L'Albatros

This is a tone poem that I have written based on the following poem, taken from the 1861 Fleurs Du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. The Poem title is L'albatros.

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew

Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds

That indolently follow a ship

As it glides over the deep, briny sea.

Scarcely have they placed them on the deck

Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed,

Pathetically let their great white wings

Drag beside them like oars.

That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is,

So beautiful before, now comic and ugly!

One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe;

Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew!

The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky

Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman;

When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers,

His giant wings prevent him from walking.

(English Translation by William Appleby)

In the piece I have used a simple 4-bar theme to represent the Albatross. It starts in the piccolo soaring high at the start, then it expands into a continued soary wind thing. Flute choir make up clouds, and as the Albatross flies lower the instrument representing it becomes lower - first Cor Anglais, then bassoon. Following this, the albatross catches sight of the ship, with the definitive ship horn sounding from the Low brass. This is followed by the section in which the crew capture the bird, here the chromatic winds and harp represent the bird, and the brass sailor melody represents...well...the sailors. Following this, the Albatross falls to the ground, and its theme is heard in the tuba and contrabassoon. This is accompanied by trombone glissandi which are like the laughing of the sailors. Eventually they let it go, and once again, it flies off, but this time in a lower key, still not quite having shaken off the taunts of the crew of the ship. However, things pick up again, and the Maestoso shows that it is better than the crew. (Or at least the poet is better than the crew - or should be).

Time taken to compose - Just over 1 week (this is unusually long for me)

Problems encountered: Yes, awkward ranges of winds which I didn't know before, semiquavers, writing in a slightly atonal style at times. Also writing music to a story of sorts is diffficult.

Qm.MID

I do have an MP3, but I made it with Cubase VST Score 5.1, which I got in about 1998...therefore it's also fairly bad. As for a PDF, do you know how to make one from the .sib? Many thanks.

http://www.savefile.com/files/2669114 - link to bad MP3

Also, slightly expanded explanation of the Maestoso, although the poet is feeling sorry for himself, the albatross will once more become king of the sky, just as, sooner or later, the genius will become king of the world...mwahahaha...ahem.

Has this been forgotten? I have been off the internet for a while for various reasons.

I don't know if I'd write the albatros theme for the piccolo. The albatros is actually a really big bird. I would have written it for a clarinet or something of the like.

Very nicely written, it was obvious to tell what was going on (even having not read the actual poem), and the way you intertwined ideas was exceptionally clever. I would say that the sailor theme became a little bit cheesy when you introduced the "Popeye the sailor man" theme (for lack of a better word). I think when you introduce the boat, you should make the music much more sweeping and majestic. It kind of sounds like the bird is landing on a dingy.

Wish I could review the score, and seriously wish I had a better sound source to listen to. It was quite clever and entertaining, though. You should look at some bigger poems and set them to music on a grander scale.

Yq,

There is a lot of music here, but your stylistic contrasts make it too jarring for my sensibilities. Especially in light of its programatic nature. Just because you have command of a number of styles doesn't mean you should use them all. To go from a very nice pop sensibility at 24 to what sounds like pandiatonic writing at 48 to odd meter latin sounding rythyms at 56 to big old dominant chord at 67 to circus music at 75 - shades of impressionism at 86 - leaning towards atonality at 131 - 60's filmscoring at 137 - more contemporary filmscoring at 143 - big old honkin plain jane Db chord at the end- and that's only from me randomly flipping through it.

Yes, yes, I'm sure you meant it to be this way, but I doubt that experienced listeners would be able to take it seriously. You haven't created an appropriate setting for your story to take place. Think of it this way: You've created an entire planet for a story that only needs a sea shore.

On the one hand, maybe this is what MTV, sound-bites, and multi-tasking has done to young people - so many can't watch anything for more than 5 seconds before they expect a different screen to keep them titilated.

More likely, you're much like me when I first started composing. You have no trouble coming up with ideas; you have a young fertile mind. But you do have trouble developing an idea. It's much easier to move on to the next brilliant flourish.

Some of the most subtle painting is done with a well chosen range of colors. I'm looking at a painting that I own done by a local artist as an example. It is a smallish picture of a fall scene on a mountain. Done with only five or six colors, in a broad brush with not much layering kind of technique. That is the style, the world within which the painting lives - it gives the story consistency.

Sorry, if I seem preachy - I'm just trying to convey my thoughts. You have a lot of skills, and talent, but you need to start disciplining yourself. You don't have to do this cold turkey. Just try and be more aware of it as you write. I may be totally off-base here. You may be very capable of sticking to a style and capable of writing theme and variations with wonderful subtlies - in which case, please disregard everything I have written. :mellow:

I'm not sure. The music is fine though there may be a couple of orchestration issues like around 5 mins deep brass or woodwind came into it that seemed slightly iffy.

I received it more of a collection of pieces with the opening theme recapping here and there. That was not really enough to unify the work for me, possibly because you traverse widely different styles with little transition.

But this is all contingent on the MP3 file posted. An orchestra giving a wider dynamic variation may make things different.

cheers,

M

I must admit, despite the criticisms of others, I found the work quite enjoyable. It is more artistically driven rather than musicality or technically, which may fail to satisfy some discriminating members of the board (ex. Canzano and others) yet has, to me anyway, and distinct message and even logic at its core.

The instrumentation was not particularly strong or even feasible at some places (I know you exceeded several instruments ranges and/or technical abilities) but that could be reprimanded fairly painlessly by interchanging some of the parts or raising/lowering them an octave or so.

Contrary to most other

In listening to this piece, I noticed a few things you may want to watch out for. You often abuse the registers of your instruments (I see you noted this some already). The most egrerious is probably the Tympani actually. In all honesty, the Tympani sounds better when it stays inside the Bass Clef. Don't ever stick it on ledger lines if you can help it.

Now as to the programmatic content. I found it very convincing. Given the weightiness of the albatross, I might have paired up the piccolo with a flute to give it more weight at the beginning. The idea of having it sink to lower and lower registers is an excelent one and works in this piece.

The introduction of the sailing vessel and the fast paced section that follows is REALLY exciting! I love it! I feel right on edge and can see the poor albatross struggling as it is mocked and jeered by the foul sailors.

When the albatross returns to the air, it seem sinjured and almost crying in misery over how poorly it was treated. It just wanted to get a lcoser look and see who they were. But slowly, and slowly we can feel it regaining its pride. And that is truly a pleasing feeling to har the major key desperately trying to come back. Around measure 138, we really feel the excitement and joy as it gains its confidence and self-assurance again. Their is majesty in this great bird of the sea.

What a wonderful piece!

P.S. I love the albatross, I think it's a really cool bird.

Very beautiful. I love your harmonies. I won't say much because the MP3 is hard to listen to and I can't pick out a lot to talk about technically. One concern - you probably don't want to have the piccolo player try to sustain notes that long.