Concerto in f for Horn, Strings and Piano

THIRD AND FINAL SCORE.

After the dreadfull reviews I got (thank God I got them! I learned a LOT!) I decided the piece needed a facelift.

Once a baby is born, you cannot alter it. You can only perform plastic surgery and look past the other ugly parts.

Never trust the MIDI, study the score.

Changes:

- Harpsichord replaced with Piano.

- Piano part changed significantly.

- Strings rewritten (certain parts only).

- Harmony changed here and there.

- New Cadenza's for 1st and 4th movement.

- Tempo faster, which mean the piece is shorter.

The piece is still short comparing to some piano concerto's. Individually, the movements are quite short.

Inspired by Mozart. Yes, a little John Williams here and there. It's not film music though.

I am proud of this work. It might not be my best, but I am proud of what I've done. Next time, I shall do it a bit differently. Yet, I am excited about the recording!

Pieter Smal :)

Concerto in f.mid

Concerto in f Score.pdf

I just listened to the first movement and I have to say.... it wasn't very good. To start with, your rhythms are boring. Not just a little boring, VERY boring. For half the movement, you stick with straight quarter notes in the strings. Besides one little harpsicord bit, the entire piece failed to generate any rhythmic interest at all.

Secondly, I found your work to be two dimensional. There is no counterpoint. Not even interesting chordal background. Your string writing always shares similar interest, your horn is always playing melody, and the harpsicord just does... whatever. Being how there are two soloists, there is very little interplay between them. It would've also been nice to hear two or three distinct voices in the strings but instead, they always seem to combine together to create a wall of sound.

Your tonal language is also incredibly dull. You stick to straight triads throughout. You don't even attempt at anything more complex. Even common-practice composers used the occasional major or dominant seventh. Or suspensions. Or much of anything really.

Thirdly, I felt the harpsicord was not very well implented in the piece. For the most part, it was entirely superfluous and unnoticeable. In fact, you could mute the track and I don't feel it'd take much at all away from the piece.

Fourthly, your ending lacked any kind of power whatsoever. At the very least, you should make it more apparent that this in fact the ending of the piece. As it is now, it just seemingly... stops. Neither conclusive nor exciting.

And finally, your melodic writing is also quite dull. Not only are your melodies flat but they lack almost complete development. A few of the themes I think could have used some nice development but every opportunity you had, you passed up.

Also, this is a more subjective critique but your horn cadenza is seriously lacking. Given the monotony of the rest of the work, it would've been really nice to hear an energetic, showy horn cadenza... but that too fell flat. At the very least, I'd say the cadenza should be lengthened considerably.

I'll edit this post when I listen to the other movements.

EDIT: Okay, your second movement was an improvement.... though not by a whole lot.

To start with, your harpsicord introduction did show potential. It actually held my interest... until the strings came in and I knew where you were going with it.

Once again, your piece is almost entirely without any kind of rhythmic interest. You use straight quarter note rhythms for measure after measure after measure. It gets monotonous fast. At first, I was excited to see that there was actually a modulation this time... but you handled it poorly. It didn't have the power it should have and the degree to which you used those chromatically ascending chords just completely ruined it. Your modulation back to F Minor however wasn't so bad.

Also, once again, you fail to develop your ideas at all. Sure, you repeat them often enough but there is no true development. They never change. And given how they're pretty bland ideas to begin with, this can make the work a chore to listen through.

However, to be fair, part of the problem with this movement (and last) is the complete lack of change in tempo. A real-life orchestra would not be so metrically strict. But that still can't excuse everything.

To end on a positive note, I will say that, while still rhythmically really dull, you had more going on than last movement. There was a LITTLE interplay between the strings and this made it slightly more interesting to listen to. However, I still feel that the harpsicord was badly implented and your horn writing was dull.

Now on to the third movement.

EDIT: Okay, just finished your third movement and have to say that it's the best one so far. For once it was not completely rhythmically dull. I felt like the whole ensemble actually worked together as a cohesive whole for once and it was actually... alright.

Harmonically, you are still very much stunted though. Your language lacks any real color. Also, you don't appear to know how to modulate very effectively. You really should take some lessons in harmony, read a book or two, study some scores. If you want this to be "neo-romantic" then you have to put forth harmonic effort.

Themeatically, you still fail to develop your ideas. I would've actually liked to hear some of these ideas developed but you passed up a very easy opportunity to do so (hint: at the re-introduction would be a great point to implement development).

On to the fourth movement.

EDIT:

Well, half-way through, I was going to say this was your best movement yet but then... *sigh* you had to repeat the introduction... again. This is a consistent theme I notice in your entire concerto; your utter lack of development. You do have the occasional nice idea but you fail to variate it. I do have to say that the cyclic form was a kind of nice touch here but the problem is, it doesn't work. The themes are not strong enouh to be recgonizable to the audience on their own (I wouldn't have without a score in hand) and they are not changed enough to really even justify them being there. It just felt like artificial lengthening.

I will say that at least this movement held my interest rhythmically. By no means is it great and it can still be improved on vastly, but at least you broke out of the quarter note drones.

Overall, I have to say, while I understand that you put months into this work, it still needs A LOT of work. Learn counterpoint. Learn development. Learn how to utilize forms other than A-B-A. Learn how to modulate once without resorting to exaggerated chromatic motion. You have a few nice themes and at times, I could hear potential for a decent neo-romantic work. But these moments were brief. Keep working.

Good grief. You are right?

Thank you for your time. Argh! Such a droll work! 2 months of hard labour and it failed me... again! Not my best work, but surely not the worst!

This is way way way too traditional. It's like something an early baroque composer would write except different. Nirvana already told you pretty much everything you need to know.

Im going to add a few small things for the First movement for now

What may be keeping the work a little more boring then it really should be is that one you have pretty concrete phrase endings that bring the music to a stop you should attempt to flow a bit more between melodies and phrases. Also i just noticed that you always seem to take the melody lower and lower you never truly try to change that up and that keeps the listner feeling like they are hearing basically the same old thing over and over again. Finally this is maybe more something with me but you never majorly switch the key on us so its like we are almost hearing the same notes constantly.

Well the Second Movement

I liked it very much actually you accomplished most of the stuff i was talking about. While some may its boring due to its string parts I think those work out very nicely for a second movement character, the problem to them in this movement is that they don't contrast with the first movement so mainly if you build more of that contrast up in the first movement this would be most delightful

Third Movement

I have to say the first part of it really caught my attention and I enjoyed it very much but then when you go into the next section it just seems strange and too jumpy to fit any of the other movements style maybe as if it was a totally different piece (not that I found it bad). Then you bring back that good melody back to help cool my ears but you never really adventure with it at all even taking it an octave up in portions would have brought enough to make it seem new in a way.

Finale

Interesting overall one thing is that when you have the cellos and the harpsichord playng the exact same thing as the solo horn this is bad, you should try and distinguish them from eachother. Also when you repeat the theme from the second movement you should attempt to bring in slivers of what you were doing in this movement to form the two togather instead of just copying and pasting this into the work.

Well i cant really say anything more that hasn't already been said but I do see that you do have potential in the long run

It's been doomed. At least Kyle Hayes (the dedicatee) is happy with the piece.

Better luck next time. HEY! It is a romantic piece. Dont judge it by modern standards!

Well if your just going to give up on the composition let it be doomed. There is still a lot that could be done to it to make it that much better you just need to attempt to work on it.

Give up? Give me suggestions then! Quickly! The orchestra wants to start rehearsing!

Suggestions + bar numbers.

you should be able to figure that out for yourself after all the criticism you have recieved

Hey there Mr Smal.

I like it, but its too long. If you make it shorter you will not have the problem with "bordom". I like the piece overall, but there was some moments who was too long and became a bit tiresome. The onlything i disliked was the harpsichord, it does not fit the picture, expressive instruments for romantic music, the piano would be a better choice.

Still this is a large work, and it desvere credit for that.

Try a blit shorter work next time :)

SimenN

Shorter work? I doubt that

Anyway, I still have some time left before the orchestra starts rehearsing. I have more time and AM GOING TO IMPROVE!

Thank you for all your horrible comments. They are really going to make an impact on this piece. I shall upload the new score in about a months time I suppose.

:)

ok, a lot of negative comments have been made...

sadly, I'm going to add a few more.

1st movement: it doesn't feel terribly "concerto-ish". In the sense that your horn entrance is cadential. it seems to be tacked on at the end of a phrase in a harpsichord concerto.

I'm not really sure what might make this a "romantic" concerto. the form, the approach, everything is terrible late-baroque.

it's not bad music, but it IS very repetitive. too much? well, if you like the music it isn't, but if someone doesn't like the music, well, yeah, it's too repetitive.

I'm not happy about measure 63-64, that held Db in the contrabass... that major 7th chord just sounds completely out of place in the middle of what is all basically pretty boring triadic harmony.

I see you're treating it as a suspension, but it ends up resolving down with a lovely parallel 5th in the cello and viola parts.

from the point of view of orchestration, just for that single suspension, I'd suggest you at least double it with either the harpsichord or the cello. right now, it sounds like the basses are playing a wrong note as the harmony moves down into F minor.

at measure 77, that just sounds so.... Mozart-ish! (definitely not "romantic").

again, at 82, you have the harpsichord fighting against the strings with the "wrong" bass note.

at 87, that cute little chromatic rising passage.. it's a bit jarring when compared to what came before. don't get me wrong, this is actually the first moment that had me sit up while listening to your piece.

I have to say, the theme at measure 89 was VERY nice. I liked the little augmented 4th movement and it really stuck out as something worth listening to.

and more bad news... too short that part! you had to ruin it by bringing back your earlier material.

measure 118: you repeat that cute chromatic rising phrase.. and ... go nowhere with it. it just does a perfect cadence into the next theme. it would have been far more "romantic" for it to modulate unexpectedly into a more distant key. particularly that you're bringing back one of the lovelier themes from your piece.

ok, I only scanned through the rest of the piece after this.

it's awfully long.

Where I see a lot of room for improvement is with your developmental abilities.

The ideas are there.

But you're not doing with those ideas what you COULD be doing.

There's very much a sense of "ok, theme 1. and now, theme 2. and now repeat theme 1. and now theme 3. and now little transitional passage. and now repeat theme 1..."

You're not modifying your material immensely.

You're harmony also needs more work.

In this piece, you definitely break from the usual baroque/classical triadic harmony you normally employ, by stretching it out a bit with some tertiary relationships and a few augmented 4th relationships, but there still room for it to move into new territory.

We are still getting a feeling that, at its core, this is still basically all I-IV-V-I.

So, no, I didn't enjoy most of this piece, maybe a bit some very brief passages.

However, I AM encouraged to see that you MIGHT be exploring at least harmonic movement that goes a tiny bit further. There's still lots of room for improvement.

your orchestration is, however, dull as dishwater.

1st violins above 2nd, violas in the middle, cellos and basses in octaves. Very very bland. Repetitive figurations that don't move from section to section.

No double stops.

No range effects.

Even your solo part was incredibly "median" in its entirety.

I'd highly recommend you study some of Strawinski's neo-classical ballet scores. You seem to like writing for string orchestra and he has a number that are for a reduced orchestra.

I'd also highly recommend the score to Martinu's "Double concerto for strings, piano, and timpani". This is tonal music that uses its resources to the fullest.

THAT... is the single best comment I've had (in terms of harshness). Thank you for beign somewhat kind to me.

BUT... I can still save this concerto. And I will!

THANK YOU ALL! THOU ART MINE HEROES IN COMPOSITION, SAVING ME FROM DISGRACE!

This is way way way too traditional. It's like something an early baroque composer would write except different. Nirvana already told said pretty much everything you need to know.

I cant quite see this piece as baroque? bach is late baroque, palestrina early, does this sound like palestrina? or bach? no this is very romantic, he hit the style he wanted to do :)

Dont let the comments drag you down Mr Smal, like i said before, the piece is good, but a little too long. Like the emperor said to mozart, " there simply are too many notes, just cut a few, and it will be perfect" :)

Its hard to get the long works great, personaly i cant stand long works, like the concertos by chopin, etc. In my view they become too tiresome for the ear, just as yours did. How about do like 6 - 9 minutes? if want to do works that are long, what about more movements? you can do many shorter movements, and you might get a better result :)

SimenN

I'm sorry, but there is NOTHING "romantic" about the harmony in this piece.

Let's just be perfectly clear about that.

This is very simple, late-classical triadic harmony.

Except for the one section I pointed out in my earlier comments, where there are multiple augmented 4th relationships and movements by 3rd, the rest of the piece is in harmony that would not be, in any way or form, out of place in music by Mozart.

Allright, classical i agree, but its not early baroque, in my ears the melody sounded romantic at times, more then baroque or classical, espessialy with all the pizzicato and the length

oy...

pizzicato and length have nothing to do with it.

There were so many parts that were great and so many that were not-so-great-. It was hard to keep track of it.

I got the feeling that certain parts wanted to develop further but were capped by a new rhythm or melody coming in.

I felt it was too long personally. There were times where I caught myself thinking about other things like dinner and t.v. shows. Then I would realize the song was still going.

Further, there were certainly parts that struck me as romantic and were great and then there were others that were slightly more domestic abuse and cheating.

With a little refining and development this could be a GREAT song.

Did I hear some direct Schubert influence? I expected the cadenza at 39 to be exactly twice as fast. Beginning of Andante I would have expected a much more engaging left hand in the harpsichord. Maybe some counterpoint, or something more closely resembling a continuo, since it would fit the style. Piu Mosso at 97 - I would have marked the horn staccato, accents. It would match what the strings are doing in character. Similar at 130, Allegro. I yearn to hear a more interesting harpsichord part here. Col legno... really? Why? 158 - so cute! I love it! Could have put more effort into the transition back into 176, though. Vivace - I would have dotted the horn here like I mentioned earlier. The little chromatic bit at 217 wasn't really a shock for me (I think somebody else complained about it, no?) I thought it was fine. Andante 271 - I might have put something more driving in the harpsichord, maybe triplets. 8th notes tend to drag at this tempo with this harmonic simplicity. Later at 281 you came up with a solution to this problem. For some works, ending with a major chord works well. I didn't think it did with this one.

Overall I really liked it, I just thought it moved too slowly. You had a lot of nice themes going on in here, but you didn't develop anything. I don't think you need to cut any off or make it shorter, but what I think you need to do is take some of the material you already have and make it more interesting. Change up some notes here and there, put in more rapid notes here and there, as at slow tempos with simple harmonic progressions, slow notes tend to get boring rather quickly. I would actually bump the tempo of almost this entire concerto up by 10 BPM or so. Also, you could change some harmonies. As people said, this isn't neo-Romantic. I'd call it neo-Classical. While adhering to even classical period harmonic customs, you still have room to introduce some more interesting chord alternatives, or "substitutes." Also, try adding in suspensions, this really helps hold interest for works of even the most harmonic simplicity.

Too much disjointedness. Almost all of your phrases end on perfect cadences, imperfect cadences, or something that ends up in the same place that it started at. Therefore you have little sense of flow from one idea to the next, i.e. too much stuff in the same key all of the time. Tonicise from time to time! You did a little bit, and modulated once or twice, but explore more!

Unlike somebody else posted in here, I actually really liked the harpsichord in here. When you had it read and performed, did they actually use a harpsichord? Overall I think you could have made some of the harpsichord parts a little more active here and there. I think a piano would actually be rather boring. This piece is fine with harpsichord - if you used piano you wouldn't be using anywhere near all of the capabilities available to you. If anything ... a fortepiano, but not a pianoforte. :pinch:

The horn part could be made MUCH more interesting. In comparison to what you have already, try and think more virtuosically. Throughout the piece you repeat the same phrases over and over with really no variation it seemed. You have great opportunity to vary the horn part each time. Make it more interesting each time the same thing crops up. Literally add more notes, use more varying registers, vary the character by articulation, etc.

I think if you go back to this piece and change some of the boring, over-and-over parts to be more interesting and varied and incorporated some more varied chords in here and there, you'd have a much better piece. I like it, and I think it has a lot of potential, but right now it's suffering from lack-of-thing-to-catch-my-interest syndrome. I say please give it a revisit - it might be worthwhile to play around with it.

Congratulations on completing such a large work, btw. Do let us know how the performance endeavors went. :)

Pieter....I haven't listened to the piece yet. I want to be able to listen to the whole thing at once. But, I will say I admire how you take such criticism in stride. Sometimes it's harsh, but everything people are saying is constructive. Sure, 'it's boring' doesn't help, but they are telling you why they feel it's boring, (just one example). Way to take constructive criticism and run with it and take for just what it is, constructive, which allows you to grow.

I felt it was quite nice, although, perhaps not a Concerto. Perhaps music for the Ballet, or incidental music. Your simplicity works, I felt it was almost a Handel Sarabande at the start. The Harpsicord part could be slightly more intresting, give it the theme for some time, it is almost a piano! Imagine if Mozart had that as a piano part in one of his Concertos, You could listen to the Brandenburgs, they have this style of concerto.

7/10! :)

Your formal structure make sense and people can latch onto it.

Listen to it over and over again, making little changes (particularly to the horn part) as you go. You'll find that as you keep changing it, the work will evolve into something much greater and more interesting.

Listen to more popular music. Find music of the masses that is tasteful and listen like crazy. You will instantly create sounds that people love while you're still expressing yourself in a way that is you.

Make the horn part way harder, but doable. It's a concerto, it needs to be impressive. Consult a player and ask if things are possible. Study the fingers and the physics of the instrument so that you can write impressive sounding figures that are idiomatic.

So my advice: Polish and research. And never throw a piece away. Just keep making it better until you're not good enough to make it any better. Right now I think you are good enough to make it better; therefore it's not finished.

And lastly, don't ever quit for even a day.

-caleb

Listen to more popular music. Find music of the masses that is tasteful and listen like crazy. You will instantly create sounds that people love while you're still expressing yourself in a way that is you.

Why does music need to appeal to the masses? Create your art the way you see fit, don't try to fit it into some massive group aesthetic just to get a few more clicks on your MySpace page. Why sacrifice your artistic integrity?

Make the horn part way harder, but doable. It's a concerto, it needs to be impressive. Consult a player and ask if things are possible. Study the fingers and the physics of the instrument so that you can write impressive sounding figures that are idiomatic.

Define "harder". Do you mean, faster, more technically challenging, higher? Ligeti's Cello Concerto opens with the cello sustaining a soft, single pitch for an extended period of time, without any changes in dynamics, timbre, etc. Bow changes aren't supposed to be heard. A cello player that can pull that off is much more impressive than someone that can play a bunch of notes quickly. Though I definitely agree with the later part of that statement.

The rest of that is good advice though. :thumbsup:

I agree with most of what's been said, specifically the comments of Nirvana. It doesn't need to be repeated.

Why does music need to appeal to the masses? Create your art the way you see fit, don't try to fit it into some massive group aesthetic just to get a few more clicks on your MySpace page. Why sacrifice your artistic integrity?

Because the past generation of composers stopped listening to the masses, and that's why our concert halls are empty (comparatively to the past). Our responsibility is to influence our society for the better, not cut it off from us. If no one wants to listen to us, then what good are we and we should society support us financially?

By harder I mean more expressive elements. Grace notes, runs, flourishes of color, impressive crescendos, etc.

Because the past generation of composers stopped listening to the masses, and that's why our concert halls are empty (comparatively to the past). Our responsibility is to influence our society for the better, not cut it off from us. If no one wants to listen to us, then what good are we and we should society support us financially?

:huh:

I don't know what concert halls you're going to, but I've been to plenty of concerts of "the past generation of composers'" music and, little Snapple fact for ya' here, many of them were sold out. And I'm not talking about cheap tickets either. I went to see Zimmerman's Die Soldaten last summer at the Park Ave Armory in NYC, $100+ tickets for a 12-TONE OPERA, completely sold out, every single performance, I barely got a ticket. I've seen concerts of Lachenmann's music, with not a single empty seat. Same goes for Crumb. I watched the JACK Quartet perform string quartets by Xenakis in a packed room. Oh, and another little fun fact, there were people of all ages at these concerts.

Concert halls are "empty" right now because no one can afford to pay to go to concerts thanks to the recession, especially the larger orchestras or the Met. Also, "museum" music concerts have been relatively "empty" for awhile as well. People can't afford concerts, or they'd rather just stay at home at listen to the recording. Stop allowing yourself to be fed BS and actually check out what's going on. Sure, the NY Phil favors conservative programing (though they do sneak in a few contemporary composers), but that doesn't mean people aren't listening to and going to concerts of new music. Pull your head out of your donkey.

And since when does our society support us financially? The NY Phil gets tons of money from the NEA, but guess what -- not a single composer does. Our society funds things that don't need funding and neglects those that do. The way that smaller ensembles and composers make money (aside from teaching) is through commissions and funding through individual patrons. Not the society as a whole.

By harder I mean more expressive elements. Grace notes, runs, flourishes of color, impressive crescendos, etc.

To that I will again direct you to Ligeti's Cello Concerto.

I don't understand why so many of you find the degradation of "contemporary" music necessary. Isn't there a no slander policy on this forum? :angry: