Piano Concerto in F minor

(WARNING: May contain neo-Romanticism)

I don't regard this as by any means perfect, but rather than preempt I think it best to just let the criticism come.

I can't really see the wood for the trees with this anymore. So I plan to rest the piece for a few weeks, digest advice and then hit it hard, call time on it and move on to something else. Whatever time you can spend and input you may have would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

ABOUT THE PIECE:

The bulk of the 1st Movement (with orchestral part in sketchy reduction), along with some basic ideas for the 3rd, was written in a pretty white-hot phase of activity and then gathered dust on the shelf for nearly 10 years.

I recently revisited it and decided that I should at least finish the thing. In the course of properly orchestrating (as well as I am able) what I had, a continuation and finale for the 1st movement came pretty naturally, and the 2nd Movement was also a fairly logical outgrowth.

The 3rd presented real problems - mainly because my ears and tastes have changed radically in the interim, so it was difficult to write what I felt was worthwhile, yet still in the spirit of what had gone before.

ABOUT THE SCORE:

I believe there's a lot more work to do, so I'm loth to consolidate the score yet. I'm also not yet ready to commit to scads of embedded MIDI messages until I'm totally happy with the dynamics. So a degree of imagination is required to hear the dims and crescs.

Scores:

www.opus28.co.uk/JLPnoConc1.pdf

www.opus28.co.uk/JLPnoConc2.pdf

www.opus28.co.uk/JLPnoConc3.pdf

MP3s:

www.opus28.co.uk/JLPnoConc1.mp3

www.opus28.co.uk/JLPnoConc2.mp3

www.opus28.co.uk/JLPnoConc3.mp3

Jason

Welcome to YC.

Parts of this are in the same style that my favorite composer, Prokofiev would use. So for that reason alone, I liked it. The piano work in this is very good, but the rest of the orchestration could use some work.

Nicely done

Ron

Thanks for taking the time to listen Ron, and I'm gratified that you found something to interest you. Orchestration is a pretty new discipline for me - most of my experience has been with jazz and salsa ensembles, so I guess I've rather a big gap to bridge...

I'm very impressed with YC - a community in support of an ultimately very solitary pursuit. Been lurking for a while, and recently starting weighing in with an opinion here and there. Looking forward to participating more.

Best, J

agree with ron, very good but the orchestration maybe needs revision. I've not yet read anything on orchestration myself but this may help Principles of Orchestration On-line - northernsounds.com

I loved the bit with the arpeggios in the left hand around the bar 64 area.

I just listened to the 1st movement:

overall I think this is okay- not quite to my tastes, but detailed and well thought out. As a suggestion to maybe help your orchestration- expand your ranges. Your piano part is pretty good at this but some other intruments (flutes for example) hardly ever go outside the staff. But, unless they're soloing, they won't be heard in those octaves.

You really need to reconsider your timpani part. It looks like you could easily get away with 2 timpani rather than 4 if you take out the Db and Ab from the first line. Having a timpani part that barely plays, but requires 4 timpani is an expensive pain.

good work, keep writing!

The piano looks and sounds fine (as far as this nonpianist can tell) but the orchestral parts are not very exciting to play. Also I feel that some sections are weakly orchestrated.

For example in m.19 of the 3rd movement, you put the 3rd in the bass in the brass section, you scored the clarinets and flutes in weak registers, the string voicing is weird (double bass is only C), etc. This contributes to a muddy sound even in the playback and would be poor in a real orchestra.

My impression of this piece is a pianist who is good at writing for piano but not yet good at orchestration. I really enjoyed the third movement, a lot of chromatic interest, but it needs to be re orchestrated. I would check out the Adler or Kennan books on orchestration at your local library.

Beautiful! Strange... I LOVE your attempt at a Piano Concerto!

Beign a pianist myself, my orchestration isn't good either. BUT the Piano part is promising! We should both study orchestration more.

Well done! I hope it get's performed one day!

Thanks to all for listening and responding.

kly45:

I looked at the online Rimsky sometime ago - I admit I need more practise. Incidentally, I had a long chat with a horn player recently who advised me against the Rimsky orthodoxy of doubling horns.

c7music:

I'll look again at ranges - I guess I was largely considering woodwinds from the point of view of colouring the strings.

The timps are mainly there for the 3rd movement. Giving the first statement of the main motific element in the 1st to the timps appealed to my sense of humour... Still, you may be right that 4 is an extravagance.

Weca:

Thanks for the specific example and the reading recommendations.

Pieter:

Dankie. Are you still high on Sound of Music?

Woah, I love your opening at 1:03, and when the piano comes in at 1:20 section, along with the orchestra, it is superb! In fact, it is genius, and I listened to it about 20 times in row. You really should look at what you did there, and try to expand on that because unfortunately, I feel the piece loses ground after that. You do come back, and I will note the parts that interested me.

My favorite parts (first movement I only listened to so far):

1:03 - 1:40

3:56 - 4:40

6:40 - 8:00

Some of the parts I am mentioning have your very catchy theme. Because your theme is so catchy, I would have liked to hear more development of the theme. It's not just the theme that was enjoyable, it is the way you executed the theme.

You need dynamics for the piano!!!! The piano is a very expressive instrument, and without proper dynamic writing, it makes your recording sound way too flat.

Is Rachmaninoff an influence by any chance?

Chopin:

Thanks for the input. I do feel that one of the major structural shortcomings of this piece is perhaps too much over-reliance on sectional repetition as opposed to more rigorous development. You'll probably find the same issues in the other movements. Hope that doesn't put you off in advance...

Rachmaninov - yes indeed, though not exclusively. I was taken aged 10 to see Beroff and Tilson-Thomas do the 3rd Piano Concerto - knocked me bandy and I've never been quite the same since. I do think it's sad that many people are so eager to criticise Rachmaninov for sentimentality and flashiness that they overlook the incredibly integrated nature of his construction and, above all, his musical wit. Also, ironically, I think he'd be held in greater general esteem if he'd written weaker melodic material.

Actually, the main theme in the 2nd movement (introduced by flutes at 1.08) is consciously inspired by the "upside-down in major" transformation in the 18th Paganini variation. Come to think of it, the key relationship is the same as well... And I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit that having the 2nd movement in major up a major third is entirely uninfluenced by the 2nd Concerto. Of course he gets in and out of it far more eloquently than I do! And as for the "bells", well...

More dynamic detail for the piano - righto. All suggestions gratefully received. As I said, I've reached a point of saturation with this piece, so the attention of other eyes and ears is very much appreciated. Thanks to all.

The piano is not an easy instrument to compose for mainly because it sounds awful without proper midi programming. This is one of the largest obstacles in successful piano composition. Even if you compose great for the piano, it will sound terrible without the correct tempo changes and volume adjustments. For example, it will sound much too mechanical if just composed by mouse and keyboard and with very few tempo changes...it has to sound like a human is playing it in order to sound realistic (especially in the style you compose in...if you were composing in the Classical or Baroque style, this wouldn't matter too much). I am sure Finale and Sibelius have some kind of human playback capability, but I am not sure how good their human playback sounds. My advice is to create 20-50 tempo changes per measure with proper pedaling (and you can copy these dynamics for similar measures). This way, you create a rubato texture for your piece, making it sound much more realistic, rather than it sounding like a computer playback.

And in my opinion, the recording is "just as" important as the music put on paper. This is exactly what people will be listening to when you audition your works! This is why every serious composer should invest in at least some kind of decent sound library.

At some point I will mock this up properly - probably incorporating a live piano performance (my piano has MIDI output capability). As I said before, I believe there's much more to be done to it, so I'd rather be happier with it before going into serious "production" work.

I'll try your approx rubato tip in the interim though. Sounds like it might be a useful stop-gap improvement.

BTW Pieter - some loose plans in place for a performance in Bulgaria next year. Assuming I can get it into shape.