First Invention for chamber orchestra

Hello,

I am German, so please excuse my bad English.

I composed this peace in January to March 2007 for a concert of my school. It was my first chamber music attempt in such a big instrumentation. The ensemble consists of girls from the age of 13 to 19 years. It was the first time they play together in that ensemble. Only on the piano plays my music teacher.

The peace is constructed on connecting and expanding different musical ideas. Partly there are build in fragments of my youngest compositional development phases. These fragments differ themselves in many respects.

The piano accompaniment in the first alto recorder solo for example is extracted from one of my first compositional ideas ever (a few years old). Surely I also had a lot of new ideas.

To connect these fragments seamless I touched many different keys and there exist exotic meters and extreme tempo fluctuations.

These facts and the untypical way of composing effected a long time of rehearse. I think the pupils performed it very good.

My composition contains the following meters: 7/4, 4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 2/4 and 13/8 (!)

Here is the live performance of my first Invention (I’m sorry for the bad sound quality):

Erste Invention

If this link doesn't work, download the composition here:

Erste Invention (download)

The full instrumentation is:

2 flutes

1 alto recorder

1 sopranino recorder

1 piano

4 violins

1 viola

2 violoncelli

1 contrabass

time: around 7 minutes

score:

Thomas Reifner - Erste Invention Querformat.pdf

Welcome to YC.

The performance has a few rough spots but was generally quite enjoyable. The piece has a good flow and some interesting harmonies. I thought the openng was excellent. Thanks for sharing this music.

Hey, this was very good, but I got to ask, you are a fan of Mike Oldfield?

The piano writing had some very Oldfieldesque figurations and harmonies and the use of flute and recorder reminded me of Hergest Ridge.

The piano writing got a little boring halfway through, maybe some triplets to break the quaver movement would be good, or even better, let the pianist have a little break here and there.

The ending was the weak spot for me, it just kind of stopped lol

Still, not bad, not a great performance it must be said although the pianist gives it a good stab but the strings let it down with counting and intonation issues.

Thank you for your comments.

@HymnSpace: I never heard music from Mike Oldfield or Hergest Ridge, but now I'm interested.

Wow, I'm really surprised by that, check his early albums out, Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn.

Try Hergest Ridge first as your piece reminds me of it quite a lot in places.

wow, i like it very much!!! i always want to write like that but can't. it's REALLY GOOD. :)

This is quite charming. That's the word I like for this, charming. I liked it a lot, and I like your choice of the word "invention" rather than composition. I just like that for some reason, its a good way to look at it.