Darkening, for String Quartet

Hi guys,

Haven't posted music in a while. I thought I might post something here.

A string quartet piece for some sort of competition. I use close counterpoint/canon as well as paralel movements... Something like that.

Here are the files.

MP3

Score

I'm not so sure how happy are they to let me upload the files and stuff. So I'll put this here for around 3-5 days before I take them down.

Thanks for the comment in advance.

ST

You kick so much donkey.

Great use of very closely-spaced canons, etc. There's definitely a sense of "darkening" in the music, even though it never really becomes "dark" in the sense that it's grim or austere - more dark in the sense of a rich tone color. The whole piece is united by the lyrical motive presented at the beginning, etc etc etc. There's not a whole lot that's really "bad" for me to say about this, it's a great miniature and I enjoyed it. Nice niceeeee!

This sounds gorgeous, and congratulations on getting your piece performed!

I like, in this case, the closeness of all 4 instruments playing nearly in the same octave, and I agree with Voce's comment.

To me, the 1st half of your piece sounded better and more impressive to me than the 2nd half.

Excellent job!

Ah thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate it.

And that is such a spot on comment, Voce... the darkening thing. I'm gonna have to steal that for a programme note! If you don't mind of course =P

Not a whole lot that's really bad? Which means there are some bits of it. So what's the bad part of it? =P Tell me!

The darkening thing is actually, erm, I think we named that because we had so much dark chocolate to the point where those chords sound like Dark chocolate to us... xD but dark chocolate is way too funny to be the title... xD

:D Absolutely STUNNING! Thank you for sharing. No comment. I just listened to it twice.

Ah! Well, this was a treat. This is a very good work, bordering on fantastic. The use of the close cannon was very effective especially now the phrases ended on the gorgeous vi9 and IV9 chords. The chord in measure 13 sold the piece, right there. Really, a great job. However, unlike Voce, I have qualms:

Form-wise, the piece is sound. I liked the ABA-type feel to it. However, the "B" section, the development, if you will, from 37-68 have a few rough patches. Most notably was the last chord in measure 68. It just didn't sit right with me for some reason. What would have been really fantasic is do something really unexpected there like a Neapolitan or something even more completely unrelated to the F#minor of the following "A" section. Make that chord the climax of the piece harmonically and dynamically. In 54-64 there were some weird things going on contrapuntally that didn't sit right. I think there is too much clashing between the close cannon causing it almost to sound muddy. Harmonically, I thought a few more accidentals to spice things up where needed too. To really stray away from F# minor, not just walk away for 30 bars.

Texturally, I think some more variation could be warranted. Most notably in the bottom of the cello/viola and the top of the violin. Granted, the cello does get down to low C, but a more conscious falling down to the bottom of the range probably would make it more effective. On the other end of the spectrum, while you have the other instruments go high, the violins don't go that high at all, not beyond E. I would have really liked to see some substrataspheric playing by the first violin coinciding with the cello's falling down expanding the range of the whole ensemble at once. While I get the point of being somewhat reserved in this piece, I'm just saying to exploit the potential of the group more. One can intentionally NOT exploit that potential for effect (which may be what's happening here), and if you're comfortable with that, by all means, continue what you're doing, because its working.

The score's fonts should be changed to a serif font to make the expressions and tempos more readable, but that's just a matter of taste I think. (You know a piece is good when I have to nitpick.)

Again, a job well done! I look forward to seeing more works from you in the future. Good luck and happy composing! :)

good but short

WOW! This is BEAUTIFUL :):happytears: I can't wait to hear more!

Heckel

very nice.

I agree with what is said before: it is not so dark I hoped for ;)

In fact it was too sweet. It reminded me of the impressionistic quartets of debussy and ravel.

Wonderful! Just lovely!!! Very Beautiful and atmospheric!

simply beautiful. although it didn't give a sense of "darkening"... i'd rather a name change then changing a note though. :)

Whoa, guys, thanks for the replies! I appreciate it =)

I thought I'd explain the title a bit. I didn't have a title before. I had my inspiration from something else. Then, when I was done with the piece, I obviously need a title, and a friend of mine suggested a title along the line of "dark." Not because of the darkness or the evil dark... but because of Dark Chocolate... Some of the chords remind her of that I suppose. Or we have been eating too much dark chocolate probably xD

The whole piece is unexaggerated. I purposely didn't want to do the usual unexpected things. I don't know, but those unexpected things became very expected and I find it quite exaggerated sometimes. I think I was trying to see what I could do staying diatonic and all that.

But I agree with not utilising the whole range of the instruments, especially the cello; it sits in high tessitura all the time. I recently did an arrangement of a song for a friend and she said that the cello part is really high too. I think that's how I write for cello these days, which is getting a bit too much I suppose. I'll have to take care of that next time. lol

But yeah, thanks a lot for the comments guys.

I thought I'd explain the title a bit. I didn't have a title before. I had my inspiration from something else. Then, when I was done with the piece, I obviously need a title, and a friend of mine suggested a title along the line of "dark." Not because of the darkness or the evil dark... but because of Dark Chocolate... Some of the chords remind her of that I suppose. Or we have been eating too much dark chocolate probably xD

That's a good enough reason. And come on, what's better than dark chocolate? :D

That's a good enough reason. And come on, what's better than dark chocolate? :D

Milk Chocolate.

Milk Chocolate.

MILK CHOCOLATE? :blink: :thumbsdown:

Dark Chocolate FTW!

Nothing beats Dark Chocolate... xD

I even capitalise it... without really realising that I capitalised it of course. Even though, of course I had to realise that did that to be able to say that I capitalised it. So I kinda lied.

I must say I agree with Tokkemon. Milk Chocolate does not have a bitter aftertaste like Dark Chocolate has. :P

Anyways... this is absolutely beautiful. I mean, it really is very very nice. I can't think of much else to say about it other than that. lol Awesome!

Wow that was fantastic! It felt like an ascension and descent at the same time. It reminded me of a very thick forest with some type of light shining through it. I found the harmony very interesting and unique.

I really like your style!