One Hundred Bars for Chamber Orchestra

Hello all!

First of all, a quick analysis of the piece:

The piece is built upon a two competing points of interest. The first is a five note motif (in an incredibly subtle move, the first five of the piece), which recurs throughout the piece. The second is simply the use of upwards chromatic movement. In most cases, this becomes more of a recognisable texture than a specific "theme." The ending is a recapitulation of the beginning of the piece with the intrusion of the upward chromatic movement before becoming entirely overcome by the texture and lead to a concluding chord that contains all 12 semitones.

Secondly, on a less-analytical note, this is my first composition for an ensemble this size. I chose to write for a fairly standard classical double-winds chamber orchestra because I really wanted the voices to maintain a bit of their individuality and sing through in certain parts, but at the same time have an ensemble large enough to create thick, complicated textures.

I'll also note that, since I had no misapprehensions about the chances of having this piece performed, I decided I may as well not limit myself and write for a very high-standard level of players. Despite my good intentions, I imagine that there will be parts of this piece that wouldn't work for whatever reason, be it passages that are too technically demanding, or poor orchestration, etc. Anyway, I'd be very grateful to have these aspects pointed out to me, as well as anything that you think works, too, so the learning process can continue!

Anyway, the .pdf of the score is attached below, and here's a link to an .mp3

Thanks very much,

Michael.

Chamber Music Piece.pdf

I like this: it's unpredictable, a little unsettling, but not overly so, and subtly dramatic. Sounds kind of like music that would be playing in the background of a sword fight, haha (the final note sounds like someone being pierced in the heart :O). Nice piece :)

Asparagus

I enjoyed this.

To paraphrase Rimsky-Korsakov, music should be easy to play. While some music by its nature needs to be difficult to play, that should be the exception, not the rule.

The ending has some major distortion.

Just a quick note on the score. It is the general practice to put the 1st and 2nd player of most any instrument on one stave unless there would be problems in the notation. If the players are playing in unison, you would write that above the stave. It keeps for a cleaner/smaller score.

Ron

Rolifer, the score notation is mainly my fault. I typed it up and I couldn't be bothered sharing staves because it takes a lot longer to type out that way in Finale. But consider the correction noted!

:huh: Camilla....why...um did you answer Ron's question? It's asparagus's thread....

Asparagus

I enjoyed this.

To paraphrase Rimsky-Korsakov, music should be easy to play. While some music by its nature needs to be difficult to play, that should be the exception, not the rule.

The ending has some major distortion.

Just a quick note on the score. It is the general practice to put the 1st and 2nd player of most any instrument on one stave unless there would be problems in the notation. If the players are playing in unison, you would write that above the stave. It keeps for a cleaner/smaller score.

Ron

Thanks for the feedback, Ron.

I know I'm bending Rimsky-Korsakov's rules a bit in this, but I really wanted to have the individual timbres really flourishing, with equality, in a way that would normally be reserved for smaller ensembles and solo instruments. I've tried to keep it from being too over-the-top, though. This isn't really conventional orchestration, so I've been wanting on feedback on if it would actually work in the way I've intended. This is also why I originally hand-wrote the parts individually rather than two players to a staff, but I do agree that there are long sections where it would make for a cleaner score to tidy it up like you suggest, so thanks for that! I'll have to get onto Camilla!

About the distortion, I guess the MP3 didn't turn out too well from Finale! But it's interesting how that should happen, since my original intention was to have the piece fade into a kind of white noise rather than discernible parts. I'll look into it.

Anyway, thanks very much for the feedback!

Thank you also, to Serge for your feedback, too. And Heckel, Camilla replied to Ron for me because she put it into Finale and edited it for me, I thought that was clear enough! :)