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Thank you all for the thoughtful reviews and feedback! I really appreciate everyone taking the time to listen and share their perspectives. I’m glad the harmony, textures, instrumentation, and extended techniques stood out. I’ll definitely keep your notation and musical suggestions in mind for future revisions. Really grateful for the support! 😊

Hi @Seni-G , many thanks for your comment to begin with! I was replying you on mobile phone but it switched to PC, it was being a pain. So: It would definitely be cool, but not sure if the performer would agree 😅, it's not my most technically demanding piece but I don't really think it would be an easy one to deliver. I get what you mean. I didn't see it that way, as while it's true the texture of the piece changes radically at 2:16, the simple melody of this section is introduced around 30 seconds prior. M62 to M83 act as a prelude or a bridge to this brief (perhaps too brief) second theme. I could have repeated (with or without variation) the first measures of that 2:16 onwards, so the structure was more in equilibrium, or invented something else, yeah. At that time, ~2 years ago, I'm pretty sure I didn't think of any of that. Probably my thoughts leaned towards momentum-thinking rather than a "A vs. B" and/or structural equilibrium. Interesting, but a bit confusing since this Mazurka's contrasting section that appears after the repetition of A is in fact very brief, I'd argue briefer than (let's call it) the C section (cause it starts at C). Maybe, making it longer was not what felt off for you and thus it wouldn't have really solved the issue. Perhaps the material was not different enough, making it not fulfill the purpose of a small contrasting section, Prolonging it may have been useful for that, but if anything, Chopin seems to demonstrate here that time is not really a problem if the material is adequate. Again, many thanks. It's always stimulating to overthink of this, give some goes to it based on other people's POVs/clever insights... One gets used to their own pieces, I guess! Best regards, Daniel–Ø.

hmm ok, I take note of that and use next time. Could you respind to the bit about the trills and the horn and violin part though? Honestly confused about what is it that's wrong.

Behind Bars: A double bar line preceeds the new key only if the key belongs to new section.

Thank you so much guys - you're all really kind! @Musicman_3254, I haven't listened to Gershwin a lot, so I'll have to check him out. Since I'm a big fan of jazz-style music, his music sounds so nice! @PeterthePapercomPoser, honestly, I didn't expect such music would be suggested (of course in a positive way)! I didn't know about them, like Takashi and Masayoshi; it sounds like fusion or something like that. I'll dig into them more in the future. @Thatguy v2.0, I had no idea Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood composes concerto works. If you don't mind, could you give me some examples? It's probably gonna be awesome - in fact, Radiohead is crazy! Also, for Xenakis, that specific piece wasn't familiar. Thank you again, guys! I really appreciate it :) Well, if the pieces sound really interesting, any type of avant-garde music is welcome. But if I were to be particular, I want to hear a combination of chamber and electronic music, or electronic avant-garde music. (I'm a big fan of electronic music - familiar with Kraftwerk, and generally speaking, IDM, etc.) I don't have many musical friends in person, and this means I have to search on my own - there are probably some gaps that I missed, even if they are famous. I'm looking for shocking, amazing composers/pieces. Best, Lithl.

Thanks for the great comments about the engraving. I do agree about the empty bars and I made a mistake with that. As for the violin trills, here's an excerpt from Paganini's Variations on a Theme of "Nel Cor Più Non Mi Sento" that does this to avoid chunky notation, and I copied the same idea here so it doesn't look messy. It's perfectly acceptable notation. I think this will help you too, but there's no requirement regarding engraving about double barliens at key changes or tempo changes. It's done as a visual aid, and I personally put it only if the change is at the end of the line. What about the horn sounding note? It's all in a playable range by the way. I'm a horn player. And finally, the piece is meant to be virtuosic, so the octaves are playable. The triple stop is not meant to play as one go, but a broken chord. That's the violin standard! I don' needs to put an arpeggios sign for the player to infer.

@PeterthePapercomPoser: I finished my reviewing.

Entry:Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d'été Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Average Score: 10 Review: You know, I was not expecting piece inspired by the composers of the 2nd Vienna School as part of this competition. I must agree with @MK_Piano with the engraving! It is done with such care! Great job on that front. I must say that instrumentation and orchestration of that is on par. And yes you can play it. It is very creative and it has it unique form. Form when it comes to 20th century, well...let us not bring up. Form in the classical sense was toss out of the window and modern composers were more focused emotion and new ideas. Yes, this went above what expected of the expected and exceeded. Overall, I think this is best one!

Entry:Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d'été Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 10 6 10 5 5 10 10 Average Score:8.25 Review: I have concerns about the engraving about this piece. First, there are many empty measures. There is easy fix for this, though. Do not show them. It will create more professional score. Next up is the trills in the violin section. Place the trill sign above each note vs trill with line. The method you used is for a single note that could be held. Why did you forget to use double bar line when you change keys? and there is different section? With the horn part, please remember what the sounding note is! The consecutive use octave double in a row could be challenging for even for the most experience player. The triple stop you wrote is not possible: it does not have open string. Besides that, it is a nice piece.

Just a quick reviews update: @Kvothe You've reviewed 7 pieces and you need to review @latebeethoven_addict 's piece and @JDevorMusic 's to get a "Heavyweight Reviewer" badge! @TristanTheTristan You've reviewed 2 pieces and only need 1 more for a "Featherweight Reviewer" badge! @Thatguy v2.0 You've reviewed 5 pieces and only need 4 more for a "Heavyweight Reviewer" badge or 1 more for a "Welterweight Reviewer" badge! @MK_Piano You've reviewed 7 pieces and you need to review @Kvothe 's piece and @latebeethoven_addict 's piece to get a "Heavyweight Reviewer" badge! @Ninja Nolan You only need 1 more review to get a "Featherweight Reviewer" badge! The reviewers who have already reviewed every entry - thank you!

@MK_Piano Please note the following in the competition announcement page: I did not have the opportunity or ability to compare the two versions of your score and rendition to see what might be different but hopefully it isn't too drastic as it might undermine the fidelity and consistency of the competition.

Well done @Omicronrg9 ! I agree that this gives perfect Halloween vibes. I think this would be a ton of fun to see performed live, with all those chromatic runs. Your use of harmony is just mysterious enough to give this piece a unique quality and purpose. You do a good job maintaining momentum so that the chromatic material feels intentional rather than wandering. I imagine this music would be stunning if performed on a dark evening in a room with tons of reverb (like an old church), perhaps by candlelight. Personally I’d love to hear this music in that kind of space. I like how you initiated a contrasting section at 2:16. However it doesn’t stay contrasting for long, but jumps back to that chromatic action right away. It might be nice if you had a real contrast at that spot, at least for a bit longer. If you delay the return to the chromatic waltz vibe, it will be even more satisfying when it returns. The contrast doesn’t need to last long; it just needs to clearly make its own little statement. I think about Chopin’s mazurka in F# for example (https://youtu.be/mkveDJgf73U?is=fEcIbMDCWQQihPus), The contrasting sections in that piece are very short, but they are distinct, and clearly create punctuation within the overall form of the piece. Those little sections take you away from the main theme just long enough that its return is a happy reunion. And importantly, those contrasting sections don’t remind us of the main theme. Just a thought! As they say, the point of a bridge isn’t just to make you enjoy the bridge, but to make you crave the return of the main theme. Thanks for sharing! I love the cool video too!

For all those who are following this thread, I have updated the score and audio file. Some very noticeable changes were made to the instrument parts and overall score layout/ engraving. Enjoy!

Thank you so much @Omicronrg9 for listening and for your feedback! It always surprises me how we can all pick up unique and special vibes from the same piece of music. To me this music has always reminded me of a difficult time and of struggle, but then to someone else it comes off as smooth and peaceful. And both can be true. The poem is very peaceful, but it also longs for a time when the sun was shining. This is something so glorious about music: we can listen to the same notes, but all of us hear different things in it, feel different feelings, experience our own private epiphanies. It brings me so much joy to know that you enjoyed the music. Yes Edward is a super talented pianist, well beyond my skill, and he enjoys playing new music. What a gift for someone like me, who prefers to compose rather than perform. I really appreciated hearing your perspective. Thank you for taking the time to share! Cheers! Jonathan

Hey there, Wieland Your music has a lot of qualities I'm envious of, like your knowledge and inspiration from baroque music, engraving technique, clever counterpoint, FUGUE writing, etc. You're very different from me, and I love that I can explore your music to help prop up my weaknesses. I'm a guitarist, and I've probably listened to this about 10 times by now (literally :D). I won't go into detail like @Omicronrg9 did about the accordion with your guitar part, mainly because you didn't really give me much to go off of. You have three polyphonic instruments, yet you took special care to notate fingering and button markings or whatever for piano and accordion, but the guitarist is left trying to figure out hand positions and fingerings. Why? Is it because you're unfamiliar with the instrument? If so, so be it, that's okay, that can be learned. But not one slur?? Only a few chords? Our chords RING, you should use them more. I felt like you treated the guitar like a violin. Sorry, I just found it offensive when going through your piece. Again, it's okay if you're unfamiliar, but I think the piece would have been better off with another instrument substituting the guitar (especially with the care given to the accordion, which I assume you haven't written a lot for as well?) Don't get me wrong, the guitar part is all playable, but the excessive dynamics and lack of articulation when compared to the other instruments just had me hyper fixated with that. Sure, the dynamic markings are probably for the playback, but I would have made a lot of those marks invisible for the score (if your program allows it, ofc). All in all, this music is good, you have talent as a composer, but the guitar part in particular just rubbed me the wrong way playing through the piece. Sorry if I come off harsh 😰, but I'd rather let you know faults in part writing then just showering you with praise, because I like you. I like what you have to offer the world with music, and I like what you do for our community here at YC. You're a gem, my friend. Keep composing!!

Would you be open to sharing the score for the most technical review? Our ears only go so far :)

Whether you win or lose the competition, saying this means you actually won something much better. You know, I've read through everyone's comments, and a lot of what others have said about wind breathing, harp writing, orchestration, etc. all holds true. Take note of it; it's free advice that if applied will help you improve. BUT Your style, your voice, your raw talent that you're hopefully always going to keep working on was really fun and a treat to listen to. Your music is emotional and definitely applicable to the poem. I really really love how you treated the vocals (cool to incorporate vocals btw!). There were large gaps between the phrases, and I think that lead to a balanced feel of it all. You gave solos to the different instruments, letting them all sing on their own and together when necessary. Even though I think the winds could have been fleshed out more and the harp used more effectively, the point is you TRIED and branched out from your comfort zone to compose this piece. You hopefully learned a lot, and with the feedback you've gotten you're more equipped with technique for future pieces. This was definitely one of my favorites so far for the reasons stated. Well done sir, you should be very proud of this piece :)

Any type of style you're interested in? Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead is awesome, he's written concert works too. Stockhausen, Messiaen, Ligeti, Xenakis all come to mind. Here's a weird one for ya :D

Wanted to make something that captured how I felt exploring the great Midwest. The basic premise is sunrise, birds awakening and then taking flight through various environments, from the great expanse of the plains to the soaring mountains. Open to any and all criticism! Fortunately, music is only a hobby and not my job. Low-cortisol enjoyment. HotR_FINAL.mp3

Bela Bartok Takashi Yoshimatsu Masayoshi Takanaka In fact I'd like to recommend a specific album by the latter composer that I love: In hindsight I don't really think this album is quite "Avant-Garde" but I think it's great music anyways. It probably belongs more in that other thread - https://www.youngcomposers.com/t49833/sharing-musicians-and-works-lets-meet-new-music/

Hey Wieland, no rush at all! I didn't rush the post either, in fact it took me longer than I planned 😀. Again, good luck!

Hello @Omicronrg9 ! Thank you very much for this urgent and detailed response! I’m still a little overwhelmed, so that I will need some days to study that all thoroughly – I’m sure, I will learn a lot from it! I’ll get back and reply as soon as possible. Wieland

I would say Igor Stravinsky and George Gershwin are quite avant-garde but I'm not sure about George Gershwin.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.75 10 7 10 10 8.5 7.5 8 Avg: 8.59 Very clear motif throughout, and the whole tone harmony makes this sound more like a fantasy. What's interesting is that I think you mix the harmony with bits of pentatonic. Thus, we have lots of tension and release throughout which helps keep you on your toes. At times I felt like this piece turns into a thriller, and this has a lot to do with your chosen harmony. The piece therefore gives us a mixed bag of emotions. Sometimes I feel like we are in a fantasy world perhaps in a forest. Then there are peaceful sections which could be the summer afternoon setting. The pentatonic sections remind me of beautiful vast fields or feelings of zen. Then we have the viola sections which could be a chase scene. Finally, your harp runs sometimes creates a mood of terror. Nevertheless, this is a very fun and interesting piece, and a good lesson on how harmony can really transform moods from one to another!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7 8 9 9.5 8 8 7.5 8 Avg: 8.125 This is like a mini Beethoven piano concerto, how cool! If I were to rate just the first half, your harmony would be 4 or 5. I'm unsure if the choice of the French Horn as a solo contributed to this. But after the first half, things start to get much more interesting. The piano sections and your choices of rhythm and harmony absolutely remind me of a Beethoven piano concerto. The harmony is no longer a 4 or 5, and the rhythms and melodies mesh together really well.