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Just as was the case with the previous movement I composed for this Requiem in the works, "Libera me, Domine", the subject came first and I then had to find a suitable liturgical text that matched the prosodic and accentual patterns implied by its rhythm and melody. Since today's current date, October 10th, has been the World Day Against the Death Penalty for over 2 decades now, I figured it was quite a reasonable occassion to post a Requiem movement as I just finished it. The picture to the left of the thumbnail was originally taken from a sarcophagus found at the Abbey of St. Clement at Casauria, Pescara, Italy. Its text, whose incipit serves as the main feature of this composition, belongs to Psalm 143 "Absolution of the Dead". YouTube video link: Original liturgical text and translations: Latin: Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine, quia nullus apud te justificabitur homo, nisi per te omnium peccatorum ei tribuatur remissio. Non ergo eum, quaesumus, tua judicalis sententia premat, quem tibi vera supplicatio fidei christianae commendat: Sed, gratia tua illi succurente, mereatur evadere judicium ultionis, qui dum viveret, insignitus est signaculo sanctae Trinitatis: Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. English (20th-century missal translations): Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for, unless Thou grant him forgiveness of all his sins, no man shall be justified in Thy sight. Wherefore, may he not suffer, we beseech Thee, the sentence Thou pronouncest in judgment upon one whom the faithful prayer of Christian people commendeth to Thee, to be a doom which shall crush him utterly. Rather, succour him with Thy grace, that he may be found worthy to escape the vengeance of that judgment, who, while he lived, was signed with the seal of the Holy Trinity. Thou who livest and reignest, world without end. English (Modern Standard Vernacular): Enter not into judgment with Your servant, O Lord, for in Your sight no man shall be justified, unless through You the remission of all his sins be granted unto him. Therefore, we beseech You, let not the sentence of Your judgment weigh heavily upon him, whom the true plea of the Christian faith commends to You. But, by the help of Your grace, may he deserve to escape the judgment of vengeance, he who, while he lived, was marked with the seal of the Holy Trinity. You who live and reign forever and ever. Choral Fugue Non intres in judicium in C-sharp minor.mp3 Choral Fugue Non intres in judicium in C-sharp minor.pdf

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 ...

I've never taken more than one, maybe two days to compose anything. But then my pieces tend to be a little on the shorter side, rarely exceeding a few minutes in length.

I heard Beethoven took 25 years to make his chorale symphony. But for me I'm still working on the second movement of my first symphony and I'm planning on making 8, all of then last around 1 hour.

I started a piece around 3 years ago and i am still on the first movement

Hi @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu ! Congratulations on finally finishing this revision of your Clarinet Quintet! I'm glad that you are now able to move on to other projects! I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet - I think you did say something about someone mentioning that parts of this reminded them of Brahms? For me the pickups to mm. 63 reminds me of Brahms Clarinet Sonata No. 2 2nd movement - Allegro Appassionato. Especially the b2 Neapolitan inflections in the Clarinet melody there really remind me of Brahms. I guess you have the 2nd part of the Development without a key signature because it's so modulatory? I like the canonic imitation in mm. 359! I also enjoyed the simultaneous diminution/augmentation of the motivic material in the last part of the Development! I love that slow theme you brought back in the 2nd part of the Coda! Great job - thanks for sharing!

Again, the first sentence of the clarinet is great, and the next time the same phrase is played by the strings is nice too. I don't know why, but when I listen to your clarinet works, I can't help but imagine a raw recording. It is natural to do so. The dialogue between instruments is also very well structured, making it quite difficult to fully grasp in just one listening. I think it is wonderful how so many different elements come together as one. The section starting around 14:44 is beautiful—I feel the vibe of "to the supreme". Also, the section around 8:35 sounds nice to me. The audio playback is nice too—great job, Mr. Vince! Henry, I appreciate your works! Well done! Best, Lithl.

Hello, yet again with another prelude... GAWL aren't you sick of them yet?? Anyway, this one flirts between Db and C#m. It's 6 pages, but not that long as far as measures. It's grandiose, yet soft and subtle. Unfortunately, the midi doesn't do it justice. The arpeggio measures don't hold the first chord/low note in each one, but hopefully the score paints the right picture. I think it's due to the amount of notes held with the sustain. I hope you enjoy this, and any comments or concerns are welcome. :) Prelude 18 - Db.mp3 Prelude 18 - Db - score - Full Score.pdf

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

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 :)

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.

Great musical ideas come and go, we all have different approaches to writing music...I am sure that some of us have grown as people as time passes, and the music may also evolve as well, stylistically etc... Just for fun, and perhaps for some perspective for the younger members of the forum - what is the longest time frame that people have actually taken to complete a serious piece of music? For me, it would be about 17 years. I started a piano piece when I was roughly 17 years old, never quite finished it. Was initially written in a way that was inspired by typical pop music at the time that I was into. I revisited it around age 20 and added a bit more to it during a time in my life where I was listening to more progressive rock. 14 years later, around age 34 - I put the finishing touches and completed it, and it retained a slightly jazzier/sophisticated feel near the end of the piece. The piece itself isn't anything that I would consider special, some 4 minutes long for solo piano. 17 years a long time, though I wouldn't say I struggled at all or was obsessed with the piece. I held the musical ideas in the my life as I aged, and it was fun to complete the musical idea when the time came due :) What about you guys?

Hi @kaiserkulp , you have a lot of good things going here! I really like the opening texture with the high strings and long low brass chords. It definitely creates a pastoral scene. One thing I might change though is maybe make the first eight bars have the low notes in the cellos and basses. The brass holding notes this long might get tiring, and it would be a welcome contrast if you delayed their entrance to bar 9 when the second trumpet repeats the melody. Another thing, it it would be good if you varied the texture a little bit, particularly by not relying on low sustained notes in the basses so much. It seems like a lot of the first 70 bars or so is mostly Ling low notes in the basses with woodwind gestures on top. I think if you maybe removed the bass for some of these it would be a nice contrast. Also, I did really like the buildup to the climax at measure 50, it is very satisfying! Thanks for sharing!

Nice job on expanding your main motif, and excellent key changing throughout. Considering how long this movement is, the piece does a really nice job in keeping the listener's attention I think. About halfway through, you then change the pace but quickly get back on track. The harmony throughout is good, with sprinkles of pentatonic. Also, the last 2 minutes are very cool in how you conclude the piece. I like the change of pace here, with the slower, calm ending. Much of this movement is is quite steady / consistent, and your transitions are seamless.

Thx my friend! I love the 3rd Lament as well, it has become my favorite during the revision.

Thx for your invitation, Peter. My longest time taken is for my Clarinet Quintet in C minor. I started the piece in 2016 Fall, struggling a lot with my life and whether I can really compose, and finished the final draft on April 2022, which was my 1st post here on YC Forum. And I've recently just finished the revision of it for a final version of it, and if this also counts, this work took me almost 10 years to finish. I am not one who love to be pushed by deadlines and commissions, hence still don't want to be a "professional" "composer". Music has their own lives and when they want to speak they will speak through inspiration. I never believe that by forcing myself would make good music at all; if I'm forced to write trash in order to fulfill commissions or for money, I will choose not writing at all. That accounts for 1 reason why I work really slow. One example is for my String Sextet: I knew very well in March 2024 that the piece has to be end in a palliative and serene mood, in pentatonic style. But by then I only finished the first 20 munutes in despairing minor and minor and minor passages linger. I couldn't make it. I truthfully believed I could never finish the piece as I didn't figute out how peace can be achieved after such sufferings, after all tragedies, wars, deaths happening in the world nowadays. You can ask @Thatguy v2.0 and he knew I am not lying. (But a big thx to his encouragement) So after suffering some real life pain, recovet and one day I walked and listened to a Chinesr music grouping, I was suddenly inspired-truly inspired. Inspiration came out of nowhere and I knew exactly how to continue the piece and finish it in the way I never thought possible. I always think that composer is just a pregnant woman (not people). Music just comes from God or Heaven or natute or whatever, and they never belong to you alone as they are only realized through you, hence never your own possession. (Although I am still retaining my copyright lol) That would need time to feed yourself with more nutrients from past human world and the nature, and the process won't be quick, and hence you can never expect your fruit to be born quickly. I am for sure no Mozart thus I can only slowly write my pieces with diligence and hopefully they go well. I wouldn't want to write trash and flashy and extravagant programme notes on my music's blah blah blah to lie to any listeners and myself. I hope everything I write is an honest representation of me, and that would take time too. Another thing is technical: I need time to get familiar with my material and medium and skills in order to adequately write what I want. In my multi movement works the 1st movements are always the worst because I need time to know my music and digest it to write. These are my brief explanantion of why I need much time to write. Henry

This composition originally started out with the intended goal of serving as an exercise in textual intelligibility, a skill which has often been found lacking in many of my previous vocal works and choral writing. As such, this one has turned out far more homophonic in style than the rest of my earlier production, since in seeking to keep the text as clear and understandable as possible, distinct contrapuntal possibilities were rendered moderate to negligible. The reason I originally sought to approach the text from this angle throughout had a lot to do with the reasons for its choice. As of now, I have submitted one of my newly composed pieces to an ongoing composition contest centered around vocal sacred music. While I cannot give away many details concerning this competition as of now, in accordance to its rules I cannot yet publish the work I submitted (lest I might end up disqualified for early publication, given that, to my understanding at least, submitted works are to remain unpublished until the jury has decided). Instead, now that the submission had been fully dealt with, I set out to finish this early alternative, which I had deemed far too bland for the requirements and expectations of the contest before it was even complete. It should also be worth noting that for the first time now I have switched from my usual vocal renderings using Cantāmus to a different software integrated directly into MuseScore 4 named Cantai, which procedurally renders the text to be sung locally while conveniently allowing for modifications in real time and hosts a much greater variety of voices, not to mention the general audio quality being, in my view at least, far more pleasant to the ear. Thus, after trying it for a few weeks now, I have at last decided an upgrade in sound quality to my renditions was finally in order. YouTube video link: Gustate et videte Communion Motet in G major.mp3 Gustate et videte Communion Motet in G major.pdf