Diptych for Piano Quartet (Submission)

Dear readers,

This is my submission for the Halloween (Fall 2025) competition. I realize it’s quite a last-minute entry, but after discovering the event a few days ago, I decided to give it a try for fun. I’m genuinely excited that we can all share and experience each other’s music. It’s wonderful to meet you all and hear your work.

About this submission: Diptych for piano quartet - I haven’t settled on a title yet, so it will remain Diptych for now - a two-part musical piece, hinged yet paired to form a unified whole. It leans toward the contemporary classical genre, shaped by elements of both expressionism and impressionism. If I had more time (and I hope there will be more competitions like this), I might have written something more whimsical or festival-inspired for the occasion. Still, to me, contemporary harmonies and expressions possess their own kind of "terrifying" beauty that is celebrated on Halloween. My inspirations for this piece include artworks such as Francis Bacon’s Painting 1946 and Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son.

Kind regards,
Cosmia

Entry: Diptych for Piano Quartet (Submission)

Average Score:9.3 very good

Review:

Execution of Given Challenge: 10 

The entry is written for piano quartet and with in the time frame 3-7.  Therefore, this piece would not be DQ, if this was official competition.  

Taste:  10 

This piece set up to plate and swung and hit. Although the bases were loaded, it scored.  It certainty created established the Halloween mood we all experience around this time. Something is always lurking. It is there. Slowly lurking in the background. 

Score presentation: 7

When it comes 8va marking, you might use loco markings afterwards.  Just a thought.   The harmonics and knockings notation is clearly marked (more knocking later).  Each string technique is also visible for the player.  I imagine this was a live performance.   However, most scores usually have rehearsal markings. Or have every bar measure. That way, during rehearsals it is easier for them.  "let start at measure x or rehersal.." 

Instrumentation (ect): 10 

There were advance strings techniques that young musicians would not know, but if this was given to a group who knew those, they would be able to play them.  Thus, it just depends on who you are writing for.  The instrumentation and orchestration of the piece was executed well. The strings balanced well with the piano and with each other. No one overpowered each. 

Haromy and textures:  10

The knocking at the end definitely was nice surprise. It definitely caught me by surprise.  The natural harmonics in the violin add coloristic effect at the second movement. The clusters was nice, too. 

Form: 8

It is hard to  describe what the form in this entry.  It does not fit any traditional forms.   The overall structure seems to build on single idea that slows evolves (?). 

Motives: 10

The melodic and motivic material is  well designed

Overall this piece is creative and orginal 10 

Entry:  Submission by @Cosmia

Average Score:  9.38

Review:

Another wonderful performance/recording submitted to our competition!  And another entry steeped in extended techniques - ones that are especially well utilized towards evoking the unnerving and spine-chilling sounds of perhaps a cellar, basement, attic or just a haunted mansion.  The use of knocking on the body of the instrument is a really nice touch, as well as the arpeggiated natural harmonics and sul ponticello.  Also, in this case, even though this piece was not written for this specific competition, it fits the Halloween theme so well that I feel inclined to look past that.  And like you said in your description, this piece does in fact induce a quiet kind of terror in the listener - the kinds of things that in a horror movie would prepare for a jump-scare really well.  My favorite parts are probably m. 28 - 29.  The creepy descending figure in the Violin at m. 41 is also really great.  Great job and thanks for participating!

As in your title - „Diptych“ - and your explanation, that you’ve being inspired by paintings of Bacon and Goya, the piece is creating impressions – not necessarily as martially and threatening as the two respective ones – but really fitting the mood of Halloween. For this purpose, the atonality and the lack of a distinct traditional musical form is intentional and well chosen.

The articulation and even the advanced string techniques are clearly presented and annotated in the score, convincing that it is not only „experimental music“, but really playable.

I very enjoyed this probably last - but not least - piece of the contest. Thank you for sharing.

Average Score: 8.063

Hi Cosmia. Bear with me a bit, I promise to be short. 

I have been listening to dissonance after dissonance in the textural, rhythmic, harmonic, melodic, metaphysical and who knows what else tonight. And now I have reached your piece. In all honesty, when I looked at your score first, I knew, or I supposed at least that this was gonna be hard to swallow. 

But no, you let me breathe. Despite this piece being built on tension, I found calm on it, even peace. Your atmosphere does not choke me, it doesn't overwhelm me with "pandirectionalism", effects because yes, and breaking of every rule because it's breakable. In my humble and honest opinion you very well managed to create a piece that demonstrates that:
• You know your craft when it comes to manage elements that are purposefully clashing with each other.
• You seem to know when to stop and when to go again, in other words: you don't hesitate to leave the music suspended, you don't abuse of textural overlap but use it wisely. 
• Dissonant spaces are very interesting to listen to when they are finely crafted. 
• There's no need to convince me of what you try to convey when the music, in this case your music, is pretty much able to speak for itself.

I would agree with Peter, there's little to no "melody". I don't think that's the approach anyway, and I'm not rating that. Your approach, whatever it was, created an atmosphere that I can not only withstand but enjoy. I am thankful. 

Regarding the score, it has some room for improvement I guess but it's more a matter of tastes than anything else; things like  
• Alignment between pizz. and arco because why not. 
• Tempo equivalences in a frame or bigger/better alligned with the barline.
• Instruments should be indicated at the beginning of the piece most likely.


Stuff like that, very minor for most. Overall the score is readable, you can read it along the music, and the interpretation is really neat. 
The score states that's not gonna follow any tonality from the very beginning (no key signature).

You have made in summary a very convincing piece with a really uncanny atmosphere. Congratulations, and good luck. 

Best regards,
Daniel–Ø.


 

Hi @Cosmia!

Welcome to the forum and thx for joining the competition!

5 minutes ago, Omicronrg9 said:

But no, you let me breathe. Despite this piece being built on tension, I found calm on it, even peace.

I am the same, especially at the ending of it. It just dies away.

7 minutes ago, Omicronrg9 said:

I would agree with Peter, there's little to no "melody". I don't think that's the approach anyway, and I'm not rating that. Your approach, whatever it was, created an atmosphere that I can not only withstand but enjoy. I am thankful

I agree with @Omicronrg9 and @PeterthePapercomPoser. This one plays more on timbre and mood so it doesn't necessary use melodies or motives to push the music forward. The use of quintal and quartal harmonies are very apparent in this case. I would say this piece, even though it captures the horror side of Halloween, is less fitting to the competition, since it's a bit contemplative and serious to the festival in my opinion. The writing is however first rate, with great use of extended techniques like glissandos, harmonics, knock on instrument etc with great effect. Thx very much for submitting this high quality work to the competition! I really like them!

Henry

Thank you all so much for these wonderful comments and suggestions, I'm really appreciative of them! Absolutely agreed on the sheet music suggestions, I created it in a bit of a hurry but its generally nice to know what else can be done on top of it.

8 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

• Alignment between pizz. and arco because why not. 

With this I only didn't because of category difference between them, still I understand it would look much better if aligned.
About form, it's definitely music with free form, maybe there could be a ternary song form (ABA usually) drawn from it because I do have some material that comes back later or is developed from. But generally I don't do very well with musical forms when composing especially that of classical era (sonatas, rondos etc.) 
 

Wow, it seems like this competition really attracted top tier talent. I didn't realize such beauty could come from such a dissonant language! The performers were incredible too, any shout outs to them? You absolutely captured the spirit of our competition, even though written for another purpose. As others have said, I felt calm in a sea of unpredictability and horror, sort of like watching the world burn through a lens. 

Thanks for participating in our fun event, your music is wonderful!

@Thatguy v2.0Thank you so much, really nice of you to say! This was my first submission ever, I have not participated in any competitions before, which is why I love the fact it's informal and open to such wonderful community of individuals, so I wanted to try it out to get more encouragement for applying haha.
When it comes to recording - the piano part is played by one of my collegues and my favorite composer of this age: Veljko Nenadić, If you like exploring contemporary music I highly recommend ( https://www.youtube.com/c/VeljkoNenadić ). The strings were added afterwards and they are midi. ^^

9 minutes ago, Cosmia said:

This was my first submission ever, I have not participated in any competitions before, which is why I love the fact it's informal and open to such wonderful community of individuals, so I wanted to try it out to get more encouragement for applying haha.

Your caliber of writing deserves to be entered with all the others, you're great! Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check out his music

Ah, this piece is right up my alley. I could tell this is perhaps Ravel inspired, and this is a style I really enjoy. Id say that the melody is weak, or just missing, however, you do a great job at still keeping things very interesting, purely with your structure and harmony. Speaking of harmony, amazing and well done! The mood of the piece brings on a sense of high tension and release. Technically, this is hard to play, but given my experience with piano and this type of style, its very doable, especially at this slower tempo. Does it remind me Halloween though? This is definitely more "art style" music, however, it offers chilling sections, with some released tension. After all, in horror situations, no one's being chased for the whole movie, right? There always is a sense of reprieve!

Melody: While there are some instances of motifs, I found this to be more of a mood piece. But you are able to keep it interesting. This is due to your structure, and harmony.

Harmony & Structure: This is where you shine, your harmony is what drives this piece, but the structure is what keeps everything legible and easy to follow.

Originality and Score Presentation: Score is beautiful, nice use of cross staves to keep the music easier to read, and tuplets help group your rhythms.

Playability: Very difficult to perform, but clearly laid out and with a lot of practice, there should be no problems here. The second movement could be trickier because you have more key changes.

Execution of challenge: Eerie atmosphere, tension buildup and release. Great elements to get into the Halloween spirit!

Taste: I absolutely love this style, I started getting into Ravel which influenced some of my later compositions. I feel like you do an excellent job at capturing this style.