26 Minuets for the Piano (completed!)

After a two-year hiatus, for the month of December I decided to go back working on this set of 26 minuets which I have been working on off from 2016 to 2017, and stopped in 2018 when I have other things to work on. Here's the status of the minuets as of April 2018: 

Anyway, after that and up till December, I have gained new musical knowledge and experiences which can be reflected in this new version of the set. More dynamics are added, the pitch range has also been expanded as well and incorporating other forms (Rondo and Sonata) into a few of the minuets as well. 

Many of the musical ideas for the minuets are taken from several sight-reading books, string quartets by Mozart and Haydn and other composition and theory workbooks. It has been quite a lot of fun finishing the set, exploring new musical ideas and many major/minor keys, and through this I have grown as a composer. I plan to move beyond the piano and work on a set of preludes and fugues for string quartet after this. I also hope to live record these minuets one day, especially the whole tone (XXV).

Any suggestions on how to improve, or if you need to understand some of my thinking behind the minuets, you can say so in the comments. (I'm still working on a commentary by the way, but need to tell you that the last uses two different octatonic scales for the minuet and trio respectively.)

For those who are not able to listen to the whole set, I suggest looking into these: II (A minor), IV (E minor), VI (E minor), VII (A major), IX (E major), XII (G sharp minor), XIII (F sharp/ G flat major), XIV (E flat minor), XVI (B flat minor), XIX (E flat major), XX (C minor),  XXIII (F major), XXIV (D minor), XXV (Homage to Debussy), XXVI (Homage to Prokofiev). 

Edited January 15, 20206 yr by zhenkang
Minor edits

Well, I certainly like XV and XVI. I think it's interesting that you start out extremely classical and transgress throughout the 'musical ages' (so to speak). Was that your impetus in writing these? Not bad works at all. 

2 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Well, I certainly like XV and XVI. I think it's interesting that you start out extremely classical and transgress throughout the 'musical ages' (so to speak). Was that your impetus in writing these? Not bad works at all. 

 

Yes it is actually. I'm kind of trying various styles in this work. It will be very boring trying to keep to just one style and is pretty restricting. 

The commentary:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XjX0yMazVzH6XcO-FSe-CPkdG7vQYDqSbsNlkV14RCY/edit?usp=drivesdk