Here is my submission for the June 2008 competition. It is written for

2 violins I, 2 violins II, 2 violas, 1 cello and 1 contrabass and is based

on the following text:

"A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening

to commerce and minds opening to ideas. A day will come when the bullets

and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable

arbitration of a great supreme senate which will be to Europe what Parliament

is to England, the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.

A day will come when a cannon will be a museum-piece, as instruments

of torture are today. And we will be amazed to think that these things

once existed!

A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United

States of America and the United States of Europe, facing one another,

stretching out their hands across the sea, exchanging their products, their

arts, their works of genius, clearing up the globe, making deserts fruitful,

ameliorating creation under the eyes of the Creator, and joining together,

to reap the well-being of all, these two infinite forces, the fraternity

of men and the power of God."

--Victor Hugo, Opening address, Peace Congress (1849-08-21)

The three sections of the piece reflect the three paragraphs of this text:

The opening shows an idea in the inner voices which is supposed to emerge

above the others: the first instance in the second violins, the second one

in the violas. Follows a passage which contains dissonances (bullets and

bombs) and a varied version of the opening is presented, to dissolve that,

in effect "replacing" the dissonant context by a more consonant one.

The middle section highly contrasts with the opening. The melody consists

mostly of harmonic tones whereas the other voices adopt a repetitive texture

and the tonality is shifted to D minor (homonym tonality). The music then

evolves to the Dorian mode (a thing of the past) before returning smoothly

to a tonal construction. Isn't it amazing these things (modes) once

existed? ;)

The final section is a fugato on a subject derived from the opening one.

We are back to D major but the subject and the answer will flow from one

voice to another, mimicking the exchanges between the two states. The

episodes are not contrapuntal however and so this is not a strict fugal

development. Instead the first few bars of the American Anthem and of the

European Anthem are used, to illustrate that the exchanges are made between

America and Europe. The final stretto is the "joining together" leading

to the pure harmonic conclusion of the piece.

Innovation: this is the first time I introduce a modal component in my

work (D dorian modulating to A dorian). Until now, I have written things that

were exclusively tonal. I do not count the bar change from C to 3/4 as

innovation because it is purely incidental to the use of the American

Anthem here.

For the American Anthem, I retained only the soprano and bass from the

original, the inner voices are mine. Likewise for the European Anthem, the

middle voice is mine and not Beethoven's. I hope the Master will forgive me.

You can find the PDF, the MIDI and the MP3 realization here:

Index of /music/competitions/june-2008

Keep in mind the free software I use (LilyPond) is not able to insert realization

of ornamentation in the MIDI. Sorry.

I, like Mark, have unfortunately not finished my piece, but will be posting what I have anyway. Technically there was nothing in the rules about the piece being finished :musicwhistle:...

Anyway, here's the text and picture, from Dr. Seuss's Oh, the THINKS you can think!:

(ok, so I based a lot on the picture, but the piece was certainly inspired by the text)

Instrumentation: (large) String Orchestra...a pretty big one, too, as I have a lot of divisi.

Structure:

The piece will have three sections, an introduction of the scene, the person-who-meets-the-Jibboo meandering about the town, and then the Jibboo comes. Thanks to my incessant perfectionist crap I could not get past the beginning of the second section, after the scene had been set.

For the first section I started with some polytonal chords and lines, and having the harmonies, melodies, and meters not quite set (in keeping with Dr. Seuss's characteristic imaginative landscape(s) which seem to defy normal, logical thought).There is an obvious motif in the piece that goes with the setting, as well...

After the introduction has built up and resolved, the "hero" of the 2 pages is introduced, and I began with that motif transformed into his wanderings...after the first line of this part I was out of time. I planned to move it throughout the voices, violas next, perhaps, thinning the texture out and adding more lines as would be appropriate...and then...

The meeting of the Jibboo: I plan to use a variety of extended techniques to describe its coming, like random col legno and pizz. notes, percussion effects, sul ponticello, etc. I'm going for surreal, broken, and an eerie, hair-raising meeting...shivers up the spine of the one who meets it ;). It's drawn rather disjointed, and I would try to portray that in the music.

I am still undecided on whether or not the piece will resolve after the meeting of the Jibboo, if it becomes friendly (as indicated by it's little wave) or evil or whatever.

Other comments...:

I wish I could've finished this in time for this competition, but I want this to be a big, well thought out piece (the idea of it took quite a hold on me)....better to refine it over a longer period of time than to rush it for a competition, I'd say. Still, perhaps the judges can judge what I have so far....

Oh, and though it's only two pages, it's a largo tempo and very textural/atmospheric, so though there aren't a lot of notes that doesn't mean I didn't take a lot of time to write them ;)

MP3 of EWQL recording

(please don't base it too much off the EWQL recording, a lot of the dynamics and crap are screwed up...this piece really works best with a live orchestra)

(Finale file's 08)

Jibboo (YC).MUS

The Jibboo.pdf

[quote name=Mitchell;235018This is all in an attempt to keep it exciting' date=' frantic, and unpredictable like a seizure.

Here:[/quote]

Nothing "exciting" about one of those.

Believe me.

As a curiousity when are the results from the competition going to be out and where?

Thanks,

Hey, do any of the judges still exist to let us know that the results are in progress at least?

I don't know.... perhaps we should go feudal on eachother and fight it out for the win! =)

I'm really sorry guys, I was terribly busy throughout the whole of July, as it was the end of term on the 11th of July, and then the last week I had to pack everything up, store everything I wouldn't take back with me, and find a house for next year (which I still haven't done and I have to do so before I get back to London), before returning on the 19th, and I've only been here since basically Sunday, and I've taken the last few days relaxing a bit. I will finish the reviews as soon as possible.

Corbin, in every other competition the judges are responsible for getting the scores and music themselves. I don't think it would take that long or a huge effort to download a few files and then open them. Maybe you'd like me to come over there and double-click the files for you? :P

I'll get the reviews as soon as possible. I'll notify the rest of the judges although I should expect them to be working on the reviews already.

Anyway, I am really sorry for the delay, and I'll try to finish them as soon as possible. Thanks, and good luck :)

if i had a choice...i would vote Epilepsy the best one ive listened to. Its awesome.

[EDIT] I had epilepsy when i was younger...but luckily...it was benine.

Will there be a public poll for an extra few points? We already have a vote there. :happy:

There's a small rule concerning this thread. Please only post once per person.

Well, that rule goes to scraggy everytime. :rolleyes:

So is there any progress on the judging? Or polling?

Not to be a bother :innocent:.....

Guess what?

It's August.

Guess what?

No really guess what?

There is some progress on judging? Or polling?

:innocent:

YOUR FUNNY!

Yes? What about it?

(Karl gives tigger a gold star) =)

Did someone say barnstar? Hmm? Oh, sorry...

anyways, two monthly competitions are done and over with for over a month each and still no results for either. What are the problems?

yeah, come on

please

*pokes thread*

I'm gonna go start a suggestions thread for a propos

Umm, seriously judges, I hate to be a pest, but this really is getting ridiculous. This was a May/June competition and it is now September and we still don't even know if Juji is alive.

*raises hand and says "Aye!"*

:dry:

Guys,

I am really really sorry about the competition. It just so happened that despite my initial enthusiasm for taking over the competition, I failed to think about how busy I might be towards the end of the school year. The competition ended on the 31st of June, and at that time I was extremely busy trying to finish a piece for the school's new music festival which took place the following week. I also hosted a friend of mine from Portugal between the 29th of June and 8th of July and I didn't want to spend a lot of hours in front of the PC (in fact, we merely spent any). What's more, I don't have internet access in my room, so I have to go to the school which closes at 10pm, so I can't work when I've got most of my free time.

Between when my friend left and the 19th of July when I actually returned back to Greece I had been looking for places to stay next year, something which I still haven't done and am still doing. As you realise, finding accommodation for next year is higher in my priority list than the competition, and I think it would be higher in anyone's list, not just mine. From the 23rd of July onwards I have been away from Athens, with something like three days again in Athens on the 12th of August before I went travelling in Italy and France on the 15th (since when I've had seldom internet access, and when I had I only checked my mail and found vital information like addresses of youth hostels etc). I only just returned yesterday and have 6 days in Athens to see my family, my friends, prepare for moving back to London and find a place to stay for me and my sister.

I am not trying to excuse myself, I should have finished with the reviews before the deadline, I know. And it's true that I have started writing all four reviews, some more finished than others. But, if you've read my previous reviews, you must know that I don't just write whatever pops to mind and that's it - I actually do want to write a really good and constructive review that will be helpful to the particular contestants but also to anyone else who reads it and finds it useful. I do invest a lot of time and effort in those reviews, and that's why you might say "oh, but you've been active in the forum throughout the summer"; but just leaving a short or funny post at random threads isn't merely as much work as writing the reviews the way I do. Lastly, none of the other judges has ever sent me a pm or a review, so I guess the group of judges was not successful this time.

What saddens me most, though, is that throughout the thread (after the deadline) all I saw was nagging, swearing and lack of understanding. I saw a lot of people going like "where the gently caress are the reviews" but none saying "hey guys, it's summer, it's august, maybe he's away?". Here's some news guys: some people actually do have real lives.

Anyway, I think I'm not interested in the monthly competitions anymore. I mean, it was fun writing those reviews I wrote, but as you all know IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library is open again, and I plan on investing more of my free time to IMSLP/PML again rather than writing reviews here. Unfortunately, I haven't been active on IMSLP/PML either, but I plan on being once I settle down in London and have a lot less things in my mind.

I hope this post clarified some things to those wondering. Take care.

-Laonicos

Ok, whatever, you couldn't do it. That's understandable...

Just find someone else to judge the piece and finish this one up. You might not be interested in these anymore, but you did start this one, so finish it ;).

So I guess my piece was disqualified for being unfinished :musicwhistle:...

:sadtears: