Sonata for Violin

Hi YC!This is my sonata for violin, which I will be submitting for the May competition. Now, this it not perfected, but I think it's good enough to upload here.Thanks, and please listen and comment! Heckel

HELLO HECKEL!!!!!!!!! YAY NEW PIECE!!so sorry for not being able to comment on the day you uploaded it, but haha i'm so excited because i'm the FIRST one to comment here =D And I'm finally able to find a quiet space to write my opinions down.

Anyway, I'm going to do an ear-critique(what i always do). It means not looking at the score while listening to it.

For the first movement, I like how there seems to be no fixed tempo and the violin just explores around the registers and timbre(by ascending upwards on the E string doing sliding notes here and there, later doing pizzicato). There's also sudden dynamic changes which makes this movement even more interesting =) There are dissonances here and there, and honestly, I'm not a fan of dissonances BUT they are nicely used here. =) The harmony created from these dissonances are quite...HARMONIZED! HAHAHA that's why I like it. =) And then, the violin plays the note and do pizz at the same time. IT IS SO FUNNY!!!!!!!HAHAHAHAHAHA =)

For the 2nd movement, wow the beginning really seems peaceful(sometimes sounds like a sad donkey going HEE-haw, HEE-haw...HAHAHA in a nice way) Wow then it's sort-of like a sarabande with 2-part voices and it really helps to make the piece move. =) WOW AND THE PIZZICATO seems pentatonic! I LOVE IT! chinese!hahaa i used quite alot of WOWs here =)

the pizz are quite funny too. it's like the strings going "la---laa--laaaa- and the pizz goes "tok tok", "tok tok". HAHAHAHA like knocking the door haha

For the 3rd movement, it's kinda similar to the 2nd movement, and wow i really like the fifths together =) and the chinese feel is there too! I'm secretly wondering if you're a chinese in your past life XD and then, the fragments of first movement can be heard again!!! WHEE

For the 4th movement, it seems lively! and i like the rhythmic motifs!(i can't dictate them out here haha) and wow the pizzicatos are awesome!!It seems to echo the arco part..haha "echo the arco" XD this movement is like a contrast to the 2nd and 3rd movements!

Overall, I think you're really good at experimentation and exploration(lol my assonances, Im trying to sound like a good critic XD). And there is NO aspect of it that i am particularly not fond off. Maybe your fourth movement can be a little longer =P (I'm probably saying this because i didn't get enough of it XD). HAHAHA

-CJ

Hey, thank you for your very in-depth review! Glad you liked the dissonances and didn't go "EEK" when you heard them! :P

Thanks again!

Heckel

(P.S please comment on this even if you don't like it!!)

Hey, Heck!

General comments:

Well, first thing that strikes me: it's not in sonata form. Kinda...odd for a piece that's titled "sonata." But you call it more appropriately a "Suite" on the actual piece. There you go. Name the movements!! It's a Suite, each movement needs a proper name.

And you recall my shoutbox comments: as an unaccompanied piece, it'd probably sound better on viola. But since you were asked to write a "solo violin piece", what this really needs is a piano part. I think the piece would explode with possibilities and expression with that added element.

You have a ton of notation issues, like collisions and mispelled accidentals and unnecessary courtesy accidentals. If this is going to be performed or published, that really needs to be addressed. Check for all collisions of ink, check every accidental for tendencies to ensure correctness (for example, C natural does NOT go to C#. The C natural needs to be a B#), get rid of courtesy accidentals that aren't, like, a measure after an affected note.

The staves should be given waaay more space than you are giving them so everything's not so cluttered. Also think about abbreviating marks like "col legno" when you have to alternate a lot. The performer will get it. it looks extremely awkward to have "arco. col legno. arco. col legno. arco." over the span of five measures.

first mvt:

I like the intro, the contrasts, the pacing. Very energetic, not "too weird," but definitely not tonal. Has a dance-like feel in the music that you can feel within your body but can't really dance to. I loathe the odd interval dichords, but that's just me.

second mvt:

Why is this in 7/4?

m.9-10: meh. Not doing it for me.

This movement seems a little less thoughtful than the last. Like you kept a lot of the same ideas throughout the mvt, but transformed them haphazardly.

third mvt:

m.12: any particular reason this is a literal repeat of the first phrase? Why doesn't it do anything different?

m.43: I think you could come up with something a bit stronger than that. :)

(audio file incomplete)

Okay, to be honest, by this point I'm getting a little tired of the planed fifths quarter notes, D-A to G-D, at m.44. You keep hammering it into the listener. We've heard it many, many times. Do something with it. m.47 at least you changed THIS idea a bit. I think you could go a bit further. The same pitches make it recognizeable, but by this piont it's also a bit tired. The ending is nice, but again it's a literal repeat. Change it. Give me a reason to continue paying attention to something I've heard twice already.

Fourth mvt:

Can you do that? lol. Fix your tuplet beamings and trill markings. M.2 in particular is beamed incorrectly no matter how you look at it. It happens again later, but you can justify that one. A piano accomaniment would solidify it even more.

Notation thing: slurs go over ties. Also, the audio rendering isn't picking up your false harmonics it seems. That's a shame.

A very tame ending to a busy suite. But not unpleasant an ending, bringing back some ideas from previous pieces (like that open G-D fifth, again non-transformed). I still contend that those ideas should be transformed if you are going to bring them back so consistently.

Nicely done, thanks for sharing. :santa:

-Peter

Hey Petes, thanks for your comment! It's not quite perfect. At all really... but I'll have new stuff later :)

Heckel

If I may... comments away!

MVMT 1

Since this is a sonata for violin, I found it appropriate to mentally sight-read it as I went along... well, to put it tactfully, the technical difficulties are intricate.... it isn't too bad, but there are some particularly awkward moments... measure 19 needs to be played in 6th position, with the B on the G string (lowest string). To go from 1st to 6th is already tough, having to put down three fingers is just mean :happy: . And whenever you have double-stops (2 notes) that have high a, g, b (right above treble clef) as their lowest note, be prepared for a hard-fought battle with intonation, not to mention tone. double-stops that go as high as the ones in ms. 9 aren't seen that often. Ms. 26, last beat, you have three fifths in sequence. two fifths is OK, as your fingers are wide enough to play the same note position on two strings at the same time, but three is going to require one finger to lift, move and press down in very little time. I would advise against. Also, for left-hand pizz. you should use a ''+'' over the note in question, it is the standard symbol.

That having been said, I liked the music, it was coherent and seemed to have a good sense of direction, with the various motives recurring often enough.

MVMT 2

I don't want to bore anyone with technical concerns, but, about double-stops:

when one of the notes is a ''drone'', if not an open string, you have a limited range for the moving line. Let's say you have a drone on g in the middle of the treble staff. Not an open string for the g - the moving line will be above. You have a range that extends from a fifth with the g to an octave above, if the G is played with the 1st finger. If played with other fingers, the ranges will be different, one note down for each finger you add. Essentially, when playing double-stops with a drone, the range of the moving line is a fourth, in all cases. If your moving line is rapid, you don't want fifths with the drone, since a fifth requires one finger to cover two strings at the same time. That takes time to execute when the finger is question is already occupied with another string. (Unless it is an open string, then there aren't any fingers involved).

Octaves are HARD. They speed at which they are supposed to be played here is unreasonable.

Thirds are a violinist's and violist's worst enemy. :lol: Their use is OK here, but keep that in mind.

There are jumps across huge intervals all over the place... I am sweating just looking at them :D

The music itself was very odd, impertinent. I liked the quirky character of the movement, even though I sometimes felt as though it was missing some kind of progression and direction (tension-release).

MVMT 3

The audio seems to be incomplete. However, I don't think the return to ideas reminiscent of the first movement is entirely necessary. I would have seen something more lively and energetic as the 3rd movement instead. Also, mss. 19 and 96 are just... just... :sadtears: .

MVMT 4

Touch fourth harmonics = not fast. It's going to be pretty hard to get those to sound right, since you cant' use different fongerings for a touch fourth; you can only change positions.

This movement was too short for me. It could have used a middle section that elaborated on different material, before returning to the original motive. I think that would have helped the finale be a bit more interesting and fulfilling. You have some fun material with the left-hand pizz. alternating quickly with arco, I would have liked to hear more.

In the end, the difficulty level of the piece is simply too high, in my opinion. You have many virtuosic techniques being used rapid-fire, some of which seemed out-of-place (notably, the quickly alternating low and high registers - a few passages in middle register would probably have been easier, while providing a bit more variety). I'm sorry if I rambled on about technique too much, but I am a violinist, and that is part of my duty :santa: . The music in itself has some very interesting moments, but I think that they aren't developed to their fullest. Keep on working, you're definitely writing more and more interesting stuff!