Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor

Good day, everyone.

Okay, so here's the deal. This is my first hopefully "major" work, and I'm kinda nervous about how it will be taken.

The MP3 - Yeeah! Click me!

...And the PDF - ceo NUM.sib

This concerto is for cello and string orchestra. I'm not at all adequate at writing for winds and percussion, so I avoid writing for them. Perhaps some day I'll arrange this piece for full orchestra. But for now, just strings and cello.

Anyway, let's get to the business.

In retrospect, this piece didn't take very long to compose. Maybe 4-ish days at a few hours each day. There is no traditional structure to the piece, I suppose. Thematically, there are three or four themes that recur and develop throughout. Frankly, there weren't many obstacles faced while writing this piece. Maybe keeping quiet at 2:30 in the morning so that my parents would yell at me to go to bed. I imagine all of the real obstacles will come after all the criticisms and during revision.

Please excuse the crappy cadenza quality. There's only so much I can convince the computer to do musically.

Thank you very much for listening. I truly am appreciative.

Cheers,

Evan

cello_concerto_no1.pdf

Very wonderful work! Congratulations! Some of the very ethereal scattered harmonies reminded me of some of the harmonies in Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, a work I adore.

Wow. That was very beautiful. Just two things that came to my mind.

1. Do you play cello? The highest nite I ever remeber a cello playing was a Db in the treble staff.

2. Your ending was a little too abrupt for my taste. You probably feel differently but thats what I have to say.

Hope this helped. Keep up the good work. I would love to hear the work finished and performed.

Looking at this piece as a cellist it looks extremely fun! Nice string crossing exercise there with those triplets. I'm going to listen in a minute. In answer to Tyler, the cello can go much higher than Db, can go past A above the treble staff. I was astounded when I first saw the title on the index, thinking "Who could have been so smart as to write a cello concerto?" and then when I found out it was you I thought "Of course!"; that doesn't matter at all but I thought I'd tell you anyway.

I'm very glad I listened to this piece. I loved it! It's very well voiced and gives a good challenge in most of the parts while also having some very lyrical beauty. I'm thouroughly impressed. The only problem I have are some sudden jumps like in measure 141 going into 142; it would be most logical to start playing in first position in 142 but since you're already in 8th position and playing a double stop you'd either have to play it in fifth position, is this what you were intending? Overall, a very very nice piece. I think this sounds very much like the Saint-Saens concerto especially with the nonexistent breaks between movements. Now I"m going to go write my own cello piece!

Wow. That was very beautiful. Just two things that came to my mind.

1. Do you play cello? The highest nite I ever remeber a cello playing was a Db in the treble staff.

2. Your ending was a little too abrupt for my taste. You probably feel differently but thats what I have to say.

Thank you. :) I do play cello, and I know that the A and C have very nice harmonics on the cello, and are actually relatively easy notes for most good cellists. [actually, the harmonic can even be played in 1st position, but that wouldn't be as flashy and virtuosic :happy:]

You know, I sort of agree with you about the ending. I wasn't sure exactly how to end it, and this was somewhat of a hasty fix. I was excited and eager to finish it after all. Thanks for mentioning that. I may go back and redo that. Maybe another time through the melody, or add a little coda or denoument, or something.

I'm very glad I listened to this piece. I loved it! It's very well voiced and gives a good challenge in most of the parts while also having some very lyrical beauty. I'm thouroughly impressed. The only problem I have are some sudden jumps like in measure 141 going into 142; it would be most logical to start playing in first position in 142 but since you're already in 8th position and playing a double stop you'd either have to play it in fifth position, is this what you were intending? Overall, a very very nice piece. I think this sounds very much like the Saint-Saens concerto especially with the nonexistent breaks between movements. Now I"m going to go write my own cello piece!

I looked at 141. That's in the cadenza. Haha, funny thing about the cadenza actually, I didn't really want to write my own cadenza, so I just made something quickly to show that there would in fact be a cadenza there. Anyway, back to 141/142. I agree that it's quite a shift, but this being a cadenza, there is a lot of time to get back to first position [time which may be aliased as "musical interpretation"].

I'm not sure exactly what you mean about the nonexistent breaks between non-existent movements. :ninja: This is only one movement. Although, now that you mention it, I like the idea of the second movement starting after only a brief pause after that last big chord.

Thank you for your comments! They are well appreciated.

Evan

The MP3 doesn't work for me. Looks good from what I've gone over in the score, though :). Is anyone else having problems with the MP3?

One other person I know said it wasn't working well. Do you happen to have an elderly computer?

Well, I'll post the midi tomorrow, in case anyone else is still having difficulties.