Jerry Engelbach

Thanks. That's helpful. The piece has an interesting monotonal strangeness, which is intriguing, but wears a bit thin after a while. I find myself wishing for more orchestral texture. Cheers, Jer

Like others, my first impression was Franck. I hear borrowings from other composers as well, possibly unintentional. Your orchestration and violin writing show great skill. I have no wish to pour cold water on what is obviously a major effort. However, I was not captured by the themes. It feels like a lot of the piece is transitional rather than developmental. I'd like to hear firmer melody and recognizable permutations of it. The orchestration is correct, but not particularly colorful. Much of it is dense and the same. You're very talented. Cheers, Jer

It would be useful to see the score.

Where is it microtonal and how is it "pioneering"?

Skillfully done. You played some of those two-handed chords as arpeggiated, but didn't indicate that in the score.

Why did you call it a Sinfonia? It's a fugue.

Beautifully orchestrated, with a very engaging theme. I do agree with others that the theme is not really developed so much as repeated in different textures. You build with nice drama towards the end. However, the actual ending section feels too delicate and a bit coy for the rest of the piece. The sound could use some tweaking. The piano is mostly too loud and obscures the interplay among the other instruments. Most impressive. Congratulations. Cheers, Jer

Nice sounding piece. It would be more effective with more variety of texture, and in its last section more a sense of gathering up for a climax. Bach does this well by lightening up with a sparse texture and then driving towards a conclusion.

In the next to the last bar, the harmony would sound stronger with a seventh in the D chord, and would avoid the parallel octaves between oboe and viola. I would change the viola's A to a C. Cheers, Jer

What you have is not a sonata or a sonatina, but fragments. If you're really interested in writing a sonata, you need to start from scratch with Sonata Allegro form. For example: Introduction. First theme. Contrasting second theme. Development. Modulation. Recapitulation. A sonata is a dramatic structure, leading us along with tension and resolution, like an exciting story. Cheers, Jer

The link to the sound file appears to be dead.

An impressive, well-crafted piece. A couple of caveats: The chromatic runs seem out of place for the style. It's pretty busy. It could use more air to bring out the main thematic ideas. Cheers, Jer

It's pretty. The imitation of voices is some places is nice. However, that results in a lot of movement in parallel. The harmonic progression throughout would be more effective with more contrary motion, such as Giuillem82 showed in his version of the harmony in your last two measures. One more thing: The crossing of the violin and flute parts in bars 9-13 doesn't quite work for me. I'm sorry I'm not more articulate about why. It just seems a little weak. Cheers, Jer

You have some good ideas, skillfully orchestrated. Perhaps you have enough material for a piece of no more than half its current length, at most. Each section goes on too long. And each section now has its own slow start and build, which is too much. I would commit fully to each variation right off the bat. Maybe what you need is more variations, each one shorter. The opening, for example, repeats too much. It needs a simple statement to stick in the mind and then go zoom, into the first variation. And that first variation can better make itself felt dramatically by contrasting it more with the original theme. Do you have favorite variations by other composers? Mine are the Brahms Haydn Variations and Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. They're each about the same length as yours, but Brahms has eight variations and Britten thirteen. Can you post a score? It's always easier to comment when one can see the notation. Cheers, Jer

You have to make an honest assessment about where you are in your musical development. One doesn't expect a first-year Spanish student to write a novel in the language, but to start out with simple exercises based on proper grammar. I agree somewhat with MJFOBE, although I would not attempt anything in sonata form. Harmonized melody in basic song form, AABA, is a good exercise. Side note: The arpeggiated dhords are very Philip Glass. Was that intentional? Cheers Jer

You're right. The Note Performer sound is much better. I'm may not be the right person to comment on this piece. I want to hear more clearly defined themes that lead me somewhere. It seems like an avalanche of sound that after a while all sounds the same. Perhaps I'm too conventional. Cheers, Jer

There are some nice textures there. I'm puzzled about how these could be songs. There's so much going on in the first two movements that I couldn't pick out what would be a clear vocal line. The third movement was more accessible to me. Cheers, Jer

Congratulations on getting a live performance. Shades of John Adams and Philip Glass. Cheers, Jer

Nice piece. It reminds me a bit of Ferde Grofé. Cheers, Jer

The arrangement is not particularly pianistic. I would look for ways to adapt the pieces more to the characteristics of the piano. It might help to look at the piano pieces of Albaniz, Lecuona, and Granados. Cheers, Jer

It doesn't sound "modernish" to me. It sounds like you've taken a short phrase that could have been written by Gershwin and put it through a series of textural permutations. The furious pace is exciting, but the speed makes it hard to hear anything clearly except the repetition of that one phrase. Without hearing the beginning movements to put this piece in context it's hard to tell how well it might work as the culmination of the whole work. Also, I'm wondering why you needed more instrumentation than a string quartet. I don't hear the inner voice instruments being given the lead very often. Cheers, Jer