La Morta del Maestro Puccini (with score and MP3)

Third attempt at putting this online.... :(Hope I succeeded this time in adding a MP 3 file as well as the score. About the score: It was written after a visit to the villa of Puccini in Torre del Lago last summer. The opening bars were written in Torre del Lago itself. About the form: it is basically an A - B - A form with at the end a small ending referring to the dies irae. The music symbolizes the dying. The ostinato rythm of the Harp symbolizes the heart beat, sometimes irregularAbout the tonality: attempt in combining two keys at the same time (eg C and Cis) though I do not know if I succeeded in itAbout myself: as written I am 19 years old, live in Germany and would love to go and study music next year, though my parents are against it. I am not so much interested in piano (my instrument) as I would like to become a composer. This is the first work I put online. I would honestly like to hear your opinion.Thank you for the numerous views, now there is a score and a music file added, I hope you will take a listening to it.Thank you very much

La Morta del Maestro Puccini (with score and MP3)

I have yet to hear the piece. However, being an Italian mothertongue... the title should be "La mortE del Maestro Puccini".

Cheers

well, first congrats; you succeeded finally in posting And the waiting was worth it. Structurally sound, harmonic interesting. I liked the simultaneous 3/4 4/4 from ms 105. Well done

I only wondered why you divided all strings, and not only the violins.

It made the texture sometimes thin. Like in ms 9. The 2nd basses have a ff gesture, together with euphonium (interesting chose BTW in stead of a 3rd trombone and a tuba...). But if you really want this ff, why dont add the 1st basses and maybe a (contra)bassoon?

The score looks ok, many slurs are colliding though...

To Calle: thank you for correcting my mistake against your language. My Italian is very poor , although it is a beautiful language.

To @Jrcramer: Thank you for your comments and appreciation. I will reworke the score taking your advice about the divi. strings in account. Thank you very much for your help.

:)

Make sure the conductor has a magnefying glass with him. Lovely though the piece is, it's just impossible to read with that many staves, unless you blow it up to 11x17, or something. Also, what's with all the empty measures appending the piece?

I think it's pretty awesome, personally.

hi and thx 4 ur tour in italy :)

i think the work is interesting but a little naive, maybe you aim too high for your level...

but u got talent, so i hope you have started to study composition.

ciao

Interesting music. I like your use of melody, which is never four-square. Also, your string writing, for the most part, works very well. I can see you have some knowledge of the orchestra and how to get certain sounds and textures, particularly the 'dark' colours that suit this piece well. The music is rather block-like in structure, but this is a legitimate compositional technique.

However, there are some things in the score that do not make sense, such as the fp on a rest in the first bar of the piece.

- Those contrabass glissandi in bars 142-157 are extremely difficult to perform as they require the player to shift up the E string almost as far as the bridge. The trombone and bassoon glissandi in the same passage are actually impossible to perform as trombones can only glissando an augmented fourth at maximum, and bassoons can only fake this effect with a fast scale.

- You will require at least five timpani to play things such as bar 145. This is not a problem as many professional orchestras can provide this number, but you should specify this in the score, as well as when the drums should be tuned to which notes. The timpani is actually rather under-used in this piece, particularly as they would be very effective on the quiet 'heartbeats' you describe.

- I would advise against writing four forte as the loudest dynamic, especially when you then follow it with a crescendo (horns, bar 59). Even though composers such as Tchaikovsky and Verdi write this, it can be confusing for players who see ff and assume it must be the loudest dynamic, only to find they must then blow still harder to get ffff! Three f's or p's should be enough to indicate the maximum or minimum level.

I found there were some odd things in this piece, such as where the melody suddenly stops in bar 28 and leaves us with just the not-very-interesting 'rustling' in the cellos and held notes in other strings. If anything, the music should be getting a thicker texture here to move towards the next climax. A lot of the heartbeat stuff sounded very much like Rite of Spring. Some of your harmonies are very interesting but do not move in a convincing way. I also though that the ending was not convincing, it just seemed to stop with the cellos and basses.

On the other hand, dividing all the strings is a great way to get a thicker texture and more interesting colours. jrcramer is right about making sure the texture suits the dynamic though.

PS. If you want to go and study composition, then do it. It's up to you, not your parents, unless perhaps you need to borrow money from them to study. Many great composers - Handel, Beethoven, Sibelius - had relatives who were apathetic or hostile to their becoming professional composers. I think there's enough promise and interesting ideas in this piece that you would really benefit from study.