Courante in E minor

Hello again.  This is a Courante in E minor that I just finished this week for string orchestra.  Usually a Courante is a dance in triple meter coming second in the baroque dance suite after the Allemande.  I have a courante in my archives that I composed years ago that's in 2/4 so it's not really a courante - I hope this one is actually a courante.  I was going for a dance-like feel.  Let me know what you think!

1 hour ago, PaperComposer said:

I was going for a dance-like feel. 

I think you've achieved that. It was easy to imagine a renaissance dance, and I found the depth of drama you gave in this pretty interesting. I'm not too familiar with this style, but it seems pretty short? Maybe that's the goal, and they would repeat it a few times to really dance to it? Perhaps a contrasting light section? You definitely adhere to the form you were going for, I guess I just wanted more! 😄

Well done, I love hearing how prolific your output has been. 

7 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I think you've achieved that. It was easy to imagine a renaissance dance, and I found the depth of drama you gave in this pretty interesting. I'm not too familiar with this style, but it seems pretty short? Maybe that's the goal, and they would repeat it a few times to really dance to it?

Thanks!  These dances were usually in binary form and stayed pretty short for the most part although I've heard a pretty long sarabande once (which is a spanish dance that usually comes third in the dance suite).  I don't know if you noticed but the particular form I used here is theme and variations, only I didn't write multiple variations, only one (I'm kind of tired of writing in theme and variations for now LoL)

12 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Perhaps a contrasting light section? You definitely adhere to the form you were going for, I guess I just wanted more! 😄

Well I would run the risk of writing something a bit out of character for a courante if I wrote a lighter contrasting section.  I guess I could have written another courante at a slightly faster tempo to pose as a kind of trio in a minuet and trio form.

14 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Well done, I love hearing how prolific your output has been.

Thanks!  After dusting off some of my old dances from my archives I felt like diving back into composing those dances from a fresh perspective so here's the result!

P.S.  Bonus question - I don't know if you can guess what famous movie character's theme is being played in the first 4 notes of the melody?

Quite interesting, I like the thickness of the string orchestra and the heterophonic feeling it gives.

@Luis Hernández Thanks - I tried to include some counterpoint of course but there is scarcely any canonic imitation in here.

Hey Peter,

On 10/2/2020 at 12:05 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I hope this one is actually a courante.  I was going for a dance-like feel.

I think this one is a dance-like! The upbeats and the downbeats do show mark of the dancing steps! However I think this one is more like a Minuet than a Courante, since a courante is more usually in 3/2 and there's hemiola in it. Its Italian twins Corrente is lighter and faster than this one too.

I feel like the part writing here is less fluent your other works posted here and I've reviewed before. Maybe this one is an older work? For example there are parallel fifth in b.3 btw 2nd violin and viola, and many parallel octaves and I think this gives the heterophonic Luis is feeling. I also personally feel like maybe some of the passage can be replaced by F# major as dominant of B minor instead, like in b.5, 11 or 22.

On 10/2/2020 at 1:57 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I felt like diving back into composing those dances from a fresh perspective so here's the result!

Hmm.... Hopefully you keep composing now too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On 10/2/2020 at 1:57 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

P.S.  Bonus question - I don't know if you can guess what famous movie character's theme is being played in the first 4 notes of the melody?

I can't LoL!!!! Although they are in the same set as in the opening of the sixth movement of Beethoven's op.131 (with G#-Fx-D#-G# there) muahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thx for sharing!

Henry

On 10/1/2020 at 10:57 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

P.S.  Bonus question - I don't know if you can guess what famous movie character's theme is being played in the first 4 notes of the melody?

On 7/26/2023 at 12:56 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I can't LoL!!!! Although they are in the same set as in the opening of the sixth movement of Beethoven's op.131 (with G#-Fx-D#-G# there)

I thought it was called "Doc's theme", but apparently it's the love theme between Doc and Clara.

Also here:

The Beethoven excerpt is attached here muahaha !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!