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Wow! I actually think this piece has many qualities that make it a convincing imitation of this french baroque style, so overall, very well done. Some things I want to praise is your use of ornamentation, the tempo and time signature changes in the Passacailles, solid structure, your use of the same dotted rhythmic motive throughout both movements, and occasional, but functional dissonance. There are some sections in your piece where I think that, despite this "lute" style of French Baroque you are going for, even in the non lute sections, some of the intervals are too wide (like E4 to Bb5), to the point that even if they could be rolled, or even shared by both hands, they could be slightly unidiomatic, especially with all of the ornaments going on and the different voices, so just something to think about. Another thing I want to mention, is the lack of articulation. Sure, you have ornaments, but surprisingly, as opposed to Bach's music and other baroque composers, this is actually pretty common for the French Baroque tradition, leaving it up to the performers. Overall, I think this is a great imitation, I think you did a wonderful job on this experiment, and I look forward to see where you take this piece moving on!

Thanks for posting @Sebastian Guzman ! It's been a while since I've listened to the Liszt B minor Sonata, but I am definitely getting vibes of it here (most assuredly from your B-octave motif). Your musical language in this work does feel very Lisztian to me, which is inclusive of the harmony and the piano textures, and that I mostly do mean as a compliment. I'm curious to know what other influences/inspirations you may have had while writing this movement though, as some sections do seem to draw from other wells of musical ideas (e.g. the harmonic movements in b. 91-105 felt distinctly modern to me). I confess that I am not really in a position to offer super helpful advice but I hope you'll find this useful anyway. I also don't mean any suggestion as an attack on your writing, of course, but as an exchange of ideas that you could optionally disregard :) Exposition The B-octave motif is very reminiscent of one of the motifs in the B minor Sonata, haha. I see that the majority of the dotted rhythm in this motif is the backbone for the rhythm of the A theme, if I am correct... I noticed in your trimmed-down video you seemed to have cut out b. 54-62 from the A theme and b. 105-118 from the B theme? Admittedly, I prefer the abridged version as I thought the material in question to be a little redundant, given that you do cover well and to great length both themes in the exposition. My thematic economy side of my brain would like to think that one should only state a theme until the listener is familiar enough with it to recognise said theme when it pops up in the development. If you wanted to keep said material for symmetry/form-related reasons/other personal preferences, though, by all means do so. I do love the B theme in all of its mellow sweetness, especially its first half. The second half of the B theme feels a bit static with the repeated notes, but coupled with the rolling left hand accompaniment, it does give a sense of floating/gliding, if that is what you desired. As I said, I quite like the harmony you move through in b. 91-105. A charming change in texture from b. 154 onwards! Development The fugato start of the development seems a bit dry? I can see where you are going with the material but I'm not super convinced by b. 164-187, though I suppose some pedal would help, or varying the articulation and texture a tad more even if a fugato. I didn't quite exactly get fugato vibes from it either, given how long the statement of the theme is. This is completely a suggestion, of course, and it is up to you as to how you'd like your sonata to work, but perhaps using only the first phrase of the theme (b. 164-166) and then building up a series of entries in other voices could be rather effective. I somewhat find this example to also be a bit dry, but I like the energy build-up of this fugato moment in the development of the fourth movement of Scriabin's Third Sonata, if you wanted something similar. Interesting, from b. 178 onwards in the fugato, you introduce another voice that is the B theme, or at least an echo of it, if I'm correct? I am a big fan of juxtaposing thematic material in the development sections of sonatas, if so... The material in b. 196-215 seems a bit overly virtuosic? I'm uncertain whether there might be some significance in the chords/harmonies you use here, but I think it'd be great to insert more of the existing thematic material in here, fragmented or whatnot. Overall, the development feels short to me, not in the least because I feel like you could've pulled out your compositional chops a bit more. Given the length of the exposition, I think this deserves a heftier development with varied treatment and inclusion of all three of the A and B themes and the B-octave motif. Trying to set the tempestuous A theme or the B-octave motif into the suave atmosphere/mood of the B theme, for example, or more chopping and changing, there are a wide variety of things you could do. Liszt can of course be a great source of ideas here! Recap Nice to restate the B-octave theme. Maybe the transition from the end of the development could be made smoother? I'm not sure though. I like the recasting of the textures in the recap of the A theme, but it feels a little airy? I'm not sure if you were going for that feel, and if you were, then I am in no place to complain. I suppose you could add some deep bass notes on the offbeats to give it a bit more body and hold them with your regular pedal, or see if the sostenuto pedal could work (though it could make the right hand arpeggios rather dry). I also appreciate the A theme being a bit shorter here... With b. 236 onwards and B theme, the energy seems to drop somewhat, with almost the exact statement of the original B theme but transposed. It is once again up to you, but you could also recap the B theme in a different texture, as you did with the A theme. I felt like the energy levels ought to have ramped up a bit more moving further and further down to match the energy of b. 282 onwards to the coda, possibly? At the moment, the ending feels mildly content with itself, though I would think the large chords and dynamics would suggest otherwise. With notation and formatting, I also admit I'm not the best person to offer advice, but there does seem to be the occasional odd things, e.g. whatever is stretching out b. 122 (the rest in the upper staff can also be removed there), the clipping of text at the end of the system at b. 248-250, and the slightly overzealous floating slur in b. 288. I've been told that with hairpins, it's best practice to state exactly which dynamic the hairpin starts and ends at, including double hairpins like < so >, but I am open to corrections. Yeah, that's most of what I have to offer with thoughts. Excellent playing, by the way, I almost forgot to mention! This already looks like a difficult sonata so far with this first movement and you interpreted it very pleasingly, at least to my ears, and in a very convincing way (though I suppose it is up to the composer yourself to decide whether it was served justice, lol).

Beautiful Renaissance Style Writing. Really intriguing and fun to follow. Although this next request unstylistic, I can't help but wish for articulations, and dynamics. I know blasphemy, but consider this is a "MIDI audio" competition (basically). I think secretly adding some articulations and dynamics would add and extra layer of interest.

Hi everyone! I'm currently working on a 4 movement Piano Sonata in E minor, and I've already written the first movement, at around a little over 10 minutes in length alone. Im 15 years old, and although I'm a classically trained pianist studying at the peabody preparatory, I'm a self taught composer, so I'd appreciate any feedback on notation, structure, and really anything else that could benefit the piece, which could help me refine further. The piece is in sonata form, with the A and B themes in the exposition both lasting from m.1-163 (A - m.1-82, B - m.83-163), a development section (with a brief 24 measure Fugato on the main theme from m.21-37) lasting from m.164-219, and then the recap from m.220-293. The piece goes through many modulations, occasional complex polyrhythms, chromaticism, complex late-romantic/impressionist harmonies, cross-staff textures, delayed resolutions, distant key relationships, using "deceptive" major keys, and it ends the exposition in B major, the dominant, rather than G major the relative major. The development begins with the fugato in D# minor, and then after going through A# minor, G# minor, Ab major, breaking the fugato, and E major, it begins the recap back in E minor, moving through a few more keys to finally reach E major in the end. For this sonata, I'm very inspired by liszt (both his more virtuosic showpieces and his more introspective late works), especially with how he uses thematic development and combines "mephisto" drama with lyrical spirituality. In the beginning of my piece, you have the main motive of the entire piece, what I call the "B octave motive", since it's just octaves in both hands repeating the note B, but this single motive (both rhythmically and melodically) can be found in almost every section of the piece, from the tempestuous A theme, to the spiritual, watery and flowing B theme. The polar opposite contrast between the A and B themes creates both immense technical and musical demands for the performer, while still being idiomatic. Additionally, many of the ideas in this sonata, come from my own improvisations over the years, which I think helps give me a little bit of a distinct voice, but I'd like to know the perspectives of others. As I already mentioned, all feedback is appreciated! Note: the first link is me playing a slightly cut version of the exposition, and links 2 and 3 show me playing the parts I cut out from the first link. Links: https://youtu.be/MyptBsYMNiw https://youtube.com/shorts/-kIa8oVrUg4 https://youtube.com/shorts/_eLFRSilBzs https://youtube.com/shorts/_lOHz4Nz5qE https://youtu.be/qlEPGqwAq64 Piano Sonata in E Minor - Full Score.pdf

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

Hellloooo! This is my submission for the Landscapes competition. For my landscape i have chosen the Italian mountainous region of the Lombardy. The instrumentation is (supposed to be) 1 Cornetto and 3 Sackbuts, but there is also the possibility of other instruments like a consort of viols or a broken consort.LOB 64 Padovana et Gagliarda Detta la Lombarda.mp3 OBS: The original insturmentation is sadly not possible due to the fact that i dont have good enough virtual instruments that have a good sound, the only ones that i have are soundfonts that sound quite unrealistic and robotic...

Please submit links to your Landscapes - Soundscapes competition pieces here! (Please don't submit your music directly into this thread - rather, create your own dedicated thread where members will be able to review your music there - Upload Your Composition for Analysis and Feedback and then copy and paste the URL of your topic into a reply that you make in this thread). Thank you for your participation! To read the requirements/specifications of the competition and declare your intent to participate go here:

Hello, all!!! I intend to participate in this competition! Looking forward to seeing how this plays out :)

Thought I'd throw out some more ideas: "Concrete Jungle Award" "Terra Firma Award" "Perspective from the Peak Award" If you have any more ideas don't hesitate to suggest! Or if you're already composing something for the competition and want to tailor an award for your particular landscape idea, feel free to suggest that too!

I'll try to see if I can come up with something, but no promises it'll be done in time...

Yes, reviewing sketches or “unfinished works” is easy—you start by taking a quick look to spot obvious “mistakes” or answer the author’s questions. But I think one should be honest. Reviewing compositions—as is the case here in the forum—is inherently somewhat “unfair” due to the unequal conditions: On one side is the reviewer, who generally spends no more than an hour on a review (in most cases, even less). On the other side is the composer, who has literally spent dozens of days or even weeks working on its piece and therefore knows it in incomparably greater detail than someone who has only listened to it once or twice. That is why it is much more difficult to provide feedback on “finished” works if one tries not to look for mistakes and does not want to suggest changing anything fundamental about the piece as a whole. A review can therefore only be a kind of analysis (and that is exactly what I did when I went through the fugue and identified the expositions and fugue entries, etc.) or a description of the impression the listener had. Thanks. I compared it to the original recording of your actual YouTube video. Yes, they do differ (slightly). But to make an substantial judgment about which “improvements” I’d welcome and which changes I wouldn’t like, I need more time to listen to them. Since the nuances are usually subtle and not noticeable the first time around, I’d add both versions to my playlist and listen to them repeatedly while out for a walk (that is always my method to proof my compositions if there is something „rattling“ …) Thank you for your permission. I can’t promise to work on it in the near future, so let’s see whenever I’ll have the time.

Hi all 🙂 Here's a short study for string trio in a rather oriental mood. Hope it will delight you. Best regards, Marc My Shéréazade.mp3 01 - Conducteur - Etude pour trio à cordes n°11.pdf

Ah yes surely.LOB 64 Padovana et Gagliarda.pdf

Would you provide a score?