Strangers in Town

A light-hearted orchestral piece which I first wrote about 5 years ago and reworked earlier this year. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but any feedback (positive or negative) is much appreciated!

Your main theme in this has almost a kind of arabic flavor to it.  I like how every time the main theme occurs you give it to a different instrument.  The droning sounds appropriate in depicting the town and the meter changes give this music a vitality which to me represents the business and movement of the town-folk.  I personally found the quote of the nursery rhyme out of place and detracting from the overall character of the piece.  I wouldn't call this piece "light-hearted" if not for that - to me it is quite a serious piece of music which I think should be compliment (minus the nursery rhyme quote).  There is a famous Theme and Variations on that Nursery rhyme for piano and orchestra by Ernst von Dohnányi in which he transforms and develops that melody as the basis of the entire piece - in that endeavor it is also serious music although not without it's comic/light-hearted elements.  However, there is no function or reason why you should include that melody in this piece - to me it just sounds very out of place but it's your choice of course.  Thanks for sharing!

@PaperComposer thank you for the feedback! I envisioned this piece as something more light-hearted in spirit, hence why I included the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star quote, but thanks for sharing your opinion (I still kind of like it this way though 😛).

I hadn't heard of the Dohnányi piece, thanks for recommending it!

Yes, the oriental flavor is delightful... Introducing an organ is also beautiful.

I never saw the indication "non solo" which I suppose means "a2".

@Luis Hernández thanks!

The indication is explained on the title page – the piece is scored for a flexible number of instruments, so this just means that both instruments should play if there's more than one instrument to the part. (I'm not sure if there's a more standard way of indicating this?)

1 minute ago, Alexander Reiger said:

@Luis Hernández thanks!

The indication is explained on the title page – the piece is scored for a flexible number of instruments, so this just means that both instruments should play if there's more than one instrument to the part. (I'm not sure if there's a more standard way of indicating this?)

 

This is how I have always seen it. Although what you wrote..., I understand it.

Wikipedia:

A due [a dˈduːe] in Italian or à deux [a dø] in French is a musical direction meaning "for two".^[1] Most often seen in its abbreviated form a2, the marking signifies that on a staff that normally carries parts for two players, both players are to play the single part in unison.^[2] 

Many times, in that cases, I write this way: