Prelude #5 - Wanderlust

Short prelude written for the piano. Not particularly happy with some of the material in the 2nd half of the work or so (mostly because some of the sonorities don't sound so right to me, plus there are some jumps in both hands that could be tricky at the given tempo), but thought I'd put it up here for comments. Alas, the Finale recording tends to ignore a lot of the articulation written in the score, so the playback is not accurate.

Prelude #5 - Wanderlust

I moved your topic to the appropriate forum, you had posted it in the orchestral sub-section.

As for the piece itself, the minimalism is fine. The motifs are well-suited to repetition, and the repetitions themselves are well juxtaposed, but I find that the number of repetitions you use is insufficient, e.g. why not use a measure of 2/4 in measure 16, and link it back to the first measure, maybe played three times? I think a minute is too short for "minimalist short". I would have written it to be much more obsessive and minimalistic.

Hey Matthew,

It's a nice 20th century prelude you've got here.

I would agree with you that the 1st half is greater then the 2nd half.

As far as the technical playing side goes - to me it doesn't appear that difficult even when I just quickly tried some of the jumps out, so I wouldn't worry about that if I were you.

I liked the difference between the main motifs and how the second one continues to just interrupt the first.

I agree with paranoid that we should hear more. I would personally have extended the 1st motif.

Did you write this as a minimalist piece?

Hey, guys,

I don't know why it uploaded in Orchestral; I had uploaded the piece in my user profile page. Perhaps minimalism isn't quite the right term for it, since it is intended only to be a short piece. Perhaps an Étude would be a more accurate label. School's a bit nuts right now, and there's another piano piece I'm working to finalize, but I'll be sure to post updates to this one at the end of term.

Thanks to you both for your feedback. I never think of alternating time signatures; that would really add an effect of surprise from time to time. Perhaps even a 5/8 measure; we'll see.

I don't think it's as much an issue of surprise as a principle of minimalism, to gradually change the repetition until the listener realizes it's something completely different being played. Adding another 8th note to a 4/4 measure (meaning 9/8), as a passing note, for the next repetition, is an example of such a device.