Music for Orchestra 4

About 6 minutes.

It's chromatic, impressionist and through-composed, based on 3 motifs; 1. at the opening; 2. the quiet bit at bar 13; and 3, the oboe solo at bar 21.

Like some of my things it's about struggle. Here, inspired by jungle, its unpredictability, its tensions. I've tried this mood before but failed - I may have failed here but there were three rules this time: it must not sound like Villa-Lobos; no orchestral imitations of jungle sounds; and no ethnic folk tunes.

My own crit is that there are several outbursts but almost none lead to a sustained tutti, they break off into quieter passages. I'm not sure if this works. I've tried cutting some of them out but they leave the work incoherent. I suspect at least one of the 'upward rushes' should lead to a fuller episode.

So, please, if you have time to listen (I know 6 minutes is a bit long) and are of a mind to comment it would be most appreciated. I don't expect good critique. Feel free to react as you will. But thank you for anything you have to say. Bear in mind it's modern which won't be to everyone's taste.

Edit: P.S.  All instruments at concert pitch except Basses (transposed up 1 octave) and Piccolo (1 octave down).

This sounds amazing!! 

I was notating some passages I particularly liked, but there were so many I just gave up. Time flew by as I listened to this, and I think that the fact that it is thorough-composed might have influenced this fact. This kept the music fresh throughout, without destroying the balance. The individual lines are well-written, and they add up to form beautiful and expressive harmonies. 

Anyways, sorry for the "its all great" comment, I now it doesn't help while composing. But do know it was a genuine one, I loved this piece and would enjoy listening to it being played by a real orchestra.

Just curious - what is your intent with this composition? 

^^^ It's part of a 5 movement suite which I hope will get public exposure - or at least parts of it - by our County Orchestra or "virtual performance" to one of our music appreciation groups when lockdown ends. I may even try my luck with the BBC. That's why I put it into engraved music score. Otherwise it could have stayed in pencil and paper draft.

14 hours ago, Jean Szulc said:

This sounds amazing!! 

I was notating some passages I particularly liked, but there were so many I just gave up. Time flew by as I listened to this, and I think that the fact that it is thorough-composed might have influenced this fact. This kept the music fresh throughout, without destroying the balance. The individual lines are well-written, and they add up to form beautiful and expressive harmonies. 

Anyways, sorry for the "its all great" comment, I now it doesn't help while composing. But do know it was a genuine one, I loved this piece and would enjoy listening to it being played by a real orchestra.

 

Jean, hi,

Thank you for listening and your kind and encouraging comments. Really appreciated.

All the best,

Q

Quinn,

I listened to your piece twice, and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, your orchestration is fabulous, your colors are beautiful, your contrasts are stark. You've got some terrific phrases, and phrasing. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether, if you took all the same phrases and played them in random order, you wouldn't end up with the same piece. Even though I enjoyed listening to it, from about bar 40 onward it seemed kind of arbitrary.

I see up above that your ground-rules for yourself were all about what the piece wasn't going to be. Are you sure you were clear on what it was going to be?

I could see this as a short ballet, and quite an opportunity for a choreographer. Not so sure about the 5 movement suite, though, if the other 4 are similarly arbitrary.

Hope this is the kind of feedback you were looking for. I'm brand new to this forum, and one of the reasons I joined was that I see people being very frank in their comments.

Best,

Tom

Hi, Tom,

I'm perfectly happy with your feedback and thank you indeed for listening and making these extensive comments. I had hoped for others to comment and honestly expected them to be along similar lines. It's sometimes the way with 'through-composed' - the thing is episodic, without formal structure except as it applies to each episode. Sometimes recapitulation seems right. (No 2 of the suite has more recognisable form and does recap toward the end.)

Here, the problem was pruning. It started out at 8 minutes but needed cutting back as another rule is "no more than 6 minutes". There's a lot to say about jungles and things can get out of hand.

I have to agree with your comment about some of the phrases - particularly the orchestral flourishes - potentially being interchangeable and that was one thing about which I was unhappy. As they contribute to the mood, at least some of them need to be there - unpredictability was part of it but I may have to revisit a couple and do something different. Thank you for pointing that out.

Your comments are much appreciated.

Cheers,

Quinn.

On 7/5/2021 at 6:56 AM, Quinn said:

Bear in mind it's modern which won't be to everyone's taste.

 

Don't you think some unwarranted assumptions are being made here? It's far from being "modern" in today's context and I believe the majority of the non-composer non-performer audience has grown to admire this kind of style over the last few decades. (edit: I should've said over the last century. The harmonic vocabulary employed in this work is actually more reminiscent of that of some early 20th century composers, e.g. impressionist works of Szymanowski)

That being said, well done!

As you wish.

Thank you for listening and the comment. 

Note that many people here still write in keys, classical forms and formal rhythms so it's just advice for those who regard a-rhythmic, chromatic, through-composed work as taboo so they don't waste their time. I'm just an impressionist who's been called 'post modern', and who wouldn't touch serialism or the current splattering of noises on a time-canvas with a barge-pole!

I use the word chromatic because my work is basically tonal so I can't call it atonal. 

Cheers.

Hi ... I just listened to the work for the second time.  There is no doubt you created a very detailed fabric of interlocking sounds; however, this is both a strength and a weakness of the work.  Sometimes if the work is overly orchestrated with all the fireworks ... you get continuous splasesh of sound yet you may lose the over thematic flavor.