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Dear fellow composers, I’m pleased to present you today my submission to the YCF 2026 Spring Competition! Here is the picture showing a historic city rail (S-Bahn) train and a nightingale capturing the sounds of spring in Berlin. The idea behind the piece is to describe the contrast between the noise of the big city and the tranquility of nature. I know that some of you, especially if you’re from Asia or the U.S. will smile when I refer to a city with not even 4 million inhabitants as a “big city.” And yes, that’s actually the case: Berlin is indeed a “huge village” with a surprising number of green and quiet areas. The piece tells the story of a journey with the city rail from the crowded city center to a suburb where are allotment garden communities are located. Since modern trains are more or less „sterile“ and lack their unique sound, I imagined taking this trip on a historic train, like the ones that ran in Berlin from the 1920s through the 1990s and were known for their characteristic noises, such as the slamming of doors and the typical hissing sound when compressed air escapes. Once you’ve arrived in the suburbs—so the story goes—you leave the station and head to the allotment garden complex. As you stroll along the garden paths, you’re surprised to notice nightingales giving their evening concert. And yes, it’s actually true that throughout Berlin, from April through June, you can hear many nightingales every evening and every night. The nightingales are really loud and have a distinctive song, so I’m very surprised that there are so many people who tell me they’ve never heard a nightingale before. The piece is a string quintet featuring a violin, a viola, and a cello, accompanied by two pianos. I have decided to use two pianos so that they can share the extensive tremolo and trill passages, which improves playability. It has an A–B–A form, with the A sections representing the S-Bahn ride. I’ve chosen the unusual 13/16 time signature—initially as a challenge to myself— but while working on it, I realized that the 13/16 time signature can be considered as a compound meter of 3 + 4 + 6, which evokes the idea of acceleration (of the train), and, when reversed to 6 + 4 + 3, that of deceleration (as the train enters the station). The B-part is in 12/8 time signature with a lovely, lulling siciliano rhythm, thus emphasizing the calm scenario while walking through the gardens. I hope you’ll enjoy the piece as much as I enjoyed working on it (although I somewhat underestimated the effort needed …). The YouTube video is coming soon. Thus, stay tuned! Praeludium-XVII-A-flat-major-quintet-mix.mp3 Praeludium-XVII-A-flat-major-quintet-with-coversheet.pdf

@Luis Hernández is historically correct. the romantics drew from the previous composers and reinvited it.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 9 9.5 10 10 6 8.5 9 Avg: 8.9 Your Melody, Theme, Motive is wonderful. Right away I could hear what you were doing in the bass. Extremely clear and intentional, and it's a beautiful entry. Also in the intro I like how you seem to interweave the theme while modulating upwards. I can see this representing a sunset in an old western movie perhaps. The biggest criticism here would be playability. Is it playable? Sure, but the way it's written, its for a larger ensemble. This most likely could be formatted for a proper quintent and not lose too much of its texture.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 5 10 8.5 10 10 10 8.5 Avg: 8.8 I think you nailed the challenge with this, the mood in my view really captures the image / scene. I know I marked you down for harmony, and normally for a mood piece like this it wouldn't be a big deal. However perhaps you could have implemented even just 1 transition (from early morning to mid morning), especially on a 5 minute piece. Other than that though, this is a very beautiful musical scene!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 6 9 10 10 10? 9 8 Avg: 8.67 Really good job on portraying the scene, which is the whole point of this challenge. And executed with custom percussion sounds nonetheless! While the score is hard to follow, clearly you needed that setup to execute the musical output. I gave you a 10 anyway because you communicated your intent, and you clearly cared about the musical output, which is important to me as a listener. I have no idea if this is playable, but assuming yes, so you get a 10 with a question mark. This reminded me of a jungle scene which is close enough to your image! And I even hear what sounds like water in your music which I would imagine represents the reservoir. VERY well done!

Hiihiiii!!! This is my submission for the Spring 2026 Landscapes Competition :) For my landscape, I've chosen the mountains of Zhangjiajie, China. The first time that I saw these mountains, I was awestruck by just the sheer scale of them. Massive peaks and towers, overgrown with centuries-old moss, reaching beyond the clouds. Really just gorgeous. I wanted to try to write about them. The piece starts off zoomed outwards, depicting the sparseness of the clouds, until eventually, a melody begins to creep towards the first real theme--which I call the garden theme. The focus is on the garden now, zoomed in, it's a sort of natural oasis along the side of one of the tall mountainous pillar. It's beautiful, lush, full, until the garden begins to die as winter comes. The harmony because sparse and vague again, with large spontaneous gusts of wind... just very dry sounding overall. That is, until months later, the clouds darken, promising a heavy storm. Anticipation builds, until eventually, rain comes pouring down, so densely that it's almost like a wall. It's the first rain of spring!!! After the rain settles down, the garden comes to life again with the re-entry of the garden theme!! The piece ends as the focus zooms back out onto the clouds, and the tension finally resolves again. My goal with the piece was to try to represent the life cycle of the plant life out in the setting of Zhangjiajie. I hope you all like it !!!! AmidstTheCloudsAndFlowers.mp3 AmidstTheCloudsAndFlowers.pdf

Please don't forget to suggest badges in the List of Manually-Awardable Badges thread! We are going to try to institute a new policy for this competition. Besides the members voting for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, there will also be specially created dedicated badges that qualifying entries will be able to win. If you submitted an entry that qualifies under the contest rules (having a duration of between 3 to 7 minutes and being for 3 to 5 individual monophonic or polyphonic instruments/voices) then we will try to create a dedicated badge for you to win. So far we're thinking of the following awards: Padovana et Gagliarda “Detta la Lombarda” by @L.S Barros - "A Rustic Mood" award Amidst the Clouds & Flowers by @InstrumentalistElle - "Nature's Garden" award Morning On Whidbey Island by @BipolarComposer - "The Peace of Nature" award Let us know what kind of award you would like to win if you qualify under the given rules!

@Colenbacher Hello I understand your question very well. And I also understand that the answers aren't exactly what you're looking for. Although I agree with them as well. I believe that rather than learning harmony from the Romantic period, what matters is learning the compositional techniques that the composers of this period introduced and used (not just in terms of harmony). It’s absolutely true that to understand this, you need to start by knowing what happened in earlier periods, at least from the Baroque through the Style Galant and Classicism. Because many Romantic techniques are reinventions (“recycled”) of all those earlier styles. I don’t think you’ll find specific sections on Romantic harmony in general treatises and books. I’ve had that curiosity, and interest as well. But I studied the Baroque and the Galant period quite extensively, above all. I even started much earlier with the cantus firmus. And that historical and chronological perspective has helped me immensely in understanding even contemporary music. With this, you’ll see that everything is a continuum; even periods that broke quite sharply with what came before (Impressionism, dodecaphonism) are the result of an evolution. So, just as I did with other periods, I sought out the sources myself and compiled a lot of information on this topic on my blog. First, I provided a general overview, which I’ve transcribed here, and then I analyzed techniques such as augmented chords and modulation, secondary subdominants, dominant chains, chromatic thirds, (traditional) linear techniques, irregular resolutions, and so on. Not to mention that Romanticism is a vast genre and that each composer, moreover, has their own peculiarities. Brahms has nothing in common with Chopin. And let’s not even get started on late Romanticism. Some words from my blog: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD *New forms: symphonic poem, song cycle, music drama, *Study of the folk-heritage in music and imitation of folk-like melodic simplicity, *Predilection for exotic effects through employment of foreign national coloring or the folkloristic heritage (Chopin, Tchaikovsky, the Russians) [Chopin's more than 50 mazurkas represent one of the earliest examples of overt nationalistic sentiments in music], *Break-up of stylistic unity but more individualism, *Higher interest in melody and color rather than harmony and form, longer melodies *Higher dissonances and a freer employment of them, * More use of dynamics and articulations, * Rubato, *A more innovative treatment of chromatic harmony, *Extensive use of diminished seventh chords, *Modulation to distant tonalities, *Use of relations by thirds, *Greater interest in modal techniques (flat seventh [common to many modes], flat second [Phrygian], augmented fourth [Lydian]), *Assimilation of older elements, especially the revival of polyphony and Baroque forms under the influence of JS Bach [Mendelssohn, Brahms], *Thematicism plays a more important role in a sonata movement than tonality, *Thematic metamorphosis: A programmatic approach to composition often associated thematic material with a character or idea. Changing circumstances or emotional states were represented by the transformation of the thematic material (as in Faust Symphony or Symphony Fantastique), *Cell development technique in nationalist music, (music cell = small and melodioc design that can be isolated) *Use of a cyclic device: Material from one movement recurs in another (a technique related to thematic metamorphosis, idee fixe and leitmotive) (Serenade for Strings by Tchaikovsky; Mendelssohn's Eb string quartet; Beethoven's Symphony No.9), *Manipulation of sonata form, including mosaic and additive structures. More organic treatment of the form, *Postludes in the Lieder (especially by Schumann), *Unity on a large scale: merging of separate movements into a single span (Liszt's Sonata in B minor), larger instrumentations, *Finishing a minor mode piece in major (from darkness to light): Egmont overture, Symphony No.5 & 9 , Piano Sonatas Opp.90 & 111, and the second act of Fidelio by Beethoven; Schumann's Fourth Symphony; Franck's Symphony in D minor; Brahms' s First Symphony. *Intense energy and passion, dramatic opera,

Time for the actually score of you entry! Entry: Morning on Windby Island Review: My above comments remain! I took those in affect when I scored this! However, I will add something about the harp. The rolled chord in the left hand are too small for the harp. Usually rolled chords are played by both hands. Nothing major. That is why is only .5 off in the score and playability sections. other than...Kudos Total: 9.75 Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 10 9 10 9.5 9.5 10 10