Symphony in E-flat Major: Mov. 1 [OLD VERSION]

This is the first complete draft of the first movement to my "Symphony in E-flat." I've been working on this movement for almost exactly 11 months and it has finally reached a state of completion.The form is essentially symmetrical: ABCBA. The three major themes associate with a specific section: a "tone row-esque" theme in the A, the "waltz-esque" theme in the B, and a "romantic" theme heard in the C. However, bits and pieces of all three are heard throughout. The orchestration may need a bit of tweaking but is essentially all present. The Symphony currently has the 1st and 2nd movement finished. See all the finished parts below:Symphony in E-flat MajorMov. 1 - completeMov. 2 - completeMov. 3 - nothingMov. 4 - in progressComments welcome!EDIT! The score and mp3 are revised as of 10/4/10. The revisions include a brand new coda with the removal of the final A, to be used at the end of the symphony instead, and it being replaced with a quieter coda section. As a result, the movement is about 1 minute shorter than it was.[FURTHER EDIT!]This is the old draft. The completed score can be seen here: http://forum.youngcomposers.com/t29021/symphony-in-e-flat/

Symphony in E-flat Major: Mov. 1 [OLD VERSION]

Justin, this is a massive movement. I had to close the score cause I lost my place in it! It has some very nice moments, I think. The orchestration is very good. Not sure about the overall structure of it - BUT - given that it lasts 17 mins....and I have the attention span of an average human - so, I sort of lost track of the structure as well. I can't wait to hear the other movements though. Any plan on those?

My admiration ... You know the reason and make good use development and this is a sign of a good composer ... The orchestration is very good. Played with a real orchestra has to be magnificent. A good approach.

Regards

Absolutely fantastic!! Are you going to get these performed?? Especially at page 17-20 for M1, I think with the emotion a live performance would pt in, it'd sound heavenly :) Not really anything worth criticising though, the orchestration is excellent. I agree with Jason though - it is extraordinary in its length - really, I've never gone past 3 mins :rolleyes: and I too kinda lost the structure. It's reallynice as a piecee to listen to while you're working or something, but my main niggle with it is whether it's too long (ie, will a average listener lose focus for 4 movements)?? I dunno, what do you think??

Overall simply superb though, really hope to see a live performance :D

P.S. And sry for not commenting last night...was going to, but was invited to a game on SCII :rolleyes: :P

Amazing. This (all 2 and a bit mvts you've uploaded) is on a whole new level to your first symphony.

Usually now I'd go into points the person should change or work on.. :mellow:

Now I'd say what I loved about it; the whole thing.

Cannot wait to hear the entire thing start from finish.

Hum to address previous reviewers; I think the structure Tokke outlined is quite clear even on first listening if you pay attention, the proportions are just rather large.

The orchestration was effective and your themes were quite compelling, I particularly enjoyed the central section (the "romantic climax", I believe); MUCH better than movement 2. I do not like your triumphant ending and it spoils the movement for me; I'd rather you'd ended darkly on Eflat minor (or a less "triumphant" Eflat major ending) and save something like that for the finale, which we could of course attribute to personal taste but considering the nature of movement 2 I think this is an artistic misjudgement on your part. Don't get me wrong, well written in itself, but I think this artistic decision takes away something which is potentially rather special from this movement.

Outside of that; well done, really quite a powerful movement. Your best work (published on here) yet, in my opinion.

Very nice movement, Justin.

The orchestration is quite normal, nothing to fancy.

I do have to say though, like brass much? :lol: Lots of it, here.

The romantic theme seems a bit... stolen. I seem to have heard that D, Eb, C thing before...

It lasts a bit long. I started to fall asleep near the end...

UNTIL bar 477, I believe, when all of a sudden, FFF BLASTING out. I almost jumped out of my seat! And it made my cat fall off his kitty condo... I could almost have sworn the bed shook! Maybe a bit to abrupt, I think you should have stuck to a soft ending, like Thingeh said.

The overall piece, however, I do like. It's romantic, and almost movie like.

Keep it up!

Heklaphone

Thanks for the comments guys!

In re: the soft ending. I didn't want to remove the final statement of the romantic theme to keep the structure intact. Indeed, it is the final A to the ABCBA form. I don't really like the sudden MOLTO FORZA FFFFFFFFF thing, but I never bothered to remove it. Perhaps in a revision it will go.

Please do, it will make the movmement even better than it already is! :happy:

BUMP.

See the revised version above!

Well, I haven't seen the other version, but some thoughts on this one:

Lush, gorgeous orchestration throughout. I don't specialize in a lot of large ensemble work, and this is way beyond my ability, but I couldn't find fault with any of it. In particular, your chord voicing tends to be spectacular. Thank you for that.

You lost me in the development section for a tiny bit. Perhaps I need to listen to it a few more times, but I felt it rambled a little bit. Is there any cleanup you can do there? It feels a bit messy and loose to me. Having said that, I suspect upon future listenings, my antagonistic feelings here would soften.

The middle section is fantastic. I would weep, I'm sure, to hear it performed live. Bravo.

A tiny aside: the little Horn bump at 475 (near the Grave) is chillingly lovely. Please, whatever you do: keep that.

Overall, I think its a fine piece, and an excellent opening to your Symphony. I've never found myself to be particularly good at large forms or ensembles, so it is really nice to read through one of your scores for ideas.

Oh- and fantastic engraving. I really appreciate when people pay attention to that. It makes the piece more lovely, even if only to commenters and performers.

Fantastic!!! Some of the sections reminded me of the music from Star Wars (the original trilogy). I liked the way you toyed with tonality in some of the quieter sections, it contrasted well with the larger, full, and louder sections. The dynamics really drive the emotion into this piece. Your themes are beautiful, and moving. It would be nice to hear a higher quality version of this.

And don't worry about the length of it, as people have criticized above. It is just as long as it needs to be.

Love it. Can't really think of anything else to say at this point. I mean, when it started, and as it was going through the A and B theme, I was like "this is pretty cool", but then that Romantic C theme broke out and well... wow... WOW! Seriously, this is fantastic!

Thanks for your comments guys!

Firstly I can appreciate what a massive effort went into this. I'm writing a symphony myself at the moment (possibly somewhat shorter than yours on this evidence) and I know it's a huge project to take on. I shall take at look at the other movements as you complete them.

There was a lot that reminded me of Bruckner - particularly the orchestration which tended to group instruments together in an organ-like effect, and certain harmonies. Nothing wacky in the writing, generally pretty solid idiomatic use of the orchestra. Loads of stuff I will commend you for doing like putting in plenty of dynamics, wind articulations and string bowings. Also nice to see some counterpoint and different textures.

However...

The movement did at times not behave as it would be expected to for the particular point in the piece, which perhaps weakened its effectiveness. In particular the second subject in the exposition was far too settled to sound as if it were moving the piece on and preparing the ground for the development. In the development itself there were a lot of perfect cadences and passages in simple tonalities which again compromised the function of this section of a symphony, namely to provide a sense of uncertainty and movement which then prepares the listener for the return to more stable and familiar material later on. There was also a climax in the A section (b.49-59) which was far too final-sounding and stable to appear at this point in the piece, when you are setting up the conflict and instbility that will propel the narrative of the movement. I realise you are not attempting to write in a prototypical sonata form but the function of each section and gesture in the piece remains the same in almost all music. Whilst the piece was never boring, I did at times think that the overall direction and development of the music was not clear. You have a good overall structure but within it the notes themselves don't always have a convincing 'story'. You write good sections in themselves but the feeling of an overall whole was not entirely present. I will admist however that I can't be entirely sure of my feelings here until I have heard the entire piece through, as what you do in this movement may make more sense in the light of what happens later on.

Stylistic evenness: On first hearing, I felt as if the movement was a pot-pourri of different styles, which again rather compromised its unity. This was not so much in that there was an obvious 'influence' for each section (although a got a lot of John Williams/Prokofiev in the development, like the Star Wars stuff somebody pointed out, and the C section was rather too much like slushy film music for my liking) but that there were different levels of dissonance, different styles of melody and other discrepancies between them. What this actually comes down to is that the subjects were perhaps a little too individual and contrasting - it's a hard balancing act I know, but you should think about how to give each important feature in the music some kind of unity.

Parts: Some of your parts (horns, cor anglais, chromatic string passages) are very high a lot of the time, and thus taxing on players' lips and diaphragms (there's a lot of notes for the brass, and this is only the first movement of four...) You also need to use tenor and treble clefs in the violoncello part and treble in the violas at timesto avoid ledger-lines; they will like you for it! There are some fiddly bits in the string parts but nothing worse than one sometimes finds in Brahms or Nielsen (who should have known better).

There's a passage near the end, b.475-482, which by accident or design is almost a verbatim copy of music near the end of Holst's 'Mars'. Don't know whether you should alter it.

Anyway well done and keep at it.