Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor - Movements I & II (11/25/08 Update)

UPDATED: October 22, 2008

IT IS A ROUGH SCORE

I have finally completed this gigantic undertaking. There are still some spots to polish and the score to clean. But more or less, the music is done.

SECOND MOVEMENT:

In simple ternary form. The theme was inspired by the story of Mahler shortly before his death. Please do comment on any errors I have, so I can fix them.

Thanks! :)

EDIT: Oica has been so gracious as to provide an mp3 recording of the second movement. There are a few problems, like the lack of pizz. and some instruments sounding softer/louder than they would in real life,

but HERE IT IS: maelstrom2-2 - eSnips, share anything

it is a good music . i like it

dark

I Listened to it but tbh.

I have no CLUE how to comment it on it O__O

I liked it but I'll have to only say that, I'm not advanced enough to give any good feedback xD

I really enjoyed this piece. Although I didn't know what most of the things in your "structure" were, it sounded fine to me. I thought that when the entire orchestra played together, it was a bit crowded. Maybe that's just the midi, but it seemed to me like there was too much happening at once. Anyway, I enjoyed listening to it, I was intrigued throughout the piece.

Great job!:) I wish I could compose like you...and had your username...it's cool.

Oh, and here's a score:

orchestrapiano.MUS

I really really cant wait to hear it. I don't have sibelius sooooo...

Why are grace notes notated as chords of seconds, and why are trills and tremelos notated as sixteenths? And the viola part is written in treble clef even when it's not in the treble range, wtf? Actually, there are quite a few notation issues. o.O But you seem to have a clear idea of where you want your piece to go, and your orchestration is overall pretty good. So far, it's more coherent than anything you written previously, imo, and I do like it despite the readability (or lack of) of the score.

I thought the piano entry was good, not long enough to disturb the flow of the piece, but not short to the point where it loses significance, either. You're good at getting your thoughts out in a pretty reasonable timeframe, I find.

In measure 18, the F should be in the bass, and you should start the triplet on the second eighth note. There are some spots in the piano part on the 14th page and on where it looks like you might do well to notate the treble clef in two voices, or have the bass clef change to treble temporarily.

As for musical content, I liked it for the reasons I mentioned earlier. It's clear and concise, and held my interest. Good start.

Thank you all for your comments :D

SaxAlt and Jon: there are always things that you can comment on... I mean... the musical ear is something that should be developed (if you listen to this style often, that is). I especially welcome comments on the orchestration . I'm not even that good of a composer :P ... so don't wish that you could compose like this! lol

Voce: ... well... it wasn't me who made the score. It was Jon, and he made it off of a MIDI file. So that's why the notation is screwed up. So all of the notation issues are more or less corrected. Thanks for your orchestration comments especially :) .

anant you rockkk

keep on writing

OK, good work so far.

I'll post a few very cursory comments, since you asked.

Harmony and orchestration are both basically fine.

There are harmony errors, but you're just going to have to get a book/teacher, and study harmony -- that's the quickest way to improve. I can't point out every time you make an error.

The themes themselves seem particularly unsupported by the harmony. I would make sure there is a very clear, strong harmonic motion under each of the themes - at the moment, the harmony is working against them rather than with them. It ends up sounding a bit dull, and ruining the effectiveness of the themes.

Once you've presented a theme, you seem to commence on almost developmental, sequential passages. I suggest you do this only once, and otherwise leave the sequential re-iterations of the themes to the actual development section.

Development in the exposition can be a good thing, but I suggest you try and keep things varied.

The orchestration is mostly OK. Why do the contrabasses hold an E under so much of the tonic harmony? You use it as a dominant pedal maybe once, but otherwise, it just bogs down the harmony. The contrabass and the 'celli mostly should be playing the bass-line. Second inversion chords need to be handled carefully. In this case, they just take all the power out of your tonic.

There are almost no slurs. Some of those wind & strings phrases really require slurs.

There was a cadential trill in the piano that didn't quite work.

Avoid using those thick, low chords in the piano (near the start). It may have worked on Beethoven's piano, but the bass end of a fortepiano is *much* clearer than on our modern instrument, where it just will sound muddy and indistinct.

Sorry I'm only being critical here - I'm not making a value assessment of the work.

I think it could be a really good piece if you fix the harmony, and tweak a few things.

Anyway, just things to keep in mind.

Thanks very much for the post :)

this was exactly what I was looking for in order to improve the section. About the slurs: I never add them until the very end because I like to work quickly in putting down my notes and harmony.

Oh, and the end of the section is the beginning of the development, I should have been more clear.

It was my intention to have at least one sequential section for each theme until the development.

I have posted a score and an updated version.

Hopefully, I was able to fix the things that you pointed out, Daniel.

Oh, and the midi does some wacky things like changing notes and randomly cutting out the bass. Oh yeah, and the clarinet at the end of the clip is WAY too loud.

UPDATED!!!

:D

Thank you for your comments :)

I don't particularly see THAT much style wandering... since my concerto is based off of Mendelssohn's first and he switches heavily in mood from the A theme to the B theme.

As of now, the score has been immensely updated, with the ending section giving me some problems from switching from 6/8 feel back to 4/4 feel.

I don't know what to say lol. I love how the piano enters. I didn't loose interest for one second (and with midi things like this, that can happen easy sometimes, haha). These people seem to have a better point of veiw for criticism than I do. I do agree with Mr. Daniel on how you tend to immediately start developing a theme once you've presented it.. which definatly keeps the interest flowing, but maybe, if you feel it, you could make a big scene out of one of them, but that is the only thing I noticed (which is stretching it, and just a suggestion). It seems like it's bursting at the seams of form with inspiration, and I love that.

This would be great thing to submit to a college!

Thank you for your comment and I'm glad that I didn't bore you with the piece!

It's still incomplete, so I haven't reached the climax of the piece yet, but the climax will contain a mixture of the two themes in a "battle" of sorts. So yes, I will do what you asked.

I guess I can "officially" comment on this, seeing as it has been a while.

I think I said it the first time, when the midi stopped, I wanted to hear more. So I guess are doing things right. lol

I assume the bolded parts are part you have "finished". In that case, looks like you are nearly done! Can't wait for the climax; it should be fun.

:thumbsup: Keep going!

Thanks for listening!

Yes, the bold parts are the ones I've finished.

The fugue at the end -- it's kind of awkward -- mainly because I have that exposition, but in order to condense the whole movement, I kind of have to just end it right there with a stretto. So... look for that in the coming updates.

Thanks for listening again :D

Hey Maelstrom,

I think you did quite a good job on it. Although I do think some harmonies are slightly weird, and I'm pretty sure a few notes weren't typed in correctly either.

Anyway, I don't use Finale, so I can't really see the score properly. So, I listened to the piece and that's about it.

Nothing much to complain from listening to the MIDI, except for a few errors in harmony. Like I think at one part, you did an A major perfect cadence and go straight away to D major even when the A major chord is still heard.

That is the major problem I think.

I want to see the score! .pdf file please!

Steve

I have massively updated the files and the reversal of modes for the B theme fragments seems to have been too tension-releasing.... so now I have to build up some tension again before I get to the climax... and then I have to write a cadenza after that.

But yeah, the climax is the difficult part now.

MASSIVE FILE UPDATE! :D

Dude..upload a pdf, PWEASE :).

Consider this a gargantuan update. It has been polished a lot, but there is still more that can be done. I intend to re-write the fugato as it is very bothersome and lacks the quality that the other material exhibits. The ending section of this bit is definitely the most adventurous harmonically that I have dared to go.

If you want to see a score, download Sibelius Scorch free: Sibelius - Download

Good job, awesome for a young self-taught composer. I typed out the rest of the comment in the shoutbox. :p

I can't think of better words to describe this than "exquisite" and "holy crap!". Due to the way I listen to YC uploads (I download the PDF and slowly add all the parts to Finale, listening as I go), it is very fragmentary at first. As it opens up into all the different instruments, the fragments just seem to coalesce into a single dramatic whole.

There is a very huge paint blob splattered on this piece, and written in the paint is "Schumann". I hear the overture to Schumann's "Manfred" incidental music most prominently of all in this mix, that ghostly sound. Granted, I'm only nine measures in (I love going slowly and hearing everything mix together), but it's ... something else, something MORE! Please continue totally owning with conservative music. :)

I too noticed that this tends to wander from style to style, but for me that kept it interesting--it didn't just seem incoherent. The material seems fairly thematic, so the piece stays together, but the constant variation keeps me listening. It is a bit long, so trimming some fat may do some good, but overall, it keeps my interest quite well considering the length.

Thank you both so much for your comments!

Yes, Nordreise, this has probably been the most inspired writing I have done in a long time. I don't know what allowed me to write so much in such a short amount of time (4 months).

Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done with this! Polishing and whatnot.

Spherenine, can you point out the exact locations where you think I have wandered? Much of this piece was heavily inspired by Mendelssohn, a romantic composer that was very conservative in his major-key writing (at least I think so), very romantic with his minor-key writing, and very baroque with his counterpoint.

Thanks again! :)

And, ... it may be hard to hear upon first listening, but there is a reason why the B theme is reintroduced in the development disjointedly. I have tried to put a story behind the notes of all of the instruments... but that's up for you to find out and not me to tell you :P .