String quartet movement

after a long hiatus, I'm back. during this hiatus I wrote a piece which I consider my best yet, a string quartet in a classical/ early romantic style, I wrote it very quickly for a module in the summer of last year (which is why there are so many repeats, it had to be a certain length of time, and I was very pleased with the result. 

let me know what you think and what you recommend 

A cool rondo form (or is it sonata-rondo??)  piece!  The theme is interesting and varied enough throughout to not be boring.  There is much contrast and interplay between the various members of the quartet and plenty of variation in phrase lengths that keep things interesting.  Plenty of different subdivisions are also in play.  There is also some wonderful cello countermelodies in the chorale-like sections in the major mode.  The G.P. and accelerando before the ending coda is a nice touch.  A criticism is that the slow solo violin descent is too square sounding in the rendition (which a real violinist might bring much more expression to).  Also - I think I've seen you write in C minor much too often (methinks it's a bad habit for a composer to get too used to writing in any particular key - I can provide some more advice on how to prevent this from happening if you want).  Overall - great job!

2 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

A cool rondo form (or is it sonata-rondo??)  piece!  The theme is interesting and varied enough throughout to not be boring.  There is much contrast and interplay between the various members of the quartet and plenty of variation in phrase lengths that keep things interesting.  Plenty of different subdivisions are also in play.  There is also some wonderful cello countermelodies in the chorale-like sections in the major mode.  The G.P. and accelerando before the ending coda is a nice touch.  A criticism is that the slow solo violin descent is too square sounding in the rendition (which a real violinist might bring much more expression to).  Also - I think I've seen you write in C minor much too often (methinks it's a bad habit for a composer to get too used to writing in any particular key - I can provide some more advice on how to prevent this from happening if you want).  Overall - great job!

 

Thanks, I do acknowledge my obsession with C minor, and its curly coincidence that the pieces I've shown here are all in that key I promise 😅 

Very nice.  Reminds me a lot of the final movement of Beethoven's string quartet no. 4 also in C minor.

I enjoyed this up through bar 193, but then your ending, in my view, fell flat. One reason is that starting in bar 194 the cello is sitting on the tonic C, so there is absolutely no sense of anticipation. Even if you're determined to stay in C minor to the end, at least put the cello on the dominant to start with. But really, why stay in C minor when you can do something more exciting? Let the cello start on G, but then use bars 200 - 222 to modulate into new harmonic territory so that by the time you get to the last statement of your first subject it's a transformed version in, say, E major!

Edited March 11, 20224 yr by Tom Statler

This is a very good job, I think ! It's an interesting piece and I love the theme(s). As Tom Statler said, I think you could have added more modulations, E major for example. I heard and I saw on your score that you modulated in the "homonyme" C major : I think it's a very good idea which corresponds to the mood and the aesthetic of your piece but that passage is a litte too short for me. Last but not least, even though your piece is very structured, It was a little difficult for me to distinguish clearly the development of the first theme and what I think as a second theme? 

It's just my opinion. In any case, it's a good job. Thank you for sharing ! 

William.