Symphony No. 1 - 'Elements of A Mythical Realm' (1st movement)

This is my most recent piece, and has taken me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to write.

Here's the first movement of my Symphony No.1. A little bit of background:

This symphony carries a double-meaning. On the surface, each movement depicts a different scene from a fictitious mythical realm that I have made up. On a deeper level, however, each movement represents a purging of negative emotion, a kind of musical catharsis. This first movement, "Sunrise Over the Mountains of Drinnyl," deals with sadness. The movement is divided into three sections and uses a somewhat altered sonata form:

Nighttime: Mysterious, dark, and uncertain. You are standing on top of a mountain, viewing other mountains in the distance.

Sunrise: Mysterious, tense, and with a certain degree of anticipation. The sun slowly begins to creep over the distant mountain tops, barely a sliver of orange light at first. Gradually, it rises ever higher, until the entire landscape is bathed in a heavenly, ethereal white light.

Coda: Peaceful. Sadness has turned to joy, and the nighttime has been banished as the new day begins.

A movement from "darkness" to "light" pervades the entire symphony.

I'm open to suggestions!

UPDATED: Both mp3 files have been reworked with Audacity so that the volume levels are more accurate and nuances are more noticeable.

Sound: I. Sunrise Over the Mountains of Drinnyl FINAL.mp3

Score: I. Sunrise Over the Mountains of Drinnyl PDF4.pdf

UPDATED: 2nd movement - "The Winged Creatures of the Cytillan Plain"

Sound: II. The Winged Creatures of the Cytillan Plain FINAL.mp3

Score: II. The Winged Creatures of the Cytillan Plain PDF.pdf

This symphony sounds exceptionally nice, but empty, I love this movement sounds great, especially with the quality sounds, but I hope the second movement has more action if you will, don't get me wrong though I thoroughly enjoyed this movement, a great opening to a symphony...those winds I enjoyed as well as the soft strings.

1.Do you have a plan for your symphony? If so can you list the movements here?

2.How long do you plan for it to be? I mean for a movement to a symphony, I would think 6 minutes would me quite short but it's great how the melodies and ideas came together. Only one downside to say is that some instruments I would imagine have extremely rare parts in the music, performance for them would probably not be so exciting but nonetheless good job trumpet, please post more!:),

Roman

I really enjoyed it, I could picture it being used in some sort of fantasy film.

I hope you post the following movements.

keep working on it, its good :)

Lex

Hi Evan!

I enjoyed this movement of your piece very much. It makes me think "film music" because of the drama and the many colors you create. I was pleased at how you set a mood and some thematic material and were very consistent with the development of it while not losing focus on your goal for the movement.

The solo moments were very nice, the english horn opening was very effective.

I can see that you put a lot of time and effort into writing this. I like how the entire thing flows - it has a nice framework. The only suggestions I'd have would be detail work - for instance on page 8 + after the fermata I can appreciate the mood you are going for and you could still achieve that while adding some complexity - maybe some fragments of your main motives in very subtle ways (ie. with percussion, you did some nice things with glock/vibes earlier in the piece) - just some sparkles so that it doesn't seem too static with the block chords. It could give many areas of the piece some character unique to you and your writing.

Also, I worry about where the piccolo will breathe during all those runs on pages 6-8. Do you mind if the player drops out periodically to breathe? And as for the other woodwinds with the "noodling" parts ( :) ) it can sometimes help to give them overlapping notes at the end of each figure so that they match up when they pass the part back and forth. And it sounds loverly too.

I think you have a great foundation set here. I look forward to seeing where this piece goes.

I am rusty and have not been at the boards for a bit of time. Are you a composition and/or music major?

yay composing.

-Giselle

Hey everyone! Thanks for your comments; I will get right to work editing.

Romanticist, what did you mean when you said it sounded "empty?" Do you have any tips that might make it sound more full?

Giselle, good idea on the woodwinds. I should know about breathing (I'm a brass player), but I guess I really need to write more user-friendly parts :)

I like the idea of adding more stuff to the block chords section. It seems a little dry now that I think about it.

Oh, and yes, I am a music major. :) Currently majoring in trumpet performance (because my university requires 4 semesters of music theory before you can enter the composition program), but will switch to composition as soon as I can!

Here is my plan for the completed work:

I. Sunrise Over the Mountains of Drinnyl (program notes in first post)

II. The Winged Creatures of the Cytillan Plain (need to finish editing)

This movement deals with emotion of fear. It begins somewhat mysteriously (as if you are viewing ominous creatures from a distance), but suddenly explodes in a frenzy and gives way to a "lighter" section. My goal with this section was to make the music "fly" and "dance" and the same time (imagine that, as the creatures fly overhead, one of them picks you up and begins to fly away as you ride on its back). At first, the music sounds somewhat uneasy, as if trying to "latch on" to something. After awhile, the first section of the piece ends just as mysteriously as it begins, giving way to a feeling that is far more serene (imagine small birds by a lake). Gradually, this section builds as a group of larger birds (eagle-like in appearance, but much bigger) soars high overhead in the clouds. The section finally reaches a climax as the "eagles" burst through the clouds and into the sunlight. Riding on one of their backs, your fear is gone. You have learned how to fly.

III. The Healing Lakes of Mohrbode (not even started)

I don't really have this movement in my head yet, other than a concept. Basically, it deals with bitterness. It begins in a serene manner, using "crystalline" effects (bowed vibe, bowed bells, bowed triangle, violin harmonics, etc.) to convey a sense of perfect peace. Over time, it becomes darker, not quite to the point of full-blown anger, but just on the edge; a seething evil beneath a placid surface. Just as it reaches this point, another theme is introduced, one of healing warmth: the power of forgiveness and "letting go." The movement ends as peacefully as it begins.

IV. The Kingdoms of the Realm (hadnwritten, but difficult to input into Finale because of the aleatoric and "free time" effects)

This movement is the longest of the four and depicts the emotion of anger. Like the other movements, it begins mysteriously, depicting an ancient kingdom deep in a forest. They are a deeply religious people with a very clear sense of duty and purpose, as well as a highly organized society. Although it appears ordered and civil on the surface, the music has a constant feeling of tension underneath.

The second section of this movement is the depiction of anger, represented by a savage battle between two feuding kingdoms. Multi-meter, polyrhythms, tone clusters, and aleatoric effects are coupled with a breakneck tempo to depict complete chaos and depravity. This section builds to a climax until it reaches a "boiling point," ending abruptly.

The third (and final) section of this movement depicts a noble kingdom, steadfast and peaceful. A celebration is taking place, and the music is joyous, bringing all of the themes from previous movements together in a climactic finale.

I thought you did a great job on the realisation. I would be interested to know what you used. I found the music to be descriptive rather than symphonic with a lot of emphasis on colouristic orchestral effects and sonorities but no real theme that you can grab on to - emotional rather than argumentative. There is nothing wrong with this but it sounds like it needs a film in the background to give it direction

Sorry please ignore my last remark as I got your piece mixed up with another piece. I found your work to be well developed thematically with good use of orchestral colour. Not sure about the gliss in the cor anglais at the start as it seemed a bit out of keeping with the rest of the orchestration.

Beaut ideas

Musically, this is a very solid offering. Excellent use of harmony, particularly in the build-ups.

But why have you chosen such awkward time signatures? There is nothing at all 12/8-ish about the opening, for example. It's particularly tricky to count through bar 6: why not rewrite this section into something more practical (e.g. 4/4), throwing in how ever many tuplets you like in order to avoid it sounding too mechanical?

The problem is compounded when the harpist is asked to fit 7 into 6 in bar 16. Ideally, you should rewrite this into a series of sextuplets for convenience's sake.

Bar 49 is also home to some over-complication, I fear.

Casting the score inside, I enjoyed the music a lot. Thanks for sharing it. :)

P.S. The audio file is very quiet, you might want to acquire a wave editor for normalizing what Finale outputs.

I am not very experianced in analizing/criticizing music, but....

i liked it, i really enjoyed the theme. 12/8 does seem a little odd, maybe two 6/8 measures? idk...

OK, after awhile (sorry, I have been quite busy lately with schoolwork and such), I have finally finished more-or-less editing the second movement. The program notes are near the beginning of the thread.

I know there a lot of collisions in the score. I tried to remove as many as I could, but some of them were simply unavoidable due to the size of the page. My apologies!

Sound: II. The Winged Creatures of the Cytillan Plain NEW.mp3

Score: II. The Winged Creatures of the Cytillan Plain PDF.pdf

Enjoy!

Oh, by the way, thanks to everyone who commented on the 1st movement! I'll definitely re-write it in 4/4 time, or maybe have some of the instruments in 4/4 while others are in 12/8 (in order to avoid nested-triplet rhythms and such).

I may also work with the file in Audacity to see if I can get it to be louder.

Evan

Once again welcome to the forum. I am not that familiar with Finale, so I can't help you with the volume issues there. But you can amplify in audacity. One thing I have noticed is that when I do a pice and convert to mp3, it always seems to go down in volume. So I mix a little louder to make up for the loss.

The next thing is that I strongly suggest you add the 2nd movement to the original post as well. Many people do not read the whole thread, so some will miss the 2nd movement.

I usually start a new thread for a new movement and add the link to the original in there as well.

Now to your piece.

It is obvious that you have been playing around with music for awhile. I like this work and think it follows your description very well.

One thing you may want to do just for the playback, is to add an empty measure at the end, so as to allow a pause for everything to get back to normal. You can add dead space in a sequencer or audacity for that matter.

Everything else I could mention has already been brought up I think.

Just one last hint. The more music you comment on, the better chance you have of people returning the favor. You will learn pretty quick who posts only in their own threads and who will post in others as well. Seek out those that will comment on others works and then comment on theirs.

Welcome again

Ron

You're onto something. Don't stop writing, because this is the push music needs in the right direction. Your subtle use of color, development style, and harmonic language are all very effective. Great job.

Cool, thanks for the suggestions!

I like the "measure at the end" idea; it seems like a little silence before the second movement begins would allow the audience to "regroup."

Oh, and I'll try to post on more peoples' threads as my schedule allows. With juries, finals, and other projects coming up it's getting pretty hectic!

Thanks again guys.