Henry Ng Tsz Kiu

We would be more than happy if more members can review more frequently!! (So that I can be lazy and eat and sleep lol)

Well this template is only for judging a competition, for a daily review it's not mandatory to review all of the aspects in the template! Henry

Hi @Musi Make! Welcome to the forum! Sorry for a late reply, the hype in the Hallloween competition has covered the site! I quite like this soundtrack, it definitely reminds me of RPG game BGM. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hi @Monarcheon! Thx for coming back to the forum! We all miss your valuable and detailed insights to our music. As for your music here, I really enjoy it. I absolutely agree with you: the rhythm is so unpredictably flowing with all your use of changing meters, which suggests itself really well as a ballet music. The usage of the rhythmic motive is very organized throughout the whole work. The harmony here actually reminds me of something oriental or Arabic. I really love moments in b.20-21 and b.27-28 when you introduce high register violin writing there, when the register in most of the piece is more in middle/low register, and I hope there's more of that! I also love the use of strings techniques in b.40 section; the sul ponticello tremolo is very effective for the strings, and contrast well with the static note B when there are furious C and A# neighbours. I love the pluck string piano sound in b.52 too, though I would feel bad for the piano if it's played live! A nice ending as well which dies away as it begins. Thx for sharing your music to us! Henry

Hi @Kvothe! Yeah it's nice to take a step back to simpler music! Just based on the structure of the piece, I guess you forget to add a D.C. al fine at the end? It's kind of unsatisfying to end on the dominant G major for me. For the counterpoint, it would be better to have C instead of E in the bass in b.3 and 7, since the double E sounds bare and unsure of which chord it's in. A parallel octave occurs in b.5. Also the second quaver for left hand should be G instead of C for the V chord. For b.10, LH would be better to have quaver F#-E instead of just a crotchet F#, to avoid the clash of F# and G. The C# in b.15 is kind of weird as it suggests D major but you never reach D major after it, so it would be better to have just a C natural in it. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Dima! I quite enjoy this furious dance full of tone cluster. The energy here is very apparent to be sensed. Although I would say, this piece doesn't fit very much as a Halloween competition piece with the folk quality in it. I think this piece is for solo instruments? So, the div. in b.5 1st Violin and b.22 2nd violin and Viola, tutti sign in b.78 1st violin would not be applicable. Also, the division of voice within an instrument would not be applicable, and this will for sure deduct points for scoring/engraving. I would hope there will be more varieties in harmony, as this piece more or less grows on the tone cluster of the dissonant minor 2nds. I would hope to have more passage stepping away from that dissonance, so it will provide contrast! I love the contrast you bring in b.119 meno mosso section, and I hope that you will extend that section longer before returning to the furious dance! Also, how would the tone cluster in b.30 and 199 played for the pianist? I am eager to know! Thx for joining the competition! Henry

Hi @Micah! Personally I don't think this piece fits into the Halloween Competition at all with the mood the pieces create, but I have to say each of the three movements you submit has mature writing and effective technique used, and I love all 3 of them! All three features very good use of techniques for strings: Sul Ponticello/Tasto, Harmonics, col legno. You love to use contrast of pizz. vs arco plus p vs f together and it's effective! For the 1st piece Mothman I like the opening texture since it kind of reminds myself of the beginning of my very own String Sextet lol! I like the 5/4 dance as well, though I would love to see more varieties in the texture! The contrast here is well done nonetheless. I love the 2nd piece The Letiche, it's a nice bluesy C# minor dance in my favourite key! The glissando in b.33 for sure adds the sad but mesmerising mood. For the 3rd piece I really love the texture you have in b.35 with a high harmonics, pizz. and a rhythmic arco. It kind of reminds me of Bartok String Quartet texture. You math is wrong again I think lol!! The three pieces adds up with 2:50+2:38+2:31=7:59 lol!! And it's a Quintet, not Quartet! Thx for joining and sharing your music! Henry

Hi @Wieland Handke! I love the pointillistic touch of the whole piece, kind of like Klangfarbenmelodie. The piece doesn't sound tonal for me until the end when it ends in the G sharp minor, but it enhances the unsettling mood for it. Your use of motive is very tight and organized. I subjectively feel like the music somewhat lack drama for climax and passages less excited, and I feel like you can sometimes just reduce one or two instruments in certain passages for creating climax when all the instruments appear. The other thing is the horn, because in real performance the horn may easily overpower the other instruments especially in its forte/fortissimo passages so the balance need to be careful. The high register of flute and clarinet can also be established more frequently for the Halloween vibe! Thx for joining the competition and sharing! Henry

Hi @therealAJGS! I like the hook you use throughout the music, it kinds of reminds me Gamelan music with the percussion bell-like instrument. The organ definitely adds some ghostly mood to the music. I think acting as a sort of Halloween background music this one will definitely work. The solo music in 2:50 sounds nice to me. Harmonically except the modulation to Bb minor in 2:12 the music mostly stays in G sharp minor, so the music is more or less moved forward only by timbral contrast, not harmonic progression. i am sure in some spot there can be some modulations! Thx for sharing and joining the competition! Henry

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

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

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

Hi @Tunndy! I think the piece is in Gb major rather than D# major! D# major doesn't really exist as a key signature as it would have contained 8 sharps with F double sharp! A funny waltz with the running notes figure, and you can definitely extend both ideas! Henry