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Yo Vince my babe! I listen to this piece twice and I am gonna say that I think this is the best piece in the competition so far (of course @ferrum.wav still hasn't submitted his piece lol). The opening itself is already very captivating. The Reich-like repeating figure in the piano scares my 💩 out, and it gives me some Messiaen vibe too from his Quartet of the End Time. It reminds me very much of the rehearsal mark D of the 2nd mov of the work: The octatonic notes really captures the anxious mood well. The Glissando in b.13 intensifies the tendency of my 💩 to burst out from my ass, b.21 even more so, and I absolutely love the polyrhythm in b.20. Even though this section sounds very effective in portraying the horrible mood, structurally it's very tight with motivic usage and you have your materials under your control! The sabbath dance is even more wonderful. It reminds me of Bee's 6/8 fast section in his Grosse Fuge but with Halloween touch. I love the very low register you use for the piano right at the beginning as the unsettle bass of a dance. I would interpret the opening motive a motivic extension from the opening with wider intervallic usage. The melody in b.56 violin, despite sounding in a complety different context and mood, derives from the beginning bar, which shows how organized this work is despite its wonderful mood creation. And while I am typing this sentence the music turns to the contrasting section in b.64, which is another wonderful section with the subito p. The piano melody, harmonics in violin and viola, as well as the pizzicato cello (which the melody comes from the beginning of this section, b.46), combinied together creates a wonderfully eerie timbre. Wonderful development till b.90. And when I think the climax will come, you suddenly tone it down, have the piano playing the melody here, and add a wonderful counterpoint with a jazzy touch in b.96. This struggle between lightness and grotesque really enhance the drama of the work, just like the film ＂It was just an accident" I watched where the director added comedy touch to enhance the tragedy of the whole film. The polyrhythm, use of the high register of violin and cello and piano, very reasonable development of materials in this section is wonderful to listen to. After the slight "rest" in b.112 which resembles b.68, another great development follows with more instensified imitations and answering of motives in b.119,and after reaching the climax it moves fluently to the A' section in b.136 with a quicker tempo. The polyrhythm here is even more complicated and wonderful. Within the general mood of the piece, even the "normal" C major sounding in b.154 sounds weird. I love the sadness you reach in b.166 (in my favourite C sharp minor!). It doesn't sound out of context at all as it follows fluently from passages before! Next is the section in b.171. The transition to it with mood and tempo change is so coherent, and now it's the shortening of the motive with just the minor second left with octatonic key influence. I have nothing to say in this section given how you develop the climax in b.231, and then.... a random pause? Where do you learn the idea from haha!!!?? The ending is wonderful reminiscence of the beginning as well! I would give this piece the 1st place from all the pieces available now, given how wonderful this piece is from mood, treatment and development of materials, timbre, rhythm, structure... It's just so perfect itself and with the eerie elements in it it just adds as a bonus as a competition piece of a Halloween competition. You are too kind, it should be -100/10 as it's "so below" lol! Thx for sharing this wonderful music to us!!!!! Henry

@Henry Ng Tsz Kiu Some of favorite composers are Chopin, Brahms,Tchaikovsky, Malher, Ravel, Debussy, and of course...we can not leave behind holts and others. So i want combine romanticism with modern harmony with traditional form. A real perfomace is not real in cards right now. But I am working towards that.

Hello @MK_Piano! I like the dark opening with all low registers from the strings! You mention Mozart in your programme notes. That G-A-B-C motive definitely reminds me of the opening of his D minor Piano Concerto K 466, as well as Beethoven's op.111 first movement. I like this light hearted dance, and the cello melody in b.13 which would later be reused in the Doloroso part. I like the B minor and nepolitan Db major chord in the Doloroso section, as it makes the music more unsettling, combining with the triplets, and it would be great if there are more polyrhythms here, like the one in b.43 to make the music rhythmically more unsettling! Personally I would want the Doloroso section develops a bit more as I feel like the modulation to F minor is a bit too early for me. But this is subjective in my part! For b.56 I may just write the viola part as Ab-Db to show the nepolitan chord, but I know that your G#-C# would like to show the upward resolve, as well as preventing a natural sign in the next bar's D so it's ok too. The modulation to A minor at the end makes the music brighter and I like how you vary the texture to get the music more exciting till the end! The ensemble writing here is almost perfect. One thing I would hope for is that you will give viola a chance to play the melody in solo! I always like its distinctive timbre as it doesn't get too stressed in its high register like cello, nor too hard in notes normally played by violin's G string. Thx for joining the forum and the competition! Henry

Hi @Kvothe! i quite like the pantonal opening, and the waltz at end is quite nice, mixing Tchaikovsky with some eerie touch. I actually feel a bit sad the rendition doesn't capture the col legno sound well enough! It will definiely sound much better with real instruments and create the ghostly mood. For me the piece can definitely be developed more extendedly, just like @UncleRed99 said. The ending sounds incomplete to me, as the whole waltz is a 16+8 structure. First you can definitely extend the 8 bar phrase to a 16 bar one, and you can add some contrasting sections within the waltz, possibly from materials in the pantonal to extend it a bit more. The opening for me can also extends longer for a more haunting mood portrayal. Second is the smoothness of different sections. There are 3 sections in the piece: the opening mysterious pantonal section, and then the 6/8 section, and then the waltz. Each of the sections sound isolated with each other and the transition, apart from the good col legno transition in b.41-44, sounds less smooth in b.17-18. I would suggest you at least add one more section to incorporate all of these presented materials together for a more completed synthesis and development of the piece! Thx for joining the competition and sharing your piece! Henry

Here is @Dima's submission to the competition!

My fault, already fixed it

Exactly, my apologies! Already fixed

me too! Maybe @Dima you have to change the access right for your link in Google drive! Henry

@Dima I can't access your links - it says access is denied.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t5TAfYhss_0AJAAgphRT7k-0usiaMLK7/view?usp=drivesdk https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PFLvXBrd4z0xsdPFV2V7vS0dVS73yJT3/view?usp=drivesdk Hello! There is my work. It uses our national dance song and opens its dark side of angry and mindless dance

I don’t write in score, as I’m not too great at scoring. I’m working on scoring this out, but it will take a while.

Entry: American Cryptids Average score: 9.5 (very good) Review: Each movement captures the character of Cryptiad! Execution: the competition was to write a 3-7 minute piece with a sweet spot of 5. This a multimovement work. However, it is scored solo strings. And it is quartet. Score/Playability: There were some minor details. But...maybe, submit each movement seperately. 9.5. Originality: Definitely original 10 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 9.5 9.5 8 9

Hey thanks for checking it out! I'm glad you liked it, I was definitely going for horror movie vibes 😄 Wow, thanks for taking the time to give such an extensive review! It's pretty tough coming up with numbers, especially ranking them amongst others. It's also nice to hear what you think of my work in a structured detailed way... makes it easy to figure out how I can improve by taking advice into consideration. We can thank Peter for that haha. Thanks again! Hey thanks Cosmia, and welcome. You can always share your thoughts, it's encouraged! 😄 Have you posted any music yet? Be sure to so we can check it out 🙂 wanna see a bad one? yeah......I forgot to put the accel. to 240...... To explain, my version is slightly different than what I posted. I had to do some quick maths to change the tempo on each eighth note for 3 measures to get Sibelius to play it back as correctly as it's allowed to be. Whoops Ah, guess I could've explained that. It's a play on "as above, so below" and demons being fallen angels. Thanks for all the kind words, too! 😄

Hii, I had to say I really like this submission! It's so very fitting of the actual theme of halloween as a festival, reminds me a lot of dungeon synth genre and pixel art video game music. I love how the melodies intertwine and there is a constant flow that's being developed as well as the factural changes (from 1 instrument to many). I can definitely hear this going on in the background of a halloween party, keep it up! ^^

20247637.mp3 Sagai Go (Reprise).pdf I have reworked this piece since I last shared it, a few months ago. Sort of at a loss for what to do next, so I've been going over some older scores, correcting mistakes, improving harmonies and adding sections in places where it felt lacking. This score in particular, I had always felt was missing something; like the last section into the outro was rushed. So I added in a section between there to smooth out the transition into the outro, and have also changed the key of the score. I think it came out quite beautifully. I wasn't very scrutinizing to it for much else other than it's flow. If there are other mistakes that I missed, please feel free to call em' out 🙂

Entry: Piano quintet in G sharp minor Review: The metrical stress of the composition switches between pattern 2, 3, and 5. The meter in the composition are 4/8. 3/4, 6/8, and 5/4/. These meters have different stress pattern and feel different. It would wise to either stay the 8th is division: 4/8, 6/8, and 5/8 or switch to 2/4. 3/4, and 5/4. Furthermore, it is hard to know where half point of each measure is. In some measures, there are two 8th notes rests that can easily be a quarter rest, or two 16th rest that should be 8th rest. That would make easier to read in the piano part. In rehearsal H: you are implying both 2/4 and 4/8. It is hard to know what meter you are using. I could not follow that section... Overall, in both score presentation and playability this will be score 6 for the reasons explained. The overall landscape of the piece was polyphonic, and it used atonal methods: possibly set class and others(?). This will be score be 9 The execution of a sonata form Exposition-Dev-Recap was well done. 10 There were well crafted themes, motives, and melodic materials 10 (also for creativity). This entry meet requirements of competition 10. It was done well 10 Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 9 10 10 6 6 10 10 Average score: 8.8 Above Average/Good

And @Micah has posted their submission as well!

Here is my submission. The whole string quintet is 5 movements, but I've just given the first 3 to fit the time slot. It's a link to the Google Drive folder with the WAV files and score. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MD4VU4YyL0m1n5gULbGStdbZU396P_oN?usp=sharing I hope I put this in the right place- I'm quite obtuse when it comes to this website.

Here is my submission to the contest: After finishing that, I will now go forward to review the contributions from the other participants.

This is my contribution to the YCF Fall 2025 Halloween competition: First the story: On the last evening of October, you take a walk to the nearby urban forest. In the shade of the trees, dimly lit by moonlight and distant streetlights, you spot five figures. They're not ghosts or other sinister creatures, but musicians who – somewhat awkwardly, like marionettes – are performing their Halloween serenade. All this puppets – while playing perfectly together – have their own character: The pianist hides behind his slightly out-of-tune piano. The flute player trembles a little nervously, while the horn player sometimes blares loudly, the clarinetist and the bassoonist alternate between playful and calm roles. After the last melancholic chord has faded away, the wind picks up, swirling the leaves on the forest floor. The rain begins to fall and the illusion disappears into the mist. Now some musical explanations about the piece: The piece is derived from my Prelude XVIII in G sharp minor, arranged as a piano quintet with woodwinds as the accompanying instruments, in that particular case flute, clarinet, French horn and bassoon. For me, the key of G sharp minor has a mystical and gloomy character and since the piece features many dissonances and rich chromaticism - together with the usage of the tritone as a central interval – it seems to fit perfectly with the subject of the competition. Here is the structure of the piece, composed in sonata form: 0:07, mm. 1 – Exposition, 1st Theme: The first thematic material (highlighted in purple) consists of a quartet of chromatic runs and syncopations that can be easily be distributed among the four woodwind instruments, achieving a playful character – in spite of the dissonances. 1:02, [E], mm. 30 – Exposition, 2nd Theme: As the second theme (highlighted in blue) I quote the subject of the subsequent Fugue XVIII in A flat minor in a rather chorale-like and calm form. 1:25, [G], mm,46 – Exposition, Codetta: Repetitive notes (highlighted in green) form the thematic material of the codetta, first in chords accompanied by the bassoon, and finally as a tutti. 1:52, [H], mm.55 – Development: In the short development section, the augmented second subject and the chromatic runs and syncopations from the first theme interwove together. 2:40, [K], mm. 78 – Recapitulation: In the recapitulation, the instruments change their roles, picking up the voices from their counterparts and swapping solo vs. tutti sections to avoid a simple repetition of the exposition. The codetta with plaintive chords finally descends in a morendo to the minor triad. Here is the score: Piano quintet in G sharp minor

Great! I will be looking forward seeing @ferrum.wav and @Wieland Handke entries. If @Micah submits his, then I can score that. 🙂 Do not rush your entries. Submit what you have. And see what happens.

I nearly finished my work and intend to post my contribution today, in about a few hours.