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Dear all, Wow - that's an interesting topic for me - Halloween - never wrote a piece for an festival. To make this work more relavent to the work, I did some research to understand more about Halloween. Anyways, here is my thoughts writing this work: I have always known very little for the Halloween festival. To many, Halloween is a festival that focuses on pranking, customing and candies - but there is a long history with mysteries around Aos Sí, the Irish name for a supernatural race in Gaelic folklore, similar to elves. Here are some information from different sources: - Every year, Samhain is celebrated on 31 October – 1 November. During this liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned, Aos Sí could more easily come into this world and were particularly active. Aos Sí were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. From 16th century, there is a tradition in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales, where people going house-to-house in costume reciting verses or songs for food. Some impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. Often, a man dressed as láir bhán, a white horse, and led the younf people for the activity. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune. "...In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin"." These history and myths formed the basis for the plot of this work. HoYin

I declare my intent to participate in the competition.

This one was intended as a kind of character piece. Honestly, I was watching the new season of Wednesday Addams and the music from the show inspired this. LoL There's dynamics in this that hopefully a Clavichord would be better able to perform. Thanks to @Alex Weidmann for his input about how to get the Violin to play classic phrasing rather than portamento! I would appreciate any kind of feedback, comment, critique, suggestion or observation that you may have. Thanks for listening and I hope that you enjoy!

This is great! The sound quality is really nice too, you've come a long way in your mixing/production. Well done, definitely captures a gothic feel. I'm not too familiar with the clavichord, but you got a really bassy low end out of your samples, it sounds really good. Thanks for sharing!

This is my Soliloquy for Organ No. 8. Like my Soliloquies for Organ No.s 2-7 and my two sets of sententiae for organ, it is composed for organ manuals only. Here is the link to my "Soliloquy for Organ No. 7": https://www.youngcomposers.com/t47956/soliloquy-for-organ-no-7/

Great! Also thanks for providing score, it's a practice that despite not feasible in some kinds of music, it is always appreciated because it allows (at least from my POV) to better get the pieces. Regards!

Thanks for your review Daniel. Regarding the previous soliloquies for organ, I had posted them all but they were from before 2016 (actually 2013 and earlier) and so they belong to the list of posted compositions that got deleted once the new version of the website was introduced sometime in late April - early May 2016. To be sure I had reposted some of my 181 posted pieces with the tag "Old Pieces". So I might repost some of my soliloquies for organ No. 1- 6, hopefully soon.

Hi Luder. I liked this one more than the seventh but I feel some imbalance that does not convince me. The piece doesn't seem to end right to me despite of its little development (and thus little need to work much on the ending). Plus, I would say it's the 5-bar phrase and its inner structure somewhat sets me off, not because there's anything wrong per se in 5-bar phrases but as I say because of the (2+2+1)+(2+2+1) inner structure that doesn't work for me in this case. Can you link the other Soliloquies for organ here? Thank you in advance. Kind regards, Daniel–Ø.

Thanks for pointing it out. I changed it in the score and uploaded the revised score.

Wow...this is awesome!! Very fitting for the competition, and so much color and technique. The Bach quote was clever 😄 Great job man, wonderfully written!

Here is my submission for the competition:-

Cool music you got here, do you only have access you mobile? On a PC or tablet, there's way better programs for free you could be using 🙂 Thanks for sharing, and welcome!

your piece is in F minor, you should use flats

Hey Tristan Well, I think this piece is definitely a front runner for most unique ensemble, more so than mine at least haha. Cool choice to use two pianos and only one string player, I was curious to see how you'd pull it off. I like the variety of variations you have, it made it interesting all the way through. My favorite was probably 5, but I also really like the subtle build of the last variations leading into the coda. It's also smart to have ones like variation 10 to help break up the monotony. Cool music! I hope the competition gave some inspiration to music you would otherwise have never written. It did for me 🙂 Cheers buddy, good stuff. Keep writing and practicing!

I like the dynamics added. Sadly the rhythm didn't make total sense at the start to me. Especially not the triplets. Than there it is transposition did with an incredibly good use of dissonance. Sounds like how you describe it. Congratulations! The problem is that 'Turmoil' means uncalm, but this was medium-calm to me.

Mhmmmm, mhmmmm, mhmmmm, mhmmmm, Mhmmmm, mhmmmm, mhmmmm, mhmmmm, This might be a song you don’t want to hear, but I’ll sing it anyway. Looking in the mirror, I’m greeted by a stranger’s gaze, Stuck in this maze, My head feels like it’s going to explode. I wonder if anyone else feels this way, Caught between who they are and who they show, I see the twisted smirk on your face; You’ve haunted my soul for some time now. I can’t embrace you—everyone would laugh and judge. But I don’t care anymore. I’m breaking these shackles and chains, No more hiding. I still have broken pieces, But I’m not afraid to put them back. I’m learning to accept the parts I tried to hide, Letting my true self finally show, Looking back in the mirror, I realize I should’ve done this long ago. Song written by Brianna Hex.