Landscapes-Soundscape: Alishan (for Flute Quintet)

Dear all,

This is a short piece inspired by my trip last year with my girlfriend on a winter trip to Alishan at Taiwan, and we were visiting it in the afternoon.

The photo is taken at the entrance of the Alishan visitor's zone.

It is a place of high mountains with tall, spiritual trees, among which we travel with light railways and walked through the bridges. Being from a city with concretes, this jungle is particularly peaceful and you can always find the beauty of nature there.

I have always been eager to write a piece as a diary of my visits, and it is a completely good time (the competition) for me to write one. Hope you all like it!

HoYin

Alishan for Flute Quintet.pdf

Edited June 3Jun 3 by HoYin Cheung
Changed from Soundcloud to Youtube due to technical issue

Entry: Alishan

Average Score: 9.6

Review:

Score Presentation: There were no engraving errors with the given score.

Instrumentation, Playability: Strings players need time to change between pizz and arco. The double stops in b 58 is not playable! The quadable stop is better mark pizz. The arco 16th notes could be played better as pizz?

Execution: This piece exceeding expectations of challenge.

Taste: I appreciate the composer understanding 20th century harmonic language within this composition. It is refreshing to hear modern classical music like this! I would hear piece like this!

Creativity, Originality: Alishan was highly creative and original.

Harmony and texture: The high sense of chromaticism is what makes this piece truly interesting.

Strcuture: This is a tough one to nail down. I think the best way to describe to it is:ABA (I think).

Motives: There are well crafted motives and themes through out the piece.

9 hours ago, Kvothe said:

Instrumentation, Playability: Strings players need time to change between pizz and arco. The double stops in b 58 is not playable! The quadable stop is better mark pizz. The arco 16th notes could be played better as pizz?

Thank you for your comment, @Kvothe.

In actual practice, a string player will still hold the bow and use the index finger (for violin/viola) to perform pizzicato. That way, they have enough time to switch back to arco. quickly without disrupting the performance, at least from my experience as a violinist.

The quadruple stops are also taken care of when I write this piece and should not bring too much of difficulty playing. Most of them are designed and indicated to be played as broken chords for better playability and for intentionally lighter textures. Moreover, open strings are used to make the chord more resonant for better projection.

The choice of pizz and arco. depends on the texture - Do I want a richer sound to accompany the main melody? I often consider the sound quality before the playability issue. Nevertheless, the 16th notes are projected better in arco.

For the double stops in m.58, they are playable using both A and D strings, with the last note played using the 4th finger to press both strings.

Average Score: 8.9

Review:

Melodies/Themes/Motives - The work is rich in motifs and themes, some of which are readily apparent, whilst others are deeply woven into the fabric of the piece.

Harmony/Chords/Textures - The texture is dense, but the individual parts are clearly defined.

Form/Development/Structure/Time - I sense a progressive structure, but it’s by no means boring. 

Originality/Creativity - It is a standard, effective combination.

Score Presentation - The score is correct and easy to read.

Instrumentation/Orchestration/Playability Reading the comments clears up any doubts about double or multiple stops.

Execution of Given Challenge - I think the author has succeeded in achieving his aim.

Average 7.5

Overall a well written piece. The main issue was the structure felt meandering and didn't have much direction to me. The string chords and arco/pizz changes are completely fine, so I gave you a ten there to counter-balance those who said it wasn't good instrument writing lol. Overall, good job!

Avg: 8.6

Once the flute came in, things started to really pick up. I love your theme, and it was quite easy to spot about a minute in. I had to listen to this a few times to understand the structure, but I realized that this piece has a few motives here. But this is not clear until after a full minute into the piece. The things I love about this piece is your harmony, key changing, the flute, the use of the pentatonic scale.

After reviewing eight of eleven contributions to the contest, there are now three ones remaining which challenge me the most. That are the ones of @InstrumentalistElle , @BipolarComposer and @HoYin Cheung . The reason for this is that they have so much in common, both in terms of their qualities and their style and mood. Since my comments would hardly differ, I have decided to copy and paste passages verbatim, which I will therefore highlight in blue, while my individual thoughts are written in the standard color as usual.

With your submission(s), you have presented compositions that best meet the expectations one might have given the “Landscapes-Soundscapes” challenge: Pieces that depict a landscape as a “still life”, utilizing every conceivable timbre of the instrumentation, blending, etc., to create true “program music”. When listening, one can easily imagine a scenery from the nature: clouds, trees, a quiet lake or sea, a sunset etc. All this has been executed very well.

On the other hand, the piece(s) are sometimes hard to memorize because there is few or even no thematic material in the sense of a recurring melody that is developed throughout the piece, giving it its own unique and memorable character. In fact, to be honest, as I listened to them in a loop —which is exactly what I did during a walk to familiarize myself with all the submissions—I sometimes thought the next section was coming up in the first piece, when indeed the next one had already begun. So I could imagine that this kind of music would work well as “ambient music”, for example, a CD someone might listen to at night if they have trouble falling asleep.

Melodies Themes Motives:

The motivic or thematic material of the piece(s) is used primarily to create a „soundscape“ depicting the certain scenes or images, such as the clouds, trees, mountains etc. Beside that, I would consider the motif presented by the violins in mm. 13 as the central, recurring „tonal“ motif which does not contribute to the „soundscape“ but provides a subtle melodic background.

Harmony Chords Textures:

The harmonic language could be described as „atonal“ due to its rich dissonances. However, with the above mentioned melodic theme, it is also interspersed with passages of „tonality“.

Form Development Structure Time:

The composition is not in a specific traditional form, the different sections or passages could be considered as „episodes“ or different „pictures“ of the entire imagery, which is fine for a piece intended to portrait a certain scenary from the nature.

Originality Creativity:

The creativity and originality clearly arises from the way how the different motifs create „sound snippets“ which finally draw the „soundscape“. Unfortunately, that creativity and originality does not produce enough memorable impressions to ultimately create a sense of „uniqueness“, so the piece is less recognizable than it should be.

Score Presentation:

The score is easy to read with no engraving issues. For aesthetic reasons, I do not like the last page with only 2 bars which could have been avoided by a better distribution of the bars around all pages.

Instrumentation Orchestration Playability:

Possible playability problems concerning the multiple stops have already been discussed.

Execution of Given Challenge:

You have clearly mastered the challenge of the contest with excellence, creating an inner imagery for the listener with your „soundscape“ that depicts the „landscape“ as described by the posted picture. And the term “soundscape” perfectly captures the nature of the piece.

Taste:

It's very nice for relaxing, though I prefer music that focuses more on thematic material and form (perhaps that's why I'm more of a fan of the Baroque or Classical periods than the Romantic one).

Average Score: 8.125

Hi @HoYin Cheung !

It's a nice piece for sure, the quartal/pentatonic harmony in the piece representing the Alishan landscape is well noted. The motives are clearly well organized and noticeable, Many nice use of polyrhythms to depict the vividness of the landscape too. Although I will have to agree with @ComposaBoi on the structure of the piece , as I too find the direction of the piece less compelling and moving forward. I think probably it's the less contrasting timbre and spacing of each passages makes the pieces less contrasting, The whole pieces sound contrapuntal to me which I think in some places you could have the flute act as the sole melodic carrier with a more homophonic texture, and minimize the amount of instruments staying as it's mostly 4 or 5 instruments playing, when you can have some passages having just 2 or 3 instruments, or even solo passages to create contrast in the "less is more" side. Or some passages there can be octave doubling instead of having all 5 instruments playing different lines all the time. Although those above are only my subjective opinion and I still enjoy your piece. Thx for sharing!

Henry

this sounds very outgoing. it does sound like going on a hike on a big mountainous region. i imagined those accented chords in the beginning as one seeing the big trees and gets a little overwhelmed by them.

loooooove the harmonic color in this, very distinct and pretty.

the chaotic contrapuntalness of this reminds me of richard strauss a bit ngl lol

the 16th notes flourish on b.5 and scattered throughout is a bit questionable. i have seen those figures before and heard that its awkward to play.

the inclusion of flute amongst the string quartet is unique, but i do think is buried against the quartet sometimes with those low register notes clashing against the loud dynamic strings. moreover, as @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu have said, i do think it couldve had the spotlights in more sections.

with contrasts, i do notice them! they're not very stark but appropriate for a ~5 mins piece.

score is

Melodies Themes Motives 8

Harmony Chords Textures 10

Form Development Structure Time 8

Originality Creativity 10

Score Presentation 9

Instrumentation Orchestration Playability 8.5

Execution of Given Challenge 10

Taste 9

Average Score: 9.0625

end note:

when i accidentally point at the top of a mountain but im just describing this piece

Entry:  Alishan (for Flute Quintet) by @HoYin Cheung

Average Score:  9.00

Review:

For me this piece suffers from poor balance and doesn’t create a clear hierarchy of importance in sound.  The piece sort of washed over me after hearing it multiple times without the score.  The score is engraved well but hard to follow (for me) because it wasn’t clear what I was supposed to focus on.  You could have used your dynamics to bring out the important parts more imo.  I expected the flute to be the main soloist/attraction of the piece but it’s in the background most of the time.  After listening a few times these things don’t bother me as much.  Perhaps it was because the focus and most important aspects of the composition are constantly shifting that I found it hard to find the focus on my first couple of listenings.  Another thing is that the moving voices very often overlap each other in register creating confusion for the listener.  If the voices are of a different timbre then they retain their individuality more but if the strings are overlapping with each other rather than with the flute then they lose their distinctiveness imo.  And the quickly moving voices are often buried underneath the other ones when imo they should be given the foreground since they are the motivic backbone of the piece.  The piece is sort of hard to imagine as an accompaniment to your chosen landscape.  It’s a good piece of absolute music - I just find it hard to imagine the programmatic context.  Despite that I still think your piece deserves to win the “Forest Echoes” award that I created specifically for it, so I’m going to vote for it.  Overall though, I still very much enjoyed the music - it’s very intricate and well structured!  Thanks for your participation.

Hi, HoYin. Please see my evaluation of your submission below.

Melodies/Themes/Motives: While there were themes and motives present throughout, the melodic writing was unconvincing and never supported by harmonic structure beneath. This made the piece seem to lack musical direction, instead sounding like a mixture of competing and unrelated themes.

Harmony/Chords/Textures: There was no effective use of cadential structure that I could find, causing the piece to swing randomly from one key to the next. Harmonic motion was varied and there was counterpoint throughout, which helped give the piece some substance. The textures, I felt, were too random, with the strings and flute dropping and changing registers frequently and with abandon.

Form/Development/Structure/Time: Aside from verbatim repeated themes, sometimes in different keys, the piece didn't really have any development. It seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere from start to finish, but nothing seemed to serve a purpose. There was nothing predictable or patterned in the music, it just sort of... happened.

Originality/Creativity: You've been around on this forum long enough for me to recognize your style, and this piece was no different. However, nothing in this submission stood out to me as new or exciting (it sounded a lot like other pieces of yours I've heard).

Score Presentation: Very nicely done, nearly professional quality. I noted some hairpins and crescendos that lacked dynamics, as well as an overabundance of articulations, but those were mostly negligible issues.

Instrumentation/Orchestration/Playability: There are too many stops in the string parts, and while they're likely playable, many of them will require rolling or arpeggiation to execute, which disrupts the flow of the quick tempo. You also have passages that swap very quickly from pizz. to arco, even some in the middle of stops (like m. 143 in the 2nd violin). These may not be impossible to perform, but they increase the difficulty of the piece (and, in my opinion, not justifiably so).

Execution of Given Challenge: This didn't feel like anything in particular to me.

Taste: As far as soundscapes go, this is a compelling piece. I, however, prefer more structure and stronger melodic involvement and development.

Thanks for submitting, and happy composing!

Jordan