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

MAel -

First off the first 6 minutes are much improved - better voice leading clearer textures. You do some good stuff from the 6 minute mark onward BUT it doesn't have the same clear voice leading as before.

Now your cadenza, it is a little static as you have a perfect cadence or two which seems to stop the music in its tracks. Writing a piano cadenza is not easy even for a pianist - it has to feel improvisatory in my view. What I suggest is you curtail the cadenza by avoiding chordal textures and no cadences on the strong beats - one idea is to have the cadence delay a little - that is as the piano resolves the orchestra comes in to initiate the home stretch. The orchestras return is great. I like the plan for your ending but urge you to keep it compact - you have said alot already in this movement.

Overall, I will repeat what I have said to you before - finish the piece without editing prior material - if you can help it. I hear how much your composition improves when you get your ideas out and review them later for edits.

When you are done with this concerto I suggest you try a string trio. Great way to concentrate on voice leading and exploiting a smaller pallette of colors. Doing this will hone further your string writing.

Thank you for your comment :)

I don't really completely understand what you mean by unclear voice leading. Does that mean that after 6:00, some voices sound muddy? Or does that mean that the voice leading is incorrect?

I understand that the section at the 6:00 minute mark may not be the clearest in the midi recording, but I'm fairly sure that a live performance would reduce some of the muddiness and static associated with midi... if that is what you mean. If you are talking about incorrect voice leading, then can I please get an example of this?

About the cadenza, are you basically saying that I shouldn't cadence at the end of each of my sections and save it for the end? And for the chord textures, the Rachmaninoff 3rd concerto has heavy chordal writing in its cadenza and I'm not really sure how to write for piano without exploiting its rich texture.

Thanks for the comments :)

Oh, it isn't that you voice leading after the 6 minute mark is consistently muddy at all, No, rather PERIODICALLY you have various vioces interplaying without showing much harmonic or melodic direction. It is a small thing and something that you should leave alone. Sorry if I sounded more critical than I intended. It really is a nuance which as you write more for large and small ensembles you will get better at.

As for the chordal texture I think it is fine I just think you cadence a little too much on strong beats, again these are small things.

Sorry I cannot specifiy - part of it is my fault in that I haven't had the time to go through the score and midi very closely. So, just take these suggestions with a grain of salt for now. Proceed onward to the finish with your work. You have the second movement in your head - that is a sure sign youare ready to finish the 1st movement.

What I can do and this would be better for both of us is I can review the first movement when you are done and if I see any examples of things to practice doing better I will let you know.

Holy cow and all that other sort of stuffs.

O_O

I really have no comment other to leave than I like it xD

I don't normally listen to this type of music at all ... but this inspired me to start listening to more types of this kind of music :S

O__O

MAel - Congratulations. Very good job. I take back the comment on the voice leading after the 6 minute mark, it sounds better to me today. Sorry to sound so mercurial -- did you look over a few earlier sections the last few days? Seems like it.

Anyway, give yourself a little rest before proceeding onto the 2 nd movement in earnest.

No sibelius files attached? How could you! T_T

Well you have finished this and improved it quite a lot to make it more cohesive. It's really quite nice. The parts before cadenza is quite a build up. I have to say that the 2nd last chord leading to the cadenza is rather weird. And another thing I notice is that the A minor chords you let the violins play is quite tricky. Strings don't like to double stop in fifths, but that is even trickier because they have to reach far away for the high A.

I didn't analyse this in details, but I like the fugato section too. Was it different from the first one though? And as a (noob) pianist, I have to say that many of the piano part doesn't look very pianistic though.

Anyway, great work, makes me want to revise my piano concerto to make it a bit better (at the moment it's all over the place!).

mael

this is a good work and it is a long piano concerto , i like your beginning and the rhythmic motive

i also like your solo piano part

and the harmony is very thick and full of colour and expression , i like that too

dark-like

Thank you all for your comments! I have just ten minutes ago finished and uploaded the complete second movement MIDI, and the score as well. I cannot upload the first movement score right now, as it is under revision.

Mael -

Very good job. Especially lovely were some of the texture esp around msr 170 - 190 mm and after 200. Also enjoyed how your presented your exposition before the piano entrance - the clarinet opening will be sound good live (though the parallel fifths may sound a little off - see 2nd beat mm 5 to 1st beat mm 6)). But my favorite part and quite a wonderful touch is the final chords (with the deceptive cadence thrown in!) followed by pizzes - now that shows beauty and sophistication those two gestures - the piano chords followed by the pizzes. It also shows that you don't have to do alot to achieve your musical goals - you just have to make good choices.

Now for the piano part - around mm 200 - don't you think that doubling those note in third or octaves may be a better idea? There are very few concertos where a single note line is played for an extended period - usually the orchestration is VERY light and transparent - a great example is the 2nd mvmt of Ravel's Concerto in G major. Even in this case there is a left hand 3/4 accompaniment with it and it is alternated with more elaborate figuration.

I also wonder about the piano's first entrance - is there a reason you keep it spare? It is Ok as it stands but I think it needs more body (for example in the first measure the held bass note could be an octave lower and the melody in 3rds (esp as the maj/minor third is one of the important features of your themes) ).

Now, around mm 265 the inner voices will not sound as written - I would strongly add a Ped marking to remind the performer he or she does not have to struggle to hold them too long but rather they should ring. I realize an excellent pianist will figure this out but the clarification would further help you get the sound you want. This also happens around mm 247 - I would drop the second half note but leave the tie marks on the first - this will imply these notes are to ring.

Last, around mm 105 you have a very heavy texture in the left hand - octave and arpeggios to a chord while the right hand plays a single note melody - I am afraid that melodic line will not be heard just because where the melody lays - around middle C. Again doubling ion octaves would be a big help.

AS for orchestration - I love the arpeggio in the viola and cello but you will have a fairly heavy bass - esp with contrabass coming in. You could dovetail the cello between the cellos or between the cello and violas.

I also think for your piano entrance you would feel a little freer if you allowed soft woodwinds or lower string to provide the harmonic support your piano parts seems to desire as shown by the consistent half notes in the left hand. Something to think about - I don't think you need to add much just a little harmonic support here or there.

Alright thanks a lot! :)

I think all of these are extremely valid, and will be changed today.

Haha the clarinet opening is something I took from Dvorak slightly, and yes the midi clarinet has no feeling, which would take away from it's effect. In fact, a lot of this is supposed to be l'istesso tempo (sp?) , but it doesn't come out that way in playback. Perhaps if I went and notated EVERY single slow down and speed up, that would help.

As for the piano entrance, (and since is the first piano concerto I've written but not first concerto) I drew my ideas from many different concertos, but primarily four. Beethoven's concerto no. 5, Mendelssohn's concerto no. 3, Rachmaninov concerto no. 2, and Brahm's violin concerto. The point was to have a simple framework that quickly becomes elaborated upon until the end, where is slowly goes away.

Yeah, for the part with inner voices and the far-hand reach, yes I intend to put pedale ad. lib. before that section because the pedaling in midi is just horrible, and there is no way to notate it perfectly... the performer's jurisdiction is more important there.

Again, thanks a lot! and i will surely make the modifications you suggested (I agree with them) by the end of today.

well, I just listened to both all the way through.

Awesome dude! :cool:

I especially enjoyed the contrast made with the fugue in the first Movement, as well as the build up you make at about 15:25.

I would love to comment on more than athstetics, but that is beyond my skill level at this point. lol

The second movement I also liked. (I was expecting a little more contrast between it and the 1st mov.'s power and drive, but I think this is more a matter of personal taste. ;) ) Very lovely though.

I look forward to the next movement! Keep it up!

Alright, I didn't get a chance to change many of the things that were pointed out by Composerorganist, but I'm working on them.

Thank you Dead Chicken for your comments! I'm working as hard as I can on movement three, and I have a solid framework and ideas... I just need to know how to put them into place.

Also, Oica was gracious enough to provide a link found here: maelstrom2-2 - eSnips, share anything of a digitized version of the second movement. I like it a LOT.

Thanks again!

I absolutely loved the trio mael keep working on it please. :)