Symphony #2 in G Major

Yes, in Finale, separate staves for everything. When writing by hand, 1st and 2nd of all the winds on separate staves.

Glad you got a kick out of it. I will finish it someday, I'm quite sure of that. ;)

I love this work, I'm listening to the first movement as I type this and am really impressed; you appear to be channeling the spirit of at least 4 different Classical composers. There's an absolutely gorgeous modulation at 0:45 where it touches on F major for a couple of bars, and another one again at about 2:40. Will listen to the other movements later since I'm supposed to be working on my book. Ooooh, 3:50ish, nother unexpected modulation.

I can't really say much on this apart from I love it... :D Your style is fantastic, and the piece I've just listened to should be printed off and waved in the face of the BBC Concert Orchestra until they agree to perform it. ;) 11/10. Of cours, I'm sure Nico will disagree with me. ;)

Edit: Have listened to the last movement. Am giving up composing. :P I love the section that starts at 2:00, and even moreso the fughetta at 2:25... Bravo.

J. Lee, another great work. (flute concerto) These are real deal no doubt.

Seriously Mozart has nothing on you. :D (well besides a thousand works), but construction wise and melodic wise, they are just as good in my opinion. Hey, you may live another 35 years, so you have plenty of time to leave us many many works too.

I would love to hear more.

Jeremy

Wow! Thanks again, guys.

I should clarify something about my notation: in my Finale scores, I put each of the instruments on a separate line, but with a relatively big orchestra like the one I use for the Flute Concerto, there aren't enough MIDI channels to go around, so some MIDI instruments carry multiple parts.

you appear to be channeling the spirit of at least 4 different Classical composers. There's an absolutely gorgeous modulation at 0:45 where it touches on F major for a couple of bars, and another one again at about 2:40.

I believe I've had more comments on that particular moment in the movement than any other. As for channeling multiple Classical composers, I suppose it's true insofar as I have immersed myself in the music of the period and absorbed as much as I could.

Seriously Mozart has nothing on you. (well besides a thousand works), but construction wise and melodic wise, they are just as good in my opinion. Hey, you may live another 35 years, so you have plenty of time to leave us many many works too.

What an extraordinary, extravagant compliment. :D

What makes me happiest is that people enjoy my music. It may not break any truly new ground - I don't care about any of that - but if it pleases people to listen to it, then I have done what I set out to do.

What makes me happiest is that people enjoy my music. It may not break any truly new ground - I don't care about any of that - but if it pleases people to listen to it, then I have done what I set out to do.

I totally agree. Have you ever noticed how like say a neo-baroque music piece, or maybe even a painting done nowadays in a older style is not looked upon as highly as the older versions, although they are just as good. Why is that? Perhaps the world wants something fresh, but still, I think if people put off the "Been there done that mentality" they would not miss out on the pure joy of these great compositions. Still, even though neo-classical works are looked down upon now by some, time will redeem them long after the composer's death.

Just do what you love and time will praise the works. Of course I don't think anyone should seek praise in the present time or the time to come, yet no doubt if a thing is done well out of pure love for ones art, the work will be praised in time. As the Bible reads, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exhalt you in due time", humble Bach who didn't seek greatness while alive and was exalted hundreds of years later. He is to be an example to all artists, me thinks. (I really wanted to say me thinks. I always love when those old writers said that)

Jeremy

Yes, in Finale, separate staves for everything. When writing by hand, 1st and 2nd of all the winds on separate staves.

Glad you got a kick out of it. I will finish it someday, I'm quite sure of that. :)

You also write in hand first? Good!! We are not many today doing that :(

Hey, your really good at what you like to do. I couldn't find anything I didn't like and thought the piece was surprisingly not repetitive. I'm very glad that you can write your classical music and not care what people think, and only do it to make people happy. You are very gifted!

Now that I think about it, it reminds me a lot of professors at colleges. I went to University of Illinois for an interview to get into theory/comp and they ended up turning me down. (I guess my music wasn't "crazy"or "different" enough for them.) It got me to thinking about what people want and how arbitrary it is. I bet they would even bash you for not being original.

Oh yeah, with the composition program I am using, Harmony Assistant, they have a contest going on right now for a "Tribute to Mozart". The winner gets "The Mozart Complete Works in 170 CDs". It's to bad you don't have Harmony because you would definitely win. But that means, if I enter it, I have a chance to win. :w00t:

Paul

J. Lee, if you're still alive, and you had better be. :P

I was wondering if you have heard any works by Franz Xaver Sussmayer? (Pupil of Mozart)

I heard a work of his today that sounded like the Allergro Spiritoso of this Symphony.

Sussmayer is actually the pupil who finished Mozart's Requiem. That's right, it wasn't Salieri!

of course not

any educated person surely knows that :P...

I am still alive, but I've been working 18 hours a day for over a week now between my day job and my music work. On Saturday I performed TWO Beethoven Symphonies - the 9th and the 5th - on the same day...the 9th as a singer, the 5th as a violist. It's grand, but pretty tough...and this place is a relatively low priority under the circumstances.

I was wondering if you have heard any works by Franz Xaver Sussmayer? (Pupil of Mozart)

I heard a work of his today that sounded like the Allergro Spiritoso of this Symphony.[/b]

I've heard precious little of Sussmayr's work, because nobody seems to think it's worth performing. His work on the Requiem is all I've ever heard. I admire him, though. He may not have been what Mozart was, but he had guts and talent. Not being as great as Mozart was his only failing, but because he didn't do as good a job on the Requiem as most music historians believe he should have, he's been relegated to obscurity. Highly unfair.

I do hope Sussmayr's piece wasn't TOO much like mine. Are you trying to tell me something? What piece was it?

Oh, crud. What's you're new ID over there? I thought I had it.

I do hope Sussmayr's piece wasn't TOO much like mine. Are you trying to tell me something? What piece was it?

Nah... It wasnt to much like yours, but that wonderful theme played on Oboes was similiar to a theme used in the Sussmayer work. Yours was more ornamented though.

I just wondered if you had heard any of his work.

Oh...OK. You had me worried for a second. One of my most horrendous fears is to inadvertently plagiarise. It's happened before, much to my mortification.

O, no. It was no where near plargarism.

I think Sussmayr and guys like him have gotten a bum rap from history. I'd love to hear more of his stuff.

Wow! These are amazing I'm not trying to 'suck up' but you are so talented I'm jelouse ;) :blush:

I am sorry for my spelling mistakes!!! :)

I'm thinking that you should write this out onto paper, bury it somewhere in Vienna, sign it as "Mozart", wait 30 years until someone digs it up, and then enjoy as the world delights at having found a new Mozart S

Please,I beg you to keep writing classical music.You will have control over your writing and you will develop a good technique. Beethoven always sounded like mozart until later in his life where he did masterful pieces full of new rich harmonies and new stuff. Of corse he kept under his pen the old traditional style which is good. I say this to you because some people get intimidated for some of the comments post in here.

I am quite sure this is not the case, but I felt compelled to write to you after reading this particular post.

Thanks though for sharing your music with us.

I hope you many more years to see more music come to life.

Thanks very much. I intend to continue in the same vein, though I'll be open to development in other directions.

WOW!

I love it all, I can't pick a particular favorite, I also love the Flute concerto sample (I want more! MORE!)

Ah well I will practice and maybe someday be as good as you

(I am already working on my first big project, my Suite for Solo Guitar)

Thanks I don't think anyone will read this but at least I posted

Why would you think no-one would read this? I sure did. Thanks.

We should have a section in the Forum: J. Lee's classes for beginners. :D. I'm half-serious...:(

Great idea! :) that Rimsky Korsakov book is getting on my nerves...:o

Did I mention this piece Rawks!

I just started reading it. It's a good book as far as books go...

I just wanted to let everyone know that this symphony was indeed performed last Saturday, September 30. Notwithstanding that I believed the tempi were too slow and there were a number of incomprehensible technical gaffs on the part of several players (particularly the horns...unforgivable), it was a fair performance overall, and the audience seemed to enjoy it very much. It was good to hear the piece live, and I'm grateful.

The horn players complained bitterly about what I asked them to do in the Menuetto (3rd movement), and they played it poorly, exactly executing what I prescribed not once in three tries. There were clams dying everywhere, and these are semi-professional musicians were talking about. Now, I know that a concert D on the treble staff (A above the staff transposed) is a high note on a modern horn in F, but I didn't make them hang up there the whole time; my part writing was idiomatically sound. What I wrote is no more demanding than anything Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven wrote in the 150 symphonies they ground out between them - and in some cases worlds easier (check out Beethoven's 7th!) - and modern horn players have exponentially more sophisticated equipment to work with. I just don't understand why they couldn't play the damn notes. If my piece had Mozart's name on it, they'd have made the extra effort necessary to play it properly. I'll never understand it as long as I live. The horns weren't the only gently caress-ups, but they were the worst of the bunch by far. What really chaps my hide is that the same group of musicians played Beethoven's 8th beautifully at the end of the same concert, which is far more demanding than my piece, technically and otherwise. It has to be more than familiarity. I felt sabotaged. I just don't understand.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that live performances aren't always what they're cracked up to be. I'm not going to give up on them altogether, and I really am grateful; but at least my computer plays all the right notes, at the right tempo, every time. I'd gladly sacrifice a measure of human soul for a commensurate deal of accuracy.

I'll close my comments by saying that I was surprised and deeply gratified to learn of the audience's reaction to the introduction I was given during the pre-concert lecture. I was busy warming up, so I didn't hear it; but I was told that when the conductor introduced me as an unapologetic Classical-Revivalist, and then explained to them what that meant in terms of my music and philosophy, the audience spontaneously burst out in applause. This would seem to indicate that regardless of what modernists think listeners want, wish they would want, or believe they should want, audiences are not only receptive to the idea of new music fashioned in old ways, they're enthusiastic about it. There's room enough for all of it in the air. If I had it to do over again, I think I'd rather have heard that applause in affirmation of my philosophy than the performance itself.

Thanks to all of you for your support and well-wishing. God Bless.

PS - there was an archival recording made. I'll be glad to post a link to it as soon as the technician makes something presentable out of it in Pro-Tools. It's going to need a lot of work, so don't hold your breath.