Sonata for Violin and Piano

I was trying to edit the movements earlier but I accidentally deleted all of them, and therefore deleting the entire thread. -_____-'' So here it is again. With recordings of the first two movements (the third movement has not been recorded...). But very very very very very rough recordings, we rushed and there were some intonation issues and a lot of smudged notes... Also I think I may arrange this for violin and orchestra in the future, as the piano part is very...orchestral, in a sense. In any case, let me know what you think. :]

Sonata for Violin and Piano

WINNER OF THE 2010 ASCAP Morton Gould Awards!!!!

good job

Ok:

1st movement:

:blink: Gosh, I really don't know what to say: it's extremely bizarre to me, but interesting and well thought out too. I like it's "quiet intensity", and I think that a live play would really get the blood pumping and the skin crawling. (The midi is ear-screechingly horrible, I'm sorry about that :o )

All in all, pretty nice job!

2nd:

Strangely beautiful... in a twisted, hypnotic sort of way. It's funny, I remember not being particularly fond of this piece before, yet now I like it! Have you changed this a lot since I last heard it, or have I simply changed my mind about it? I don't remember it sounding the way it does now, but maybe I was just distracted at the time :hmmm:

3rd:

This is my favorite one of these, what with the violin's great movement, but the piano not being a larger part of the piece for the first minute and a half hurts the interest of the piece. (At about 1:40ish though, the piano adds color and life to the piece when it joins the violin) I like the fact it has a sort of unusual tone, but mixed with a whimsy at parts, (like at 3:50ish, with the sharp staccatos) and a sort of romance at other parts (like at the beginning)...very good development through-out.

Thanks for sharing, nice work! :D

Hey!

Alright, so... movement one... as a sonata, you did pretty well. It was clear enough when you were moving back to original material to understand the musical implications yet it wasn't a copy paste, completely destroying momentum, so congrats on that. Your motives were pretty easy to discern too and they seemed to be developed pretty effectively. The only thing I really have to complain about is the harmony. Writing in your new minimalism style is fine, but the music being tonal and lacking a harmonic progression was frustrating for me... you might have intended for it to be this way. In addition, one of your strongest motives is the leap by seventh... however you don't really exploit that at all harmonically. Why don't you throw in some highlighted seventh chords for some color? It would add some necessary variety to the nearly uniformly sparse texture. You could have exploited that seventh motive more in movement to harmonic regions as well.

As the second movement starts... I am really confused why your tempos are indicated in english while your expressions are in italian. And especially given some of what you are trying to convey, I would suggest writing your expressions in english. Ok, so I really enjoy the fact that you are expounding on that motive quite effectively here in the second movement. In addition, you added some density to the texture at the beginning, which came to very good effect. It seems that your violin writing is also more idiomatic too. To be honest, I find your writing in this movement to be almost like ambient music because I cannot find any strong initial musical conflict that would provide a drive and reason for the resulting music.

Suprising to me, you fixed this lack of drive at the start of your third movement. I can see why you chose the interval of a minor second and major seventh to represent the term "sinister"; I personally would have written in something less socially construed, but it is all up to you anyway.

Congratulations on finishing this piece and developing a single motive throughout the music without it becoming too dry.

Very nice to listen to :)

I've already commented on the piece before but now that you have some recordings, I will say a few things. First off, beautiful score work overall. The attention to detail with bowing and piano fingerings is very nice. I agree that you should just put instructions in English. You are an English speaking composer, this is the 21st century. Use English. I applaud your exploration throughout the piece and the playing by both of you is quite good. I don't have much criticism to add. This is an ambitious work that comes off quite well. The third movement is quite exploratory and maybe looses some of the romantic qualities that the first movement possesses.

@Serge: Thanks! I agree...the MIDI is indeed screechingly horrid. But hopefully by next week I'll have a recording. And maybe even a live recording of the other two movements as well, that doesn't sound so unrehearsed. Yes, I do remember you saying you didn't really like the 2nd movement at first! No I haven't changed it at all since last time; glad you like it now though. :] Again, thanks for listening. :]

@Anu: Hey! Thanks for listening. :] I agree with what you said about there being a lack of harmony in general (having been told a few times already). I will definitely keep this in mind with my next piece; thanks for bringing it up!

I kept all my tempo text in English, and I guess all the expressions in Italian...I'll go change those. I can't even remember why; probably a strange habit I got into.

It is indeed kind of an ambient movement, yeah...much like the other movements there's not very much (if at all) any harmonic gravity pulling it anywhere. Again arises the issue of keeping harmony in mind. :/

@benxiwf: Thanks for listening! I agree, the third movement is a bit of a departure from the other movements; at first I was worried it wouldn't go with the other movements but the more I thought about it the more I seemed to like the idea. Kind of like Barber's violin concerto. :]

Again, thanks for the comments, everyone! Much appreciated.

I really really like what you've created here. I would say my favorite movement is movement II, but that's just my taste talking.

Amazing work!!