Are There Any Particular Pieces That Have Served You As Inspiration?

Or that have served you as a model to follow in your compositions? If so, which pieces and in what way?

This is a good question! Needless to say, that I would not compose if I would not get inspiration from the masters! Sometimes it starts off with a look in the scores of a certain piece I liked, then it continues with some little changes, e. g. I take a melody from the masters and rewrite it or I use a harmonic progression I found in one of the masters' works. Sometimes, good genuine ideas emerge from that process. Sometimes, I just try to compose "in the spirit" of a particular piece or well-known composer, e.g. in the spirit of Scott Joplin and Jelly-Roll Morton, or Chopin, or Mozart. Often, these attempts fail, but even then I often end up with some ideas I can use in other pieces.

I hope this provides an answer to your question, although I couldn't really name specific pieces.

mikrophonie 1

laborintus 2

lutoslawski's 3rd symphony

carter's variations 4 orchestra

dé5integration5

bach's 6 cello suites

schumann's davidsbündler7änze

and many more, possibly as many as... 890???

#swag

Yes, yes, yes! There are so many pieces which inspire many of my own compositions. Works by Debussy, Shostakovich, Copland, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and many others help me discover what to write. Perhaps a more recent composition of mine, A Distant View, was inspired by Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun". (Two things: first, if you've never heard this, pull it up NOW, and second, this piece is up on my profile, and I'd be delighted if anyone viewing this would review it!) I find that it is extremely important to listen to the music of the past compositional giants so I can know what perfectly crafted music sounds like (though I cannot craft perfect music myself... :headwall: )

Beethoven's Grosse Fugue is the biggest inspiration of Fugue I have (and fugue is my favorite compositional technique^^). This piece has changed my whole conception of fugue! Also, Bach solo violin sonates and partites are among the best influence in writting for solo strings. I wish some day I could write for solo violin with the same property he did, but now in XXI century =D

For voice, I'd name Victorias "O magnum mysterium", and for piano solo, many works from Ravel, principally his Le Tombeau de Couperin. Rachmaninoff's prelude in G#m, Op. 32, is a great model for preludes, as well as some from Scriabin.

Still about fugue (I'll finish, I swear), I HAVE to mention Cesar Frank's Preludio, chorale and Fugue in Bm. A WONDERFUL work, to which I've never seen any other similar.

Briefly, I'd also put in the list Batók and Villa-lobos (mainly due to his fugues).

Part I: http://youtu.be/3YmNb0DWNMQ

Part II: http://youtu.be/kMWSpCv8ypc

Carla Bley's Birds of Paradise.

Blows my mind.

Mozart piano sonatas and Tchaikovsky's Seasons are big inspirations for me!