Orchestral Prelude

Hi all.

This is a little orchestral piece I wrote some months ago, now it has been improved (or I think so). 

After Ligeti, it develops some techniques such as mass sonority and micropolyphony.

Hey @Luis Hernández,

I really find this prelude very interesting with all those extended techniques like glissandos of horn and harp, and the bassoon is very percussive here.

13 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

After Ligeti, it develops some techniques such as mass sonority and micropolyphony.

I am not immersed in Ligeti's music at all. What is mass sonority and micropolyphony? Can you help explain that? I always enjoy your didactic output here Luis! Sorry I don't check your blog often even though I know there's English version on it!

Henry

5 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hey @Luis Hernández,

I really find this prelude very interesting with all those extended techniques like glissandos of horn and harp, and the bassoon is very percussive here.

I am not immersed in Ligeti's music at all. What is mass sonority and micropolyphony? Can you help explain that? I always enjoy your didactic output here Luis! Sorry I don't check your blog often even though I know there's English version on it!

Henry

 

Mass sonority is a technique in which the same melodic line or structure is played by several instruments at the same time, but the exact contour of each is different. It's sort of like a big heterophony, and that's how this short piece starts.
Micropolyphony is based on a great density of themes, melodies, harmonies, etc. Sometimes it is achieved by minimal changes in a structure, other times by superimpositions of the same structure as a massive canon, etc...

Hey! I really liked your piece!

I find it quite interesant as it uses a lot of different techniques!

On 6/1/2023 at 7:58 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

and the bassoon is very percussive here.

It reminded me of Stravinsky and Falla's works, they both 'transform' harmony into rythm [Second theme in 'Danza ritual del fuego', for example]. However, i think that keeping that rythm for a complete section would have given the piece much more dynamism, also, making the whole string section doing that is also very useful.

Is it unfinished? If so, i feel it like it is a very good introduction, however, using that much different material in the beggining is a bit overwhelming (unless it is the effect you want haha)

And I miss a forte/tutti passage, if it is already finished i recommend you to write a tutti.

I hope I helped you!

I really like this! Indeed, we are close to a certain Stravinsky, but also some reliefs of Dutilleux. The string samples lack a little realism for my taste.

A fascinating work, easy and pleasant to listen to. Perhaps a little short but then...it's a Prelude so fine about that.

The scoring is most interesting, gradually bringing the instrumental groups together. The rhythmic interplay is engaging, notably in the brass at the opening. Also engaging was the way it faded down to almost nothing at the end.

An accomplished piece, Great.

On 6/3/2023 at 8:11 PM, Samuel_vangogh said:

Hey! I really liked your piece!

I find it quite interesant as it uses a lot of different techniques!

It reminded me of Stravinsky and Falla's works, they both 'transform' harmony into rythm [Second theme in 'Danza ritual del fuego', for example]. However, i think that keeping that rythm for a complete section would have given the piece much more dynamism, also, making the whole string section doing that is also very useful.

Is it unfinished? If so, i feel it like it is a very good introduction, however, using that much different material in the beggining is a bit overwhelming (unless it is the effect you want haha)

And I miss a forte/tutti passage, if it is already finished i recommend you to write a tutti.

I hope I helped you!

 

 

Thanks! I usually don't go over the pieces I write. I don't mind if they are short. Your insights are good, but I prefer to write a new work from scratch with those ideas...

I thought the brass choir parts to be particularly chaotic and I'm trying hard to grasp what they're meant to convey to the listener.  My favorite parts were the flute choir parts - I thought they presented an interesting melodic contour harmonized in a really biting and spicy way.  About the trombone glissandi at the end of the piece - wouldn't you have preferred to have those performed as smooth portamento glissandi since trombones have their slide?  The way your rendition is performing it is literally impossible for trombones to play that way.  An interesting piece!  Thanks for sharing.

I enjoyed the complexities of your rhythmic forms in this piece (septuplets).

Also the glissandi are very effective.

In some ways it reminds me of Bartok, perhaps due to the glissandi. 

18 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

I enjoyed the complexities of your rhythmic forms in this piece (septuplets).

Also the glissandi are very effective.

In some ways it reminds me of Bartok, perhaps due to the glissandi. 

 

Thank you for listening.
Indeed, I listen to and learn a lot from Bartók and there is also some microtonalism here.
These small pieces are rehearsals that I do.
My greatest interest is in contemporary languages, however, at times (like now) I find myself immersed in studying and doing purely baroque and counterpoint things. And the origin of everything is there, even before, in the cantus firmus.

Do you intend to develop this work further?

Mark

14 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

Do you intend to develop this work further?

Mark

 

No.

The truth is that whenever I try to develop something I've done it doesn't sound coherent, more like a "pastiche" because I try to put in new things.

I prefer, whenever I can, to make a plan of what I'm going to write, be it short or long.  And that's how it stays.

Really quite fun, @Luis Hernández!

I'm not a huge admirer of Ligeti (I've only listened to his Requiem, Atmospheres, and Musica Ricercata), but I have been aware of his experiments with microtonality and micropolyphony for some time now. It's great to actually see it in action!

The brevity of your piece reminds me of Webern's short pieces for orchestra: not exactly tonal, and yet chock-full of fun musical ideas.

Quick question at the end: what exactly did Ligeti pioneer through these techniques? I thought his musical breakthroughs (microtonalism, that 'mass sonority' thing you mentioned, and so on) had been experimented on by the avant-garde decades before him. Just curious!

3 hours ago, Awsumerguy said:

 

Quick question at the end: what exactly did Ligeti pioneer through these techniques? I thought his musical breakthroughs (microtonalism, that 'mass sonority' thing you mentioned, and so on) had been experimented on by the avant-garde decades before him. Just curious!

 

It is true that some of the systems developed in the 20th century overlap with each other.
Others, however, were totally new.

Ligeti developed this technique and I think that what had not been done is to treat polyphonic lines not only understanding melodies, but also timbres and rhythms. And on the other hand, the fact that those elements are changing gradually blurring until you perceive that other combinations of intervals or elements have appeared.

Perhaps what most resembles micropolyphony, and which had already been in use for decades, are the clusters. The difference is that in these the elements are static (vertical) and in micropolyphony they are horizontal.

Ligeti himself mentioned a kind of precursor of all this in the fire theme of Wagner's Valkyrie. . . . .

[...] the figures in the violin parts are so difficult to play in the requested tempo and exactly as they are
requested tempo and exactly as they are written that, inevitably performers make slight mistakes, most
performers do make slight mistakes, most often slight rhythmical
inaccuracies. That creates little temporal fluctuations (unsynchronizations) between performers. Those deviations are aperiodic and with an usual fourteen First and fourteen Second violin
players each making different "slight" mistakes, a scintillating effect results.
However, Ligeti did not want them to be random effects, but fully defined and written.


Micropolyphony is similarly a mass of a musical texture made of a high number of individual parts
number of individual parts which can not be distinguished as such.
The most important aspect of the Micropolyphony procedure of Ligeti is that it is actually
that it is actually composed in all its aspects, not a random process at all.
In this sense it differs considerably from similar procedures used by some composers
composers notably by Iannis Xenakis.