Concerto cadenza challenge.

Below is the first movement of My piano concerto in C minor. The challenge is to write a cadenza using the themes of the concerto in what ever way you see fit. the only rule is it must be under four minutes long and must end where the orchestra comes back in on the correct chord. aside from that you can do anything to the themes presented in the concerto.

the Submission deadline is the first of August.

Until when can we participate in it?

22 minutes ago, Ivan1791 said:

Until when can we participate in it?

 

 

I'll set the end date as first of august.

1 hour ago, Bradley Scarff said:

I'll set the end date as first of august.

 

I probably won't participate then, I'm sorry. 

1 minute ago, Ivan1791 said:

I probably won't participate then, I'm sorry. 

 

Ok, if the general consensus is that's too short I'll extend the deadline.

7 hours ago, Bradley Scarff said:

Ok, if the general consensus is that's too short I'll extend the deadline.

 

It isn't a bad deadline, but I'm too busy lately. 

I'll work on it!  Don't know what what I'll come up with as I've never written a cadenza based on classical themes, but we'll see how it turns out.

Here's what I have so far.  This cadenza is my second attempt and is only a minute long - if that's too short I can work on another one in a more different style, but with this I was trying to emulate the style of your piano concerto so that it would fit stylistically into it.

Cadenza-2.mid

Im in

8 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Here's what I have so far.  This cadenza is my second attempt and is only a minute long - if that's too short I can work on another one in a more different style, but with this I was trying to emulate the style of your piano concerto so that it would fit stylistically into it.

 

Cadenza-2.mid

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I like it. it does feel a little short and if you want to do another one that's fine, I would recommend you use your own style and don't focus too much on emulating the style of the concerto. as long as the melodic ideas are used you can do whatever. thank you for your submission though 🙂

Sounds fun, I'll try to give it a shot, though I can't promise I'll stay in a classical style. I've never written a piano cadenza before though, so don't expect too much lol. 

I'm not sure I'll have time to work on it this week, but I'll try to get to it next week as soon as I can.

So I might have gotten a little carried away...but here's what I came up with.

I took quite a few liberties with your themes, but I used the motives in this theme:

And this theme between the piano and first violins:

With a small dash of this motive from the basses in the opening. 

And I came up with something a little...ambitious maybe??? I certainly didn't stay in the classical idiom that's for sure. Hopefully it's not too over the top. I wanted it to require some degree of virtuosity, it is a concerto after all. Maybe it's not as bad as I think, I was a decent pianist back in the day but there's NO WAY I could have played this. 

I also entered a few measures before and after into my DAW so you could here what in sounds like in context. (FYI I changed the timpani roll on pg. 39 to a G on the bottom line. The rest of the orchestra is playing a G7 chord - I'm not sure if the written C was intentional?)

I apologize for the messiness of the first page and a half of the score, I fought with Sibelius quite a bit and it's the best I could do.

Please let me know what you think. As always, if you have any questions or want to know how I came up with anything feel free to ask. Or if you want to tell me you hate it that's fine too. @Bradley Scarff this was a good idea, I had a lot of fun doing this!

Scarff Cadenza Score.pdfScarff Cadenza Final.mp3

13 minutes ago, gmm said:

So I might have gotten a little carried away...but here's what I came up with.

I took quite a few liberties with your themes, but I used the motives in this theme:

 

And this theme between the piano and first violins:

 

With a small dash of this motive from the basses in the opening. 

And I came up with something a little...ambitious maybe??? I certainly didn't stay in the classical idiom that's for sure. Hopefully it's not too over the top. I wanted it to require some degree of virtuosity, it is a concerto after all. Maybe it's not as bad as I think, I was a decent pianist back in the day but there's NO WAY I could have played this. 

I also entered a few measures before and after into my DAW so you could here what in sounds like in context. (FYI I changed the timpani roll on pg. 39 to a G on the bottom line. The rest of the orchestra is playing a G7 chord - I'm not sure if the written C was intentional?)

I apologize for the messiness of the first page and a half of the score, I fought with Sibelius quite a bit and it's the best I could do.

Please let me know what you think. As always, if you have any questions or want to know how I came up with anything feel free to ask. Or if you want to tell me you hate it that's fine too. @Bradley Scarff this was a good idea, I had a lot of fun doing this!

Scarff Cadenza Score.pdf 93.6 kB · 0 downloads Scarff Cadenza Final.mp3 2.85 MB · 0 downloads

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I really like this! I this a very Liszt like feel to it, especially that last bit where it sounds like it could come from one of his Hungarian Rhapsody's. I love the harmonic lines in the beginning. Which I wish I could have envisioned and used myself! of course I do have my own cadenza to this but yours blows mine out of the water and I will not hesitate to admit that.

A quick question, what DAW and sound font do you use? I would love to be able to increase the sounds of my Orchestral compositions preferably without it costing an arm and a leg. any info would be greatly appreciated. 

2 minutes ago, Bradley Scarff said:

I really like this! I this a very Liszt like feel to it, especially that last bit where it sounds like it could come from one of his Hungarian Rhapsody's. I love the harmonic lines in the beginning. Which I wish I could have envisioned and used myself! of course I do have my own cadenza to this but yours blows mine out of the water and I will not hesitate to admit that.

Thanks I glad you enjoyed it! Yeah I think the G7b9 arpeggio I used at the beginning is lifted right out of something by Liszt, but I'm not sure which.

2 minutes ago, Bradley Scarff said:

A quick question, what DAW and sound font do you use? I would love to be able to increase the sounds of my Orchestral compositions preferably without it costing an arm and a leg. any info would be greatly appreciated. 

• DAW - Cubase LE - ~$100, but there's nothing special about Cubase, any DAW will work
• Piano - "The Grandeur" from Native Instrumets ~$150 I think, but you can find a decent piano cheaper. Personally I think it's overpriced for the sound quality.
  • Reverb - FabFilter Pro-R - a little pricey too, but I like it. Most DAWs have a free Reverb plugin included though.
• Strings, Woodwinds, Timpani - Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra - VERY expensive, I would suggest something like Garritan Personal Orchestra ($100-150) as an entry level library until you get serious

19 minutes ago, gmm said:

Thanks I glad you enjoyed it! Yeah I think the G7b9 arpeggio I used at the beginning is lifted right out of something by Liszt, but I'm not sure which.

• DAW - Cubase LE - ~$100, but there's nothing special about Cubase, any DAW will work
• Piano - "The Grandeur" from Native Instrumets ~$150 I think, but you can find a decent piano cheaper. Personally I think it's overpriced for the sound quality.
  • Reverb - FabFilter Pro-R - a little pricey too, but I like it. Most DAWs have a free Reverb plugin included though.
• Strings, Woodwinds, Timpani - Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra - VERY expensive, I would suggest something like Garritan Personal Orchestra ($100-150) as an entry level library until you get serious

 

 

I'll have to consider it later down the line as I'm flat broke and starting university studies soon. though not principle in composition. However I hope that it'll increase my harmonic ear as it's pretty bad ATM. I'm considering getting noteperformer for the meanwhile though.

I haven't attempted to put my music into a DAW however at any point. I struggle to use regular notation software.

1 hour ago, Bradley Scarff said:

I'll have to consider it later down the line as I'm flat broke and starting university studies soon. though not principle in composition. However I hope that it'll increase my harmonic ear as it's pretty bad ATM. I'm considering getting noteperformer for the meanwhile though.

 

I haven't attempted to put my music into a DAW however at any point. I struggle to use regular notation software.

Personally I've always composed inside the DAW, then exported a MIDI into Sibelius to make the score. That's how I made this cadenza. It's just always been easier for me for whatever reason.

Here's my entry. It took a lot longer to notate than I thought, but I've written about 1.5 minutes.

2 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Here's my entry. It took a lot longer to notate than I thought, but I've written about 1.5 minutes.

 

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Thank you, definitely a tour de force of Virtuosity!

3 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Here's my entry. It took a lot longer to notate than I thought, but I've written about 1.5 minutes.

Nice! I think this fits well into the style of the rest of the movement, and seems quite challenging as well.

It's interesting to note which themes we're picking out to use in the cadenza. We both decided to use this theme:

While you chose to use this theme from the oboes starting on pg. 7

Out of curiosity what led you to choose these themes? Not that there's anything wrong with using them of course, I'm just curious how you decided.

For me, I interpreted the movement to be in sonata form, with the two themes I chose as the A and B themes. That, and after a couple of listens they were the two most "memorable" themes, at least to my ears. @Bradley Scarff I'm curious how you thought of the structure of the movement - do you see it as a sonata form, or something else?

6 minutes ago, gmm said:

Nice! I think this fits well into the style of the rest of the movement, and seems quite challenging as well.

It's interesting to note which themes we're picking out to use in the cadenza. We both decided to use this theme:

While you chose to use this theme from the oboes starting on pg. 7

Out of curiosity what led you to choose these themes? Not that there's anything wrong with using them of course, I'm just curious how you decided.

 

For me, I interpreted the movement to be in sonata form, with the two themes I chose as the A and B themes. That, and after a couple of listens they were the two most "memorable" themes, at least to my ears. @Bradley Scarff I'm curious how you thought of the structure of the movement - do you see it as a sonata form, or something else?

 

The first theme is the principle theme. It's a loose sonata form, loose because I didn't plan it out very well and just wrote as I followed through. the second Grab ironically is actually a transition section, my actual second theme is the one directly after that with the Oboe and the Strings playing stabbed chords below it. It is interesting how you chose those and noticed those more. 

5 minutes ago, Bradley Scarff said:

The first theme is the principle theme. It's a loose sonata form, loose because I didn't plan it out very well and just wrote as I followed through. the second Grab ironically is actually a transition section, my actual second theme is the one directly after that with the Oboe and the Strings playing stabbed chords below it. It is interesting how you chose those and noticed those more. 

 

Just to clarify,

Are you saying this is the principle theme?

This is the second theme?

And this is part of a transition section?

If this is the case, I'm curious how the below theme (piano and strings, pg. 13) fits into the mix?

8 minutes ago, gmm said:

Just to clarify,

Are you saying this is the principle theme?

 

This is the second theme?

 

And this is part of a transition section?

 

If this is the case, I'm curious how the below theme (piano and strings, pg. 13) fits into the mix?

 

 

To be perfectly honest I have no answer 😂. It's simply what I wrote. as I said earlier, it was very through composed without paying attention to what the times were initially. as such it's a miracle it resembles sonata form at all. I just enjoyed what I wrote for this piece. when I revisit it at some point down the line I will need to restructure it.

1 minute ago, Bradley Scarff said:

To be perfectly honest I have no answer 😂. It's simply what I wrote. as I said earlier, it was very through composed without paying attention to what the times were initially. as such it's a miracle it resembles sonata form at all. I just enjoyed what I wrote for this piece. when I revisit it at some point down the line I will need to restructure it.

I think the piece is perfectly fine as it is, I didn't mean to imply you needed to change anything. I was just curious on your thought process, which appears to be through-composed, which is perfectly legitimate.

While I think it is important to have an organized structure, at the same time you don't want to be too organized. I think it's important to find a happy medium between planned structure and letting the music flow naturally, which I think you did. It kind of sounds like you started out loosely with the idea of a sonata form, then improvised within that mold. As long as you keep practicing like this you will only get better over time. The thing to ask yourself is "Was it too through-composed, or was it too organized?", make an adjustment, and implement on your next piece. 

PS, didn't mean for this to turn into a review of your concerto, but good work! 😆

2 minutes ago, gmm said:

I think the piece is perfectly fine as it is, I didn't mean to imply you needed to change anything. I was just curious on your thought process, which appears to be through-composed, which is perfectly legitimate.

While I think it is important to have an organized structure, at the same time you don't want to be too organized. I think it's important to find a happy medium between planned structure and letting the music flow naturally, which I think you did. It kind of sounds like you started out loosely with the idea of a sonata form, then improvised within that mold. As long as you keep practicing like this you will only get better over time. The thing to ask yourself is "Was it too through-composed, or was it too organized?", make an adjustment, and implement on your next piece. 

PS, didn't mean for this to turn into a review of your concerto, but good work! 😆

 

I don't mind 😂. I've sort of abandoned the other movements for now, they were wayyyy to similar to Mozart and others. as such I'm leaving it for now and focusing on another thing which is a Piano trio. I'm only one the first movement however it's more organised. I know roughly what I'm doing and where I'm flowing to and from so the themes should be more tightly nit together. not to mention I won't be dealing with an Orchestra which to be honest was very ambitious of me 

1 minute ago, Bradley Scarff said:

I don't mind 😂. I've sort of abandoned the other movements for now, they were wayyyy to similar to Mozart and others.

Hey, I always say if you steal, steal from someone good. That's what I do anyway...😂

2 minutes ago, Bradley Scarff said:

as such I'm leaving it for now and focusing on another thing which is a Piano trio. I'm only one the first movement however it's more organised.

Looking forward to it 👍