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Hi @Uhor! I love this piece! It gives an antique feeling but the language is modern, just like Vaughn Williams's approach. I like in 2:21 you reach that calm and really sacred passage (the chant?). The violin melody in 2:39 is really touching. Normally I would feel bored by the brass passage but the one in 3:54 doesn't bore me at all, because there is real solemnity here. What I think of is maybe you can add an organ here till the end as well. I enjoy the ending too. No one is "too old" for our forum! As long as we keep learning and progressing no one is old. This forum is for anyone who is willing to mutually communicate on each other's music. Only those who stop learning and consider themselves the best are old. You can continuously submit pieces to our forum! Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Some Guy That writes Music! I like that you use the opening passage as hooking passages, and then use that motive of 2nd as the main motive for the last piece, just like the structure of "Pictures at the Exhibition". I enjoy the change of style in the pieces and the 1st one is my favourite, as I love the imitation which portrays the chasing of children. (Just like the original meaning of "Fugue".) Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Alex Weidmann! Indeed the harmony creates unexpected effect. I like the modulations throughout. At b.56 when you move to E flat major I thought you were using the clichetic "up an semitone" modulation just like many boring pop songs do, but you prove me wrong haha. I don't think it sparse, especially when played in real life it will be full of pedals and the texture would not be thick at all. Only the scoring would be a bit confusing, I think you can simply write those arpeggios out in 32th notes and then have a pedal under it. This will create the same effect and without the arpeggio signs haha. Thx for sharing! Henry

thank you so much for the compliments everyone!

Hi @Cafebabe! I like that you are using the French Overture format for the Oratorio with a slow, dotted passage for the A section and then a fugal fast section after it. I think you can fully extend the A section first by making it in Binary structure, instead of just an 8 bar passage. For the fugal passage of course you can extend it to a full fugue. I like the walking rhythm of the 2nd movement. The melody is nice, and probably you can extend the movement by turning it to a ternary Aria. Beware of the parallel 5th in b.4 of Ab-Eb to G-D. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Tunndy! I think you have done a lot of good stuff here. I like the 2 bar accompaniment pick up at the beginning, the main melody with nice pizzicato accompaniment, that wind tutti chord in b.10 and later b.18 to end the piece, using of horns to soothe the vioin theme in b.11, and the nice flute countermelody in b.15. Maybe the only less agreed thing for me is the use of bassoon. In the whole piece where the bassoon appears, it is playing its high register which will be more stressed in timbre and rather unmatch with the relaxed feeling of the piece. If you really want to have those notes with a similiar timbre, you can use a cor anglais which is also a double reed instrument. Second thing of course is that you can extend the piece haha. P.S. I definitely think this piece can be put into our Christmas Event (although the deadline is January the 1st, 2026 haha!) Thx for sharing!

Hi @mercurypickles! The first one does portrait the dreamy mood with a less firming rhythm of tied triplets, it reminds me how Schumann treat the subject. For the second piece, the thing I like the most is how you treat Ab/G#, play with its ambiguity and put it in F minor/E major, have it resolve till the very end of the work. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @张文灏! This piece reminds me of how tasty a congee is lol! But I would rather not having a medicated congee, since it means I'm sick! Nice singing and arrangement of the song, thx for sharing! Henry

Hello @raymond doerr! I like your use of chimes throughout the piece. Starting from a more joyous A major and end on a calmer F major well fits the Christmas theme. Like @Wieland Handke mentioned I like the pizzicato strings at the end of the piece. Thx for joining the event and welcome to our forum! Henry

Can I steal your piece so I can earn a badge too? 😆

Hi @HoYin Cheung! I think this one can easily be written to an A capella vocal piece with the addition of a bass voice. The modulations are interesting to listen to, and the original E major is actually returned at the end! As long as everything is written by yourself, using AI to generate the soundtrack wouldn't be a problem at all, since it's just a way to realize the piece you originally created. Henry

@Kvothe not sure what you mean

@SeekJohn14v6 Again. This proves our point, sadly.

What a nice piece. Tonal, but quite adventurously so. An absolutely fascinating ending, by the way.

I really enjoyed this piece. You seem to have learnt your composition lessons well. I loved how dynamic the work was, and you seem to have used the instruments to the best potential. Just a couple of nits to pick - it really does feel like that, very minor: 1. Non vibrato is not the best way to ask for no vibrato to be used. Senza vibrato or senza vibr. is better - senza in Italian means "without." Non in Italian in this context would mean "not." Of course it's up to you, the instrumentalists will understand your intention either way, it's just one is better Italian than the other. 2. Slurs in a pizzicato passage are superfluous. I'd remove them if I were you. It's literally impossible to slur between two pizzicato notes. Keep going with your lessons! You're doing great.

Hey everybody! Thanks very much for all your comments! Happy New Year!

I still plan on submitting one more piece, although I don't want to submit it too late to give people time to review it. I think we can wait perhaps till after the weekend to finalize the Christmas Event to give everyone time to review! Thanks for the idea!

I double checked the submission thread and now I think I have accomplished my reviews on all submissions of the participants. Did I forgot anyone? And – Christmas seems to be a busy time – where are all the other reviewers? I posted 20 reviews but received only seven ones (for two submissions)? Perhaps the deadline for finishing the reviews should be extended? However, it was again a great fun for me (even combined with some effort) to participate in that event. Thanks for organizing!

Hello @Fugax Contrapunctus, I discovered your YouTube videos a few years ago when I was looking for new/original compositions concerning fugues and counterpoint. In your channel information I found the link to the Young Composers Forum and so I have to thank you, consequently, that I am here today! Since my own compositional style or approach is counterpuntual, too, I’m very interested in your work and have been following—albeit quietly—your transition from piano/harpsichord fugues to the increasingly vocal-oriented works in the last years. I’m still „stuck“ with my piano project composing 24 preludes and fugues in the form of the WTC, and so I usually write 3- or 4-part fugues (and for now, one with 6 parts). With this experience in mind, writing an 8-part counterpoint cannot be overstated, since you’re literally running out of notes if the voice leading is not organized cleverly. I don’t want to repeat the comments and what you stated yourself about a capella choirs, but there is no instrumentation comparable with the clarity and expressiveness of the human voice. There have been lots of inventions and improvements in instrument building during the centuries, but in my opinion, the achievement was more and more a better blending of that instruments and the introduction of different „noises“ and effects (as one can do with a full symphonic orchestra), but the focus on the „voice“ itself has been lost by that development. So I appreciate the revival of the skills of the Baroque and even the Renaissance era, to transfer them to the present day, possibly in combination with contemporary elements. For me, the most valuable submission to this 2025 Christmas event.

It's amazing how perfectly these two Christmas carols blend together, and not only might you be confused about which song you're working on, but the listener is surely confused too, but in a very pleasant way. Someone might therefore maliciously say that Christmas carols are all the same, but this example proofs that it is really the case, in their universality of the gospel. Yes, there are some slightly dissonances which I like very much, so that the piece doesn’t become „to sweet“.

Thanks! I do wonder if it maybe it would also work at a slower tempo. A brass ensemble playing this outside a church on a chilly, snowy Christmas Eve is exactly the sort of image I was trying to conjure here. Thanks for listening, and for your comments!

After listening your second Christmas carol mashup and following the score I must say you have „invented“ or „promoted“ a very interesting „new genre“ of counterpuntual composition (at least for me). The exciting thing about it is, that the listener usually doesn’t notice the elaboration needed to achieve the mashup. They hear melodies, harmonies, and phrases that are familiar to them, but at the same time something unexpected is happening. I called it „new genre“ since you do not combine single voices together, such as in a canon or a double fugue, but take phrases of two to four voices, which are already harmonized together, and put them against similar phrases from the other carol, thus creating a counterpoint not only of voices but of – to say choirs. That's amazing and very inspiring!

I very enjoyed to listen to this entertaining and festive piece. I cannot give an „explanation“ about the things behind the form, just have an imagination: The A section of the scherzo could be called „anticipation and impatience“, like children playing around before Christmas presents are handed out. In the B section of the scherzo, Santa Claus is standing at the door and suddenly knocks (in bar 29). The trio section for me is the „dance of the reindeer on the ice“ (haha).

@Kvothe Thanks for the info. hmm I’m new to this music tech stuff, i’m gonna have to look all that stuff up later. I think Suno would be very expedient and helpful to composers to lay out their vision and blueprints completed real fast and then have everyone on the team hear the creation then all work together with the same goal and sound that was already created to practice and perform it live. If i was a real composer I would use suno to supplement my skills and bring my vision to life so I already have something to show the team and it will make coordination faster. I could even just send them my creation before we even meet at all so they already know and we would all be on the same page whether they liked it or wanted some revisions done. A lot of work would have already happened before the live rehearsal, a lot of time would be saved too.