Soliloquy for Flute No. 9

This is my 9th Soliloquy for flute. For some reflective moods, I find the flute to be the best instrument for the soliloquy. Here is the link to my previous soliloquy for flute:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/archive/music/listen/8289/soliloquy-for-flute-no-8/

This is a really gorgeous melody line that changes things up a lot, which I appreciate. Were you intending those slurs to be breath marks? I think there could be portions of the piece that could benefit from longer phrases, but phrases are always a personal thing for composers.

I do think you underutilize the flute's potential though. What you have here is beautiful, but perhaps some ornaments or grace passages could contribute to the overall "flute-y" atmosphere of the piece. 

Were you also intending for those tempo changes to be immediate or changed into via accel/rit/etc.? If it's the latter, you might want to mark that.

Great stuff!

Very nice. All of this soliloquy writing will certainly train you to write a good melody. I agree that it would benefit from some added ornamentation, which is where I've found some of the greatest busty and nuance in flute pieces. Tempo changes seem to be standard in your pieces, and usually they work fine. But they felt a little more jarring to me than usual in this, particular m. 6-7

Thanks Monarcheon for your review and comments. Regarding the slurs, I was meaning them as legato. In what way can slurs be meant as breath marks? Can legato be executed with breath's in between? I was under the impression that when it's legato, the flutist cannot anyway breathe in between.

Thanks for the advice about ornaments and grace passages. I'll keep that in mind. Regarding the tempo changes, I meant them as immediate.

Thanks fishyfry for your review and comments.

4 hours ago, luderart said:

In what way can slurs be meant as breath marks? Can legato be executed with breath's in between? I was under the impression that when it's legato, the flutist cannot anyway breathe in between.

You're going to want to add some written in space for the player to breathe, like a rest or something. Slurs are used to connect notes all under one breath or more accurately, one blow. Granted, this isn't necessary and a lot of composers in the past don't do this, but in the interest of someone being able to pick this up and learn it as fast as possible, things like that speed up the process.

Also, in theory, a flute player should be able to take breaths in your piece a lot anyway because of the dotted quarter notes they can cut off if absolutely necessary. Nothing you did was wrong. I would just prefer to have it a little more convenient for the player.

Cheers!

I wonder what tonalities suit best for the flute? I mean, is it very hard to play it with so many flats?

The melody is encharming. It's fantastic how you make it with transpositions and repetitions with little variation.

14 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I wonder what tonalities suit best for the flute? I mean, is it very hard to play it with so many flats?

It's somewhat difficult, but the flutists I know would probably consider it the same difficulty as a key with only two or three sharps.