Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 3

Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 3

I finally was able to upload vst recordings, but not scores. I keep getting an upload error 404. No clue what this means.

This work was conceptualized in December of 2009 with work beginning in March of 2010. The basis of this sonata was to write a piece of music that was inspired by the surroundings at my university while paying respect to the composers that I listened to and admired at the time (Vaughan-Williams, Moeran, Debussy, Massenet). It is split into 3 movements, each with a different character

I (10:14) - This movement, in loose-sonata form, illustrates two contrasting ideas: music based on the fifth vs. music based on the fourth.

II (8:33) - In rondo form, this movement describes the beauty of the surroundings while including themes from celtic folk songs.

III (7:10) - The finale was written to feel simultaneously strained and relaxed, while mixing the feel of french and british music around the turn of the 20th century.

I hope you enjoy the listen :) I will try to get a good vst recording of the sonata as soon as possible.

SCORES CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://www.box.net/shared/irnfv46phz

http://www.youngcomposers.com/profile/music/Ananth%20Balijepalli/composition?entry=57139

This is really good work, Mael. I'm not sure what comments I can make. I'm looking over the scores - this is really good work. Thanks for sharing this. If these were Finale, I'd make some VSTs for you!

Well, I've just listened to the first movement and I'm not quite sure what to think. I'm not feeling coherent enough to bother typing a full review so I'll just make some brief points as they come to me.

1) My first impression is that this is... a fairly confused work. There are moments that clearly make reference to English composers around the turn of the 20th century as you noted. But then, there are clear references to the Classical era. This is not a fundamental problem in itself. Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Britten all come to mind as composers who were able to convincingly pull off this 'neoclassicism' (at least, sometimes.) But the way you handle it is. For starters, you never seem to consciously exploit this incongruity. Rather, you try, entirely straight-faced, to weld these elements together and the result is... unconvincing. The 'bridge' theme is the biggest offender of this. It just sounds entirely unrelated to the rest of the work and the fact that you repeat it at a few given points with basically no alteration doesn't help. like I said, I've only listened to the first movement so I don't know if this problem is elaborated on or handled better in the next few movements but as it stands, it just doesn't work for me in the context of this movement. And just to avoid what I think will be the most likely reaction, I'm not saying this because I hate all classical music pre-20th century. Beethoven is one of my favorite composers and one whom I consider one of the my biggest influences.

2) I take some issue with this being labeled as a 'sonata-allegro' form. As I'm sure you know, sonata-allegro refers to not so much a textbook structure as a style of musical thought a manner of handling musical material. The basic components are first a section that highlights two contrasting tonal areas. A tonality and its 'dominant' (though, for all intents and purposes, this is more any tonal area which increases the harmonic tension of the form rather than the actual 'dominant' as Beethoven was perfectly capable of using mediants in place of the actual dominant.) Then a section that further plays up the contrast between these areas before achieving a climax that resolves into a third section which repeats the first section on face value but, on a more fundamental level, shows the two tonal areas to have been resolved into one.

Now, I'm going through all of this because I feel your piece lacks a few of these necessary ingredients. First off, there is never any sense of a 'dominant' in my opinion. If anything, your second subject seems to function as a subdominant area. Now, I know that Schubert and Brahms both attempted this same procedure in their 'sonata' forms but... they suffer the same issue really. There is a slackening in harmonic tension rather than an increase and this effects the intended dramatic structure quite a bit.

Second off, the almost demanded climax of the development section never occurs either. The 'recapitulation' seems to occur right after the second cadenza (or right around there, you do flow into it effortlessly) yet, when it does, it feels... arbitrary. There was no real climax to speak of. The cadenza occurs when the tension in the piece seems to be at an almost full time low. And the cadenza does nothing to elevate this energy level. Now, I know it was pretty common-practice in Mendelssohn to have the recapitulation start at the point of lowest tension rather than highest and it is possible for the recapitulation to work on this level with amazing results. But Mendelssohn typically achieved this by having the music reach a near stasis and then slowly building back up to its vibrant first subject. You don't do this. You recapitulate only the second subject and never state the opening theme in its prototypical form.

In fact, that becomes the biggest issue because there is never a sense of resolution. The entire piece starts with a fair amount of energy and then it sort of just declines. None of what happens in this movement other than the very basic skeleton of Theme - development - return can be considered a sonata-allegro. Nor do I think the material is necessarily conducive to one.

All of that being said, that doesn't make the structure bad in itself. By no means am I trying to tell you that you should conform to sonata form in order for this piece to be successful. I'm just trying to suggest that it isn't one and the fact that you seem to be rather preoccupied with filling in all the textbook requirements of the forms hurts it overall. I think the material you have justifies something more akin to a rhapsody on two themes or something of an arch form.

3) Your rhythmic sense is very dull. While your harmonic language borders on early 20th century at quite a few moments, your rhythmic language is dead stuck in the early 18th century. Almost the entire piece is written in basically straight 4/4 without even much in the way of syncopation. Hell, you rarely seem to stray away from traditional quadruplets without even so much as triplets most of the time (and when they are employed, it's mostly for a 'decorative' effect of landing on a firm strong beat.) In particular, this seems to hurt your second theme which seems to demand a more 'weightless', transparent quality than regularly pulsed quarter notes can provide. Even Mozart and Haydn were, at times, capable of negating (or at least, blurring) a sense of meter at times. Now, keep in mind that I'm something of a snob when it comes to rhythm and even most 20th century composers, in my honest opinion, don't have a very good sense of rhythm. But I still feel that a more fluid sense of rhythm could inject a lot of energy into this piece.

4) I also have some issue with your timbral and textural sense. For 95% of this piece, the piano and violin play together with the piano almost always being the accompanying voice. There are few moments where the piano is prominent and even fewer where it plays alone (actually, I'm not sure if it ever does for more than about five seconds.) Nor is the piano particularly contrapuntally interesting at most times. This constant effect of violin = principal voice, piano = chords and subsidiary voices leads to monotony. Especially when the hands of the piano part are kept in very standard ranges and are both almost always playing which creates an almost constant texture. For that matter, the violin is never really called to do anything out of the ordinary either. The range is pretty standards for the most part. There are few double or triple stops that aren't octaves. There is not a single note of pizzicato. And the violin, to my recollection, doesn't even have much in the way of implied counterpoint. I feel as if there a ton of musical effects and textures that were not exploited in this piece. And granted, most may have been of no interest to you given the relatively conservative idiom but there are definitely times where I feel it warranted.

5) On a more positive note, I do feel this piece has a fair amount of potential. There are moments where the harmony is rather pretty and I'm pretty sure I can see what you were aiming for in this. Your economy of material is also commendable and you definitely have no issue in handling classical development. The themes are both strong in themselves and, as far as the thematic spectrum goes, it was never really dull. I don't feel as though much tension was played up with them as there could have been but it certainly could've been handled much worse. ]

If I have the patience, I may type out a 'review' for the next two movements but don't hold me to that. I'm sorry for being so negative (more negative than I expected to be) but I feel the most constructive criticisms are usually this way. Glad to see you're still writing.

No, no, don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy :) It's been quite some time since I've seen a real review on this site. And besides, most of what you have commented on are stylistic things.

I'll respond in order of what you've brought up:

Incongruity - I understand that it may sound a little unconvincing that I simply mold the more neoclassical and the more impressionist-like music together, but this is sort of the effect that I was going for... A sort of transition in my thought process. So no worries, perhaps I could have done it better and it doesn't play to you.

Sonata - Well, I never said it was specifically sonata-allegro, did I... And yes, I am quite familiar with sonata form. Quite honestly, I wasn't trying to specifically copy the "romantic sonata". Instead, I was intentionally trying to reduce the tension of the second theme because to me, it seemed counterintuitive to write something meant to be serene while at a higher energy level, you know? I believe it helped me to express more of what I wanted to say to have moved to the subdominant. Now as for the resolution, I really did believe I had one! After the 2nd theme returns after the cadenza, there's a little lull before a full/lush return to the original theme, and this is where I intended for the climax to occur... the final tension is released at the end of the piece when the 2nd theme returns to the first theme, except the first theme is now written in a more impressionist style than a neoclassical style.

Rhythm - I agree. I need to pay more attention to rhythm when I listen to music, I guess.

Texture -Really? I hoped that I did enough to vary the texture, but given your background, I guess I should have done more. A lot of call and response was implemented, but not enough solo piano or contrapunctal piano, I agree. Please listen to the other 2 movements for that. In addition, given the idea of the movement, I felt like it wasn't so necessary to include all these violin techniques, but the other 2 movements are chalk full of them.

Harmony - Thank you.

Again, no worries, because it is more of stylistic things that you pointed out. It's not really a negative review at all. I made quite conscious choices and perhaps it wasn't the best for the piece? But I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to do with this movement.

Thanks again :)

Update -

I have added mp3's of each movement to YC's upload system, so everyone should be able to access them.

Scores, unfortunately, still have to be taken care of by a 3rd party upload site, so I have used box.net this time because it has less ads.

Enjoy.

Well, the incongruity Nirvana speaks of is about the first 3 minutes follows close to late Classical early Romantic harmony and then it veers into more modern territory. Some of the most interesting textures are about the 3 - 4:30 mark.

I agree to some degree about the piano falling into typical accompanying patterns. You do vary it much more than in the past, but I can hear it is written by one who is more a string player than keyboard player.

As for the form, yes it is hard to determine it. The work is rather rhapsodic.

I like the slow movement more than the first as you have this wonderful conversation between the piano and strings with the melody and the offbeats in some parts creates a great texture.

The harmonic language while varied has a much more focused style (very Anant I may add). The pizzes are a great touch.

Finally in the 2nd mvmt the rhythm frees up a little more - I like that direction.

My only problem with the 2nd movement is it gets long for my tastes ... you are trying to do something difficult - develop what is essentially a folk inflected material but sometimes your development just sounds like restatements and a little static. Not sure what to do that - it may be your harmonic language. Oooh I like the addition of the cadenza in this movement - a nice recurring device.

Ok, third movement really sounds like the start of a new piece though i do find it refreshing the jazz=impressionism mix. Loved the transition back to the opening theme. Overall I think this fast movement is stronger than the first for some of the reasons as the 2nd (more focused harmonic language, better variation of texture and rhythmic displacements). Hmm - have some reservations about the ending cadence. The violin has the right note but the piano should pick up some of the higher partials of the overtone associated with that tone to maintain the opening section's color.

I think overall a few things to improve:

a) Rhythm -- look lat later sections of the third an fair portions of the second for the rhythmically interesting parts.

b) See why you were harmonically more consistent within mvmt 2 and 3

c) Once in awhile your cadences and resumption to other material sounded a little clumsy (for example later in the third you end one section with a rall and pizz and then start on something else).

Thanks Chris,

Well as I said earlier, the goal of the first movement was to take music of the fifth and mesh it with music of the fourth, which I guess I was able to do but just not to your and Tyler's tastes. But I AM a piano player haha... I picked up violin only recently.

Thank you though! I really do think the 2nd and 3rd movements are the best that I've written, so it's good to know someone else can see why. And yes, it was a lot more of the harmony choices that I would be making, thanks for recognizing this (and you of all people would be able to recognize my style of writing).

As for the 3rd movement.. a lot of it was written by feel... and I just felt like the message of this sonata was not to be overly excited about anything really... just warm and jaunty I guess. So I don't think there would have been adequate resolution had I ended the 3rd on the fast material nor on the texture corresponding to it. I think it was better to end on texture more suited to the other 2 movements.

Thanks again!