String Quartet No.2

It seems like it has been a long time since I shared something on this site. Here is a latest composition, I have literally just finished! I enjoyed writing my previous string quartet and I thought I could explore the medium a little further and expand it. Though there is only a single movement yet, it is 15 minutes long. I plan to add only another movement later on. The style is typically me, with lots of dissonance and few consonances here and there. (well, as close to consonance as I can get!)

I hope you enjoy it..

WARNINGS: Dissonance, Long, Demanding

String Quartet No.2

Perhaps the warnings scared the people :facepalm: hey the piece is not that bad!

I'm listening you now.

hey, you posted this on my birthday! :)

Im a big fan of string quartet as an setting of instruments, so i always take time to listen to other composers quartets.

Its pretty useless that i try to review this, because im an oldfashioned guy when it comes to tonality.

Trying my best i say its inventive.

you use very hard passages in the 1st violin and some in the 2nd and viola (not that much in the two last mentioned) and cello is quite ok.

very dreamy and at times a litte creepy :P

I like the ending though. It could fit really good in an ending seen in a abstract movie, where the picture freeze and the ending music starts.

im sorry i could not say so much about your piece.

Thanks for taking a look and writing something even though its not something for your taste. Yes, writing for a string quartet is fun, safe but yet much too difficult. I really liked my first one so after some years I wanted to improve a bit and wrote the second one.

So, thank you again for listening.

There is a lot that is very good about this quartet. You obviously know about string instruments from first-hand, so nothing really to say from a technical point of view except that the D/F# chord in b.77-8 and again at b.91-2 is impossible to play on the cello - both notes can only be played on the C string.

There were many interesting moments and good use of different techniques. The opening of the quartet in particular was very good at setting up the overall contrast between two ideas. You also have a clear idea of writing counterpoint.

The piece is not without its weaknesses, however. At times it lacked a sense of direction and I didn't get the sense of a convincing main climax. The long middle section was largely made of repetitions of the same basic idea: counterpoint between two instruments which the other instruments join, weave around a bit and then end on some homophonic chords, then take off on another contrupuntal episode which eventually leads to some more chords or a melody over chordal accompaniment. It's not a bad way to write, and is a good way of expanding the contrasting of two ideas at the beginning of the whole quartet, but I felt as if you were going over the same ground several times and the music was not really developing in a narrative sense - not 'going anywhere'. I hope this doesn't come across as too harsh - I've basically criticised your entire structural technique! - but I particularly notice because this is something I feel is a weakness in my own music.

I also think that you would benefit from more contrast in your ideas. There is some - I identify three main groups of motifs; the violin melody; the chorale-like stuff, and the counterpoint ideas - but I think within these groups the motifs are not distinctive enough to make the music feel as if it is being developed and that some ideas are more important than others. Another problem is that the piece sounds as if it is going along at pretty much the same speed all the way through. I think this may be due to the counterpoint: you have entries which start at quite regular intervals, and also have quite a slow cello line for much of the time, which deprives the music of momentum. So I would somehow create music that seems faster at some point to avoid the music sounding as if it repeating too much. This is particularly important in atonal music because we don't have the movement between chords or key areas to give us a sense of speed and structure. On the other hand there is still a scale of intensity in the dissonance of harmony or the density of the texture and I think you should use these factors more effectively to improve your music. Think about how to make the music reach climaxes and how the listener should experience the journey of moving through the piece.

I've been harsh with my criticisms, but don't take this as a sign that I dislike your music or that the piece has no merit - quite the opposite; I can see a lot of potential and I'm trying to provoke you into getting even better.

Don't agree with that guy above and I like it. Do you mean to be using motives from Le Sacre and a few other pieces?

i most certainly like it. it has that gentle mourning atmosphere to it. many slow this kind of density piecies have it and i consider it to be very important aspect of certain musical writing. also, it is very melodic, i guess it's the parts that you refer as 'close to consonant' to. and i like the degree of getting close/staying as far as you did in it. also, like the length of it. it makes for a pleasurable ride with enough time to immerse in thinking together with it. at around 10.00 minute mark there's a pure joy walk fragment.

You seem to use dynamics arbitrarily. You use PPP and FF way too much. I'd go back through and eliminate some of them or change them to something more moderate.