Forest Triptych, for alto flute and harp

Here is a small set of three pieces inspired by different figures in Seneca mythology/folklore! I hope to improve my harp writing, so any tips/advice on that would be greatly welcomed.

The colors were used as a reference for myself while composing (I think of music in terms of color), and they themselves allude to the "triptych" I was attempting to create.

(The score is left in concert pitch)

Again, beautifully sculpted—all 3 movements. I could totally "see" the colors described in the music. And what an interesting topic of study!

I'm no harpist, so take all this with a grain of salt or two: the chord clusters in your piece appeared to share the same chromatics for the most part, so pedal changes would be minimal. That's good, of course. The note spans within the chords also looked to be within normal limits. It seemed like you took very special care writing for the harp in this piece, so I'm sure any troublesome passages will be quite forgiveable. Probably the only way of knowing for sure, though, is to have a harpist actually sit down and give this a run-through. Do you have any harpist friends or colleagues who might be willing to have a gander at this?

@Tónskáld Thank you! Unfortunately, I do not know any performers (as I have never had my music performed). Currently, I am revising my catalogue so that I will at least have a medley of small solo/chamber pieces ready to go when I enter my MMus program in the autumn. My hope is that I can then consult with performers, though I have hardly had any luck as of yet.

And thanks for noticing! I was, for the most part, very conscious of taming chromatic passages and trying to envision hand movements for the harpist (as much as I could imagine, anyway). We'll just have to see how it goes in the future. This set was composed sort of as a side-project to bide time (that is, I would work on it to fill time between other projects, or when I could not sleep).

Thanks again for your feedback :)

1 hour ago, Jared Steven Destro said:

Unfortunately, I do not know any performers (as I have never had my music performed).

This may be the greatest tragedy of our time! Hopefully it will be remedied in the near future. 🙂

If I run into any of my harpist friends (and if you don't mind, of course) I'll be happy to share this with them for their feedback.

Best wishes!

Jordan

Jordan,

That would be very nice, and I would love to see what they might think of it as well!

Beautiful work.

Harp is fascinating. Usually, I write intial pedal positiona and changes. I know every harpist can find a different solution, but in terms of composition I prefer doing it, just to now where I am.

There are chords that spread more than a tenth (in each hand): those have to be arpeggiated.

@Luis Hernández Thank you for your input! It is those pedal positions that I have yet to understand about the instrument, but I know that I will in time.