Quintet for Piano and Winds

Here is my latest piece, a piano quintet :D!

In this piece I explore a number of rhythmic and harmonic ideas, as well as a couple key thematic and motivic ones. The main idea of the piece is centered around the 7th. 7th chords, 7th intervals, and as a smaller motif, the inverse, 2nds.

In the first movement I start with an undulating piano accompaniment and syncopated rhythms in the right hand, for a Bb7(Mm) harmony. The oboe comes in with the main theme of the movement, and ultimately the whole work, which is to outline the dominant 7th chord a tritone above the bottom harmony; in this case E7 over Bb7. I shift to G7 (G6/5, technically) in the bass and add the clarinet outlining Db7 over that. The flute and bassoon eventually come in, further breaking up the theme into smaller subdivisions, until the theme has been stated in all the winds, developing with each entrance. I explore the tritone relationships a bit with falling, chromatic tritones in all of the winds, until I reach a new, dancing section, using the same tritone polychord relationships. After this I return to the bouncing tritones, portraying a darker, more whimsical section of the material. Things start to build up in chaos, with rising 7ths in the winds, and a big accelerando into the fast section of this movement. All sorts of ideas are going on at once, and finally it is the bassoon that takes the main theme and begins a fugato section. There are three subjects fuguing about, the main theme transformed, a downwards, staccato outline of diminished 7th chords, and 3/8 bouncing tritone motif.

After I've exhausted the material for fugato use, it comes back in the original tempo, this time in 2/2. All sorts of polytonality is going on, and I augment the theme and ritard in tempo...until finally throwing it all out with a cluster chord, like crumpling up a piece of paper when disgusted with it :P.

In the next movement I again begin with 7 chords, only now they're major 7th chords, instead of major/minor 7th chords. The main theme of this movement also starts with a minor 7th, along with an anacrusic motif of seconds. I develop and explore these two motifs throughout the movement, with the exception of the middle rhythmic section, with the winds in syncopation against the piano. The ending of this movement needs some work...but the basic chord structure is there, and there's an ending, so I'm posting it...but I will be revising this movement.

In the final movement, in contrast to the first movement's polytonality, and the second's "normal" tonality (well, parts of it), I start with no tonality, and mainly play with major sevenths and tritones. I start with just single notes in the piano, and a wide range separating both voices. Slowly the wind instruments come in, and I use some phasing to create an ethereal atmosphere. The theme from the first movement shows up in a reduced form, as if I'm going to bring it back...until I finally have a new section of all new material, in sort of an F# phrygian mode. I repeat it a bunch of times, go through various phrygian modes, F# to E to Eb to G. After returning to a G scale I bring back the main idea of sevenths, with a big major seventh leap of G to F#. The next iteration is a big minor seventh leap in the right hand of the piano, and a tritone jump in the left hand, and I bring back that polytonal idea in the winds, jumping from Db7 to G7 and back. The main theme of this movement is then repeated over the tremolo piano, and I transition into arpeggios again in the piano. This transition section needs some work, I think, but it's...presentable, at least :P. In this section I take the main theme of this movement, originally over F# phrygian harmony and now over G lydian harmony, and combine it with the motif of 2nds. The main theme dies down and we're left with only bouncing seconds, slowly taken over by all the winds.

For the ending I combine all the elements of the quintet, with a rolling G major seventh chord in the bass like in the second movement, the original theme (almost) in the piano, flute, and clarinet, and the new material from this movement augmented in the oboe and bassoon. After some repetitions of this I embark on newish material, again combining various aspects from all the themes. There's a little Stravinsky reference in a completely different harmonic and rhythmic setting, and then the last repetition of the theme of the third movement, rising from D to E to G# to C# in all the instruments.

Now, if you were to just play this chord on a piano, it traditionally might resolve best to A major, with the C sharp being an appoggiatura to B, then resolving to A major. I know this throughout the movement, and never resolve it as such. After the octave repetition of the chord, though, I go to a B octave unison, as if I am about to resolve to A...then instead resolve to Gb major. The main theme of sevenths is repeated in the right hand, and the winds come back with some tritone polychord stuff, then moving up a major second for the final chord, GbM and DM6.

This work still needs some work, but I believe it's finished enough to post. Finale plays it horribly, of course...I wish I could have separate dynamics for the left and right hand of the pianos :(. In any case, you'll get an idea of what the piece sounds like, and I really hope you enjoy it!

Please don't hesitate to comment, I welcome any and all criticism or praise :toothygrin: , and thanks for listening!!

Quintet for Piano and Winds

Liked!

Love the ideas in these movements, although in parts I was feeling a bit fidgety (I think these needs to be more of a cohesive phrase for the listener to grab hold of), the overall ideas and interplay within the instruments was fantastic.

Great sound world, the syncopation in the piano, kept the momentum throughout the first movement, and so nice to hear the tri-tone without being reminded of west side story!

Beautiful second movement, although I felt the piano line could have had some more variation. You've managed to create a completely different colour world, between the first and second movement, but still keep the ideas coherent between the two.

I would love to play the flute line in the Final Movement, it allows for so much expression. Great use of dynamics, with very wide intervals and very small repeated intervals.

I have nothing terrible to say about any of the movements, thankyou for sharing this!

Sophie.

This is great!

I really like the 2nd and 3rd movements - Favorited.

Whoa, very cool! I especially like the second movement (mm. 64-83) and third (m. 28 on; this movement's particularly beautiful).

It might not hurt to add more dynamics and articulations for expression.

Really great job!

Thanks for listening :toothygrin:

@Black Orpheus: yeah, some sections still need some fine tuning with dynamics, mostly in the third movement but also in places in the first two.

@John: thanks for favoring (favoriting?) my piece :happy:

@Sofie: likewise, thanks for favoring (yes, decidedly favoring). I love the tritone relationship, everything about its history and use is just great, imo. It's the interval between the "perfect" ones, right there, almost one or the other. When you use tritone harmonic relationship, like CM and GbM like I use in this piece there's that great flexibility and almost jazzy or bluesy sound to it, with the minor seventh and the flat 5 (C,E,Gb,Gb. Or C,E,G,Bb,Db, Fb, Gb, Bb. heh. flat ninth and normal 5th degree here). Anyway, just a remarkably versatile tool, and well used throughout musical history, even before the great Leonard Bernstein, after we got rid of the silly notion that it was a "diabolus in musica" and ugly...when in fact it is a beautiful interval! Especially used in the Lydian mode, I can't get enough of that :P

Glad you three like it so far! I'll be updating it around early February.

Only had time to listen to the first movement, but it was pretty good.

It started out kind of disjointed, and worked into being quite groovy, which I liked.

The material seemed too bland at the start, but what resulted from it was good.

I don't see any need for the B double sharp in the last measure (piano RH) - that should be a C#, unless there's some good reason I've missed.

Will hopefully listen to more later.

Only had time to listen to the first movement, but it was pretty good.

It started out kind of disjointed, and worked into being quite groovy, which I liked.

The material seemed too bland at the start, but what resulted from it was good.

I don't see any need for the B double sharp in the last measure (piano RH) - that should be a C#, unless there's some good reason I've missed.

Will hopefully listen to more later.

yeah, not sure why I put a B double sharp, I think it was just messy looking, the sharp was a little ambiguous. Maybe just making sure there's no confusion, I want some enharmonic version of C# in there :P

I'll change it back, see how it looks, maybe play with the special tools a bit to make it look nice.

Thanks for listening, hope you get a chance to listen to the second and third movements, they're pretty contrasting, but hopefully still somewhat unified :P. I'm pretty proud of them, except for a few sections that still need some work, which I'm doing now.

This work is gorgeus. To my favorites

I don't have any negative feedback for you on this. You did a really really nice job. I especially liked movement 2...everything just fit together well, each part balancing the other. And I really really liked movement 3. Sorry I can't be much more help... I over all really like this! Nice job!!!

thank you everyone for listening! It makes me swell to hear such comments, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I'm going to update the piece

Hey! I LOVE LOVE LOVE THE 2ND MOVT I LOVE IT SO MUCH :DDDDD The piano flowing notes seem like subliming water.. :D

In all three movts, i love how you can integrate winds and piano together so well and sequence rhythmic motifs in each of them that act as a transition to new ideas ahead. Though there's many ideas introduced, these ideas are well connected and are not awkwardly placed. :D

Overall, GREAT JOB!!! :D

-cj

This is so awesome I don't even know.

Thank you for your kind words :blush:

and thanks for listening/commenting/favoriting! Appreciate it dearly, as always.