Vocalise - for violin and piano

Hi, I have not posted here for a while - I'd like to share this piece for violin and piano I wrote a few years ago for a dear friend of mine. You can find it here

Any comments are welcome. Thanks!

This piece is overall very beautiful- the attractive, flowing melodies and jazzy harmonies make it work very well for the instrumentation you've chosen.

The violin's higher register is exploited nicely, although I think you could make more use of the lower strings, even in a work like this where the soloist has a lot of cantabile lines. The entrance of the violin could have been done better, in my opinion- it seems to me like the piano introduction either wants to stop faster or go longer before the violinist comes in.

Besides those two things, it's all done very well. There's a great sense of movement throughout, and listening all the way through one can hear a beginning, climax, and kind of resolution when things calm down after the agitated piano chords.

A fine piece, just by listening to the recording (although it would have been easier to review with a score.) Good work!

Very nice altogether. The piano chords at about 1'40'' and the tumultuous bass line around 4'50'' had a Rachmaninov feel to them.

This is very very VERY beautiful music!

Lucky you for having someone play your music, too!

I love it, and there's nothing really I can say more than this.

Thank you very much for your comments. Honestly I like the introduction and the entrance of the soloist, I don't think I would change that. I agree that the lower register of the violin could have been used more in some passages - a possible reason why this did not happen is that I wanted to create a big contrast with the darker tones of the piano accompaniment (especially in the middle section). I am glad you noticed the 'jazzy' harmonies, I really wanted to create a fusion of styles here.

I am trying to attach the score to this reply, hopefully it will work. I just forgot to include it with the original post. Cheers

Vocalise 13 March 09.pdf

I enjoyed it very much. My only comment would be on the crescendos you have at near the beginning of the piece that are above the staff. Is there any reason for this?

Not really - In fact, I should change that. When the writing gets pretty dense I sometimes put crescendos and dim. above the staff... Thanks for pointing it out.