and in the video with pictures. The Stations of the Cross for Brass Quintet - YouTube Stations of the Cross.mp3 Stations_of_the_Cross_Full.pdf

Haha!, Thank you that you intend to put me in a row beside yourself as one of the „...The…“ composers, however perhaps I will stay comfortable with my usual name. I don’t want to overemphasize to the listener that I’ve used contrapuntal and even fugal techniques in this piece—it’s simply the compositional approach I’m comfortable with. And that’s why I would describe it only as a “fugato,” not as a full-fledged “fugue” with its unique or “solo” exposition of the subject. On the other hand, there are the passages featuring the poem. I must admit that I struggled with the text insofar as I could not recognize any recurring rhythm or syllable count in the poem (which may be because I do not speak French and am therefore unfamiliar with the pronunciation and articulation of the text). The musical setting of the poem thus did not result in a “traditional song” with verses and refrains, but can rather be described as a “Kunstlied” in German, in which each verse has its own melody (by the way, this seems to have been the approach of all participants who attempted to use and set the poem to music). In these passages, the fugato subjects are thus used only as accompaniment, but I consider this important for creating a recurring structure and preventing the piece from sounding too “random.” Yes, for this piece I hesitated to simply distribute the four-part voice leading among four instruments, such as in a string quartet. Rather than that, I tried to create an instrumentation more influenced by a large orchestra. That’s also the reason of my unusual score order, already discussed in the thread. With a certain extent, that was intentionally: I wanted to manifest the compositional process from „Nothing“ to „Something“, so I decided to have a piece with (at least) three somewhat different ideas being glued together (the improvisation in the introduction, the „choral“ and the fugato), but due to the poem sections and the recapitulation there are in fact even more passages one could feel being only loosely connected and not as organic as – for example – if just one or two ideas had been developed.

Dear @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, it’s been quite a while (almost a year) since I first heard this piece, and I just wanted to give some feedback on it. But—as is so often the case—there are many other things to take care of first, either because they’re more important—such as composing for competition deadlines or reviewing competition entries—or because replying to much shorter or even “imperfect” pieces seems so much easier. Writing a profound review of a long and complete piece is therefore somewhat a challenge if one doesn’t simply want to imply write in the style „what a beautiful piece – thxs for sharing“.” With that in mind, today’s post is not a “final review,” but merely a collection of some initial impressions of the piece, based largely on listening rather than on a thorough analysis. So perhaps I’ll return to this later, once I’ve become more familiar with the piece. First of all, this isn’t just a “piece”, but a “work” or an “opus”. This is due in part to its sheer length (14 plus 32 minutes and a 235-page score), but above all to the “density” it contains. You have chosen the instrumentation of a string sextet, which gives you the device to have a voice leading with up to six parts and a well-blended sound. On the other hand, with that choice you are „stuck“ with the sound or „timbre“ of the strings only; so that there cannot be „landmarks“ in the piece being memorable to the listener only due to the occurrence of other instruments having a distinctive color (as, lets say „trumpets and timpani“, or a harp, or special woodwinds like a bass clarinet etc.). With this precondition, all memorable themes and „landmarks“ must been achieved in a very subtle manner, interwoven in the dense texture of the six „busy“ string instruments. And this has been achieved convincingly, although it is challenging for the listener to remain focused throughout the 45 minutes. Therefore, the piece is not suitable for casual listening but should be enjoyed in a way that allows the listener to remain undistracted: ideally at a live concert or—as I tend to focus on music—while listening during a long walk. So that (i.e. listening while walking) is what I did yesterday and so I can now describe some of my impressions: I intentionally do not read your introduction/analysis again to focus on that I’ve listened (and at the some facts I remember from the first reading of that introduction a half year ago): The first movement is dominated by the „main theme“ of the entire sextet – I think it is even recapitulated at the end of the second movement. With its optimistic mood, that „main theme“ reminds me somewhat at Edvard Grieg’s „Morning Mood“ from the Peer Gynt Suite. And when looking at the score and scrolling fast through the first ten pages, there is a real dense texture in the accompaniment consisting of fast ostinatos, so that the melody has to „rise“ from that morning fog. The other and contrasting passage I perceived was the short fugue in the middle of the first movement – and I think to remember, you’ve described that as a three-part fugue. The second movement has a quite other mood: Much more drama or even „fight“ - and the occurrence of other colors by the strings (pizzicato, striking the bow against the wood, etc.). I particular liked the pentatonic passage, but then I waited for the six-part fugue (I remembered of it due to your analysis) – but I must admit that I must have missed it. Sorry, that is a bit embarrassing for me as the „fugue guy“, so that I’ll take another walk today and perhaps start with the second movement to be concentrated enough all the time ...