August Preludes

Three preludes for clarinet and piano.

The first is intentionally brief and easy-going before a more involving second piece which I've broken into an upbeat section and a somewhat sullen section through modulaton. The third is an attempt at a rondo (ABACA) - for this piece I tried to share the melodic focus between both the clarinet and piano more evenly than in the other two.

I feel that these pieces are more considered than my last submission in terms of voice leading and fleshing out my ideas. This is also my first attempt at composing for piano, so criticism is welcome - I make absolutely no pretensions to being an accomplished composer but am willing to learn!

Michael

August Preludes

You might want to watch your inversions. A 4th with the bass is a strange unstable sound. I really like the clarinet melodies, you do a fair job of staying away from the break at B/Bb around middle C. For the repeats, you should make variations instead of just repeating, it would be more interesting I think. There's enough here though, that it doesn't get boring though.

There's quite a bit of angular voice leading, and some parts of this seem to need more smooth step-wise voice leading than what's present. Not always though, because it's nice and effective in a lot of this piece. I had to listen very softly because I'm in a public space without headphones, so unfortunately I can't give more detailed critiques about the voice-leading. But I think that you have a good ear, and if you listen as close as you can to every sound in the piece, you'll find parts which aren't quite "right".

The ending isn't quite conclusive, but maybe you want that, considering the overall tone and mood of the piece. Nice job! I definitely enjoyed listening, and I don't understand why more people haven't posted...