Concert Band Piece - Homage to Dohnányi

One of my favorite composers has been for a long time Ernst von Dohnányi. I have struggled mightily to play his Passacaglia in Eb Minor for Piano. I wrote this piece in a months time in a fit of creativity and I hope you all might find it enjoyable.

Homage_to_Dohnanyi.mid

It certain does sound pretty neat, though the thickly overlapping textures doesn't work very well in MIDI (especially for brass). I only casually listened to it, though, since it is a work of considerable length (at least with respect to most of the other pieces here), so I only picked up a bit of any persisting themes and such, though they are probably scattered throughout the piece. I've never heard of Ernst von Dohnányi - could you provide some more background of the composer, perhaps?

Hi, there are some really nice themes in here, especially around 3.30 and 4.40, and the overlapping sounds interesting (like at around 6.10), but as spc1st says, midi doesn't do your work justice, such is the nature of the beast.

I'd love to hear this played though, it'd be cool. :P

It certain does sound pretty neat, though the thickly overlapping textures doesn't work very well in MIDI (especially for brass). I only casually listened to it, though, since it is a work of considerable length (at least with respect to most of the other pieces here), so I only picked up a bit of any persisting themes and such, though they are probably scattered throughout the piece. I've never heard of Ernst von Dohnányi - could you provide some more background of the composer, perhaps?

Ah, I've always preferred thicker textures in my music, as that sort of multi-layered sound can produce some surprisingly wonderful effects. Plus, it's commonplace in the Romantic and post-Romantic period, and that is the period of music I most love.

There are two main themes that blend together to form all subsidiary themes. The theme announced at 1:00 is the first of the two, and the one around 3:30 is the second.

The first theme is derived from the opening fanfare in Dohnányi's Second Symphony, and the second theme is taken from his Passacaglia in Eb-Minor.

You can read more about the Hungarian composer on the Wikipedia site. The Remington Site also has some good information. You can even order his biography from this Indiana University website.

I hope that helps!

Hi, there are some really nice themes in here, especially around 3.30 and 4.40, and the overlapping sounds interesting (like at around 6.10), but as spc1st says, midi doesn't do your work justice, such is the nature of the beast.

I'd love to hear this played though, it'd be cool.

You know what you´re doing. It sounds very confident. And I like all those original sounding harmonies.

Could you explain how do you go about composing a new work? What´s your working method?

You know what you´re doing. It sounds very confident. And I like all those original sounding harmonies.

Could you explain how do you go about composing a new work? What´s your working method?

When I set out to write a piee of music, I really have to have decided on a structure in which to frame the music. For instance, in the above piece I used a modified Sonata-Allegro form that can be broken down as follows:

Introduction (C Maj) - Main Theme (a min) - Secondary Theme (Ab Maj) - Development - Recapitulation(First Theme (a min) - Second Theme (C Maj)) Coda (reprise of introduction - final fanfare(C Maj)).

Actually, a lot of my works end up in Sonata-Allegro form at present because I have this tendency to start a multimovement work and then never manage to finish it.

Anyway, once I have a structure figured out, I try to figure out where the themes that I want to use in this piece will go. Often I have the themes written out even before I start writing. Sometimes the theme will just happen as I write. As far as writing themes go, I spend a lot of time listening to music that I like while following along in the score. This gives me a better feel for chord choices and for melodic turn when I sit down and try to write them.

Once I have a structure and themes, I figure out how I want the dramatic flow of the piece to develop. Where should the climaxes in the music be, and what sort of climax do I want to make them? There are several different kinds of climaxes to choose from. There is the violent, the dramatic, the elegaic, the exultant, the pastoral, etc...

Now once I feel sure I know how that will work, I start writing. Often times, as I'm writing, I'll make small changes to this plan because for whatever reason, what I wanted to do won't work anymore, and I found something better, or I just cannot figure out how to do what I originally wanted to do.

With the above piece, I had only a few parts that I wrote on the fly. The rest of it was just a matter of putting the right notes down. Especially since the middle two minutes were just a transcription of a Dohnányi Piano Piece!

As far as harmony goes, I have read several books on Harmony. I especially recommend the book by Walter Piston, and the series by Robert W. Ottman. Most everybody knows the standard chords, like I and V. However, I think some of the most interesting harmonic development comes from using German or French Sixths (in C Major, those would be Ab C Eb F# and Ab C D F# respectively), chords separated by minor or major thirds (for instance, going from C Major to Eb Major or Ab Major respectively), and various diminished chords along any point of the scale. These sorts of chords can help weaken the feel of the home key and allow your harmony to progress in many different directions. Of course, you should definitely read a book on Harmony to get a better feel for this.

For Instrumentation, I have a few guides on instrument ranges and timbre, but for Concert Band, I often fall on Frank Erickson's book on the subject.

I hope that helps!

Well, this piece certainly has a great feel to it. Although, some of the sounds do not mix and match so well, such as the (um triangle is it?) Triange. It seems to go fast and slow and awkward times making it sound random. But after a while it clears up for a while and sounds better. Some time in 3:00 it starts to sound really great. Great Piece of Work, Keep up the skills.

Well, this piece certainly has a great feel to it. Although, some of the sounds do not mix and match so well, such as the (um triangle is it?) Triange. It seems to go fast and slow and awkward times making it sound random. But after a while it clears up for a while and sounds better. Some time in 3:00 it starts to sound really great. Great Piece of Work, Keep up the skills.

I did not use a triangle. You are probably thinking of the Glockenspiel that I used in the portion around 2:00., and then again at about 3:30.

The part that you describe that sound sreally great is the part where I transcribed a bit of Dohnányi's music. Good to know I'm not the only one who utterly loves it. :lol:

Very nice work. Lots of textures, moods, colours - and the style influences range broadly, even to Romanticism, and some harmonies and sonorities that reminded me of Scott Joplin! The thick textures I'm thinking might work better with real instruments than in MIDI, so I'm not going to criticise. Besides, textures tend to be thick no matter what in concert band music...the nature of the beast. You're not afraid to explore some wildly atonal embellishment of otherwise tonal sections.

Hope we hear more from you in the future.

Originally posted by J. Lee Graham@Aug 10 2005, 10:58 PM

Very nice work.