Piano Concertante no. 2

This is the rough draft of my Second Piano Concertante.

The instrumentation is 1 flute, 1 oboe, 1 horn in f, 1 trumpet, 1 trombone, piano soloist, and strings.

I will be adding to the orchestration and fixing the writing this week BUT as a whole (structurally) the piece is finished. The remainder I will add is mere embellishment. The work focuses on three thematic ideas and develops them largely in the interplay between the piano and orchestra. That said, the orchestration is sparse for the most part (at this point anyways). I may add more to the ending - just to push it over 200 bars BUT I am very uncertain - as I want an air of uncertainty in the ending. Duration is 8mins 10 secs.

Piano Concertante no. 2

I think this piece is really nice! Has many nice ideas and atmospheres, many colours and shadows, I enjoyed it a lot!

Bravo

Harmony is a major element of the music, if ignored it, and make music produced a non-need sound. But I am sure you understand, so it is a good works , parallel chord progression create the unique sound effect and also which will give me an eye-opener, the design of the tonal system is also very unique and new

Hey Jason,

Nice work on this piece. You have some solid ideas and an 8 minute clearly thought out work is nothing to scoff at! I have some concerns with your textures, though, and maybe this is just a personal thing. Using one of each non-string instrument is a bold move because each instrument will stick out and it is harder to blend your harmonic ideas. Transparency is a great thing, but I wanted to hear more harmonic support behind your melodic lines. I also wanted to hear thicker and more fluid piano lines to connect the ideas of the right and left hand (they often seem very separate). However, you are consistent in having various single-line melodies (often in different timbres) play against each other. This is a good start and I look forward to hearing the final version!

Punkititi: Thanks for enjoying my work.

Makwingka: The harmony in the piece is very important. I chose the progressions that I felt would lend the ideas more weight.

Black Orpheus: Yes, I intend to thicken the orchestration this weekend. I toyed with the idea of adding more winds and brass - but, I like the overall lighter orchestration here because it afforded me more of a chance to showcase the soloist alone. The melodic lines in the orchestra, however - from my vantage point, are harmonically supported to a larger extent than I had done in works prior to this. I'll go back and check.

Jason

This is very nice and works well without the winds in 2's.

However, you may want to rethink having just one Horn. Just about every book you will ever read on orchestration says to always have more horns than the other brass. Otherwise they just will not be heard. This can be overcome by having the horns play at least one dynamic step above the other brass (which is what is normally done anyway), but is still not considered to be good practice. The timbres than fight each other too much, so 2 horns in unison, will work with 1 trumpet or 1 trombone, etc.

Just from a sound viewpoint, it would work better if the piano was a little closer to center. (Center left is typical).

Nice work

Ron

Thanks Ron,

As you know I don't know the least bit about using the various knobs and buttons in the GPO control panel - sadly. I'll try tinkering with it to see if I can make it sound more realistic. Re: the horn, I did think that yes - hence why you see that I have the horn double with the trombone or cello for some time. I'll add a second horn per your advice. :)

Thanks for listening.

Very nice Jason, congratulations!

Well you should either beef up your sections OR make it for chamber orchestra (one of each string, etc,) in which case you don't need more horns. In any case, your piano part I think is particularly weak. I would like to see more definition on where you're putting the virtuoso parts, make it have something to do with the rest of the music rather than "Ho ho, fast arpeggios!"

Overall I didn't get the impression the thing really held together very well, there were a lot of "holes" where nothing was really going on or you dragged on a particular harmony or bit that really wasn't very interesting. If anything, again, the piano writing feels very artificial and it also doesn't give the impression that there is a combination between the orchestra and the piano. The balance is off, I think.

Some of the chromatic passages were nice, but I think that you could do much better with them. I mean you use at one point a whole-tone scale, but where is the consequence from that? I didn't hear it again after that. There's a lot you could've done with the harmony (since I was playing Grieg earlier today, this sounds all really tame even by 1880 standards!) But for some reason it's like you held back and I don't think your part writing emphasizes what you're doing harmonically.

So yeah.

Well you should either beef up your sections OR make it for chamber orchestra (one of each string, etc,) in which case you don't need more horns. In any case, your piano part I think is particularly weak. I would like to see more definition on where you're putting the virtuoso parts, make it have something to do with the rest of the music rather than "Ho ho, fast arpeggios!"

Can you give me an example of which parts are weak? I spent great time on the piano part in particular since, obviously, this is a concertante. I thought I did a very good job in the variance within the piano passages actually - so I'm a bit stumped.

Overall I didn't get the impression the thing really held together very well, there were a lot of "holes" where nothing was really going on or you dragged on a particular harmony or bit that really wasn't very interesting. If anything, again, the piano writing feels very artificial and it also doesn't give the impression that there is a combination between the orchestra and the piano. The balance is off, I think.

I see what you mean on the balance - and that is one reason that I am going through the score and increasing the amount of orchestra - and the interplay between the two. Structurally though, the only passage that I feel isn't held together within the entire structure of the work is the ending. The rest of it, save maybe a passage or two, is structurally sound in my eyes. Where exactly do you get holes in the structure? Could they really be structurally related or orchestrational issues?

Some of the chromatic passages were nice, but I think that you could do much better with them. I mean you use at one point a whole-tone scale, but where is the consequence from that? I didn't hear it again after that. There's a lot you could've done with the harmony (since I was playing Grieg earlier today, this sounds all really tame even by 1880 standards!) But for some reason it's like you held back and I don't think your part writing emphasizes what you're doing harmonically.

The whole tone scale comes out largely as a modulatory/transitional embellishment really. I chose that particular scale as sort of a 'harbinger' of the melodic/harmonic material that comes a few bars later (mm. 106 - 117). I don't think I will change those passages at all - due to the fact, and I've tested, when I get rid of those 2 bars (102 - 103) the entire 20 bar passage that follows is completely out of place and foreign to the overall structure of the work. I'm glad it seems very tame in comparison to Grieg and other Romantic composers - gives me a bit of humor considering some of the internal things I've added that you failed to notice.

Can you give me an example of which parts are weak? I spent great time on the piano part in particular since, obviously, this is a concertante. I thought I did a very good job in the variance within the piano passages actually - so I'm a bit stumped.

The ending specially. I mean mostly the part where you have a lot of really fast stuff on the piano, it all felt kind of pointless. I mean, it felt like you were doing it PRECISELY because this is supposed to be "hard" and emphasis on the piano, rather than because it has any sort of musical meaning.

I see what you mean on the balance - and that is one reason that I am going through the score and increasing the amount of orchestra - and the interplay between the two. Structurally though, the only passage that I feel isn't held together within the entire structure of the work is the ending. The rest of it, save maybe a passage or two, is structurally sound in my eyes. Where exactly do you get holes in the structure? Could they really be structurally related or orchestrational issues?

Due to the above, the disconnect is pretty audible in some parts.

The whole tone scale comes out largely as a modulatory/transitional embellishment really. I chose that particular scale as sort of a 'harbinger' of the melodic/harmonic material that comes a few bars later (mm. 106 - 117). I don't think I will change those passages at all - due to the fact, and I've tested, when I get rid of those 2 bars (102 - 103) the entire 20 bar passage that follows is completely out of place and foreign to the overall structure of the work. I'm glad it seems very tame in comparison to Grieg and other Romantic composers - gives me a bit of humor considering some of the internal things I've added that you failed to notice.

It's like using a cluster in an otherwise totally traditional mozart-copy as an embellishment, you'll raise more questions than anything since it sticks out a LOT. That segment with the whole tone scale sticks out lots, but since it doesn't come back it feels like an unfinished idea.

And if I failed to notice stuff, then well that means it didn't have any effect on me as a listener. It's the pacing, the setup and so on that make things stand out. If you don't want the details to be lost, you could pay more attention on how you're presenting the elements (specially with repetitions and so on.)

The ending specially. I mean mostly the part where you have a lot of really fast stuff on the piano, it all felt kind of pointless. I mean, it felt like you were doing it PRECISELY because this is supposed to be "hard" and emphasis on the piano, rather than because it has any sort of musical meaning.

Due to the above, the disconnect is pretty audible in some parts.

It's like using a cluster in an otherwise totally traditional mozart-copy as an embellishment, you'll raise more questions than anything since it sticks out a LOT. That segment with the whole tone scale sticks out lots, but since it doesn't come back it feels like an unfinished idea.

And if I failed to notice stuff, then well that means it didn't have any effect on me as a listener. It's the pacing, the setup and so on that make things stand out. If you don't want the details to be lost, you could pay more attention on how you're presenting the elements (specially with repetitions and so on.)

The ending yes, I agree has problems. And I will address those this evening and weekend. And there is musical meaning in the arpeggiations... I suppose I could just get rid of all instances of the arpeggios and have the harmony be only in chords.. but i thought the arpeggios sounded more 'pianistic' really. And the ending run isnt hard at all really - I can play that without any problems and I'm not a good pianist at all.

In regards the whole tone passages and the more foreign portions of this work, they don't sound alien to me at all. I actually am fond of that passage. On listening to it, I got a great deal of emotion out of it - so, I'm not going to get rid of that passage at all. Perhaps your viewing the passage from purely a subjective stance.

And in noticing stuff, yes - I do have things paced and setup to where certain things are in the front of your attention. As we are both composers, I just expect both of us to go in depth in score analysis etc.. thats just me though.

Jason, great job on working on what I know was a work that you are spending a lot of time on. I understand what SSC is saying about the piano parts being "showy," but I think that is part of the style that you are going for. However, I think that you have some really nice harmonic parts going on and interesting things in the "accompanying" instruments that never get their turn to be played in the piano. This pieces moves around quite a bit harmonically and even somewhat stylistically which to me is interesting. There are some points where the piano does its thing and then the other instruments play some really neat parts with interesting harmonies. For those sections, the piano doesn't get to chime in and I'm not sure why. It seems at times that the piano and the other instruments could be more married in the piece. The piano seems like it is not involved in the same piece at times, which may in fact be the intent, I'm not sure. This is pretty nicely mature music though and an ambitious work.

I think the surrounding instruments do well to enhance the piano without stealing anything from the piano: this is clearly a piece where the piano is the main body of the song, while the other instruments serve as window dressing and build-up to the piano. The piano plays off the other instruments well: it doesn't play with them, which in this case, is a good thing. Very nice job ;)

This is a piece you were going to submit somewhere, weren't you? I hope that goes well, good luck :D

Thanks serge and ben.

Ben, yes that was my intent for the piano to be center stage. I've done a lot of reworking of passages and have added more to the orchestration. While there wont be any beethovenesque tones over the piano runs - I tried that and it just didn't work with my harmonic language... I have added greatly. I'll upload the finished version once it is completed.