Summer's Day: YC Summer competition

Hello everyone,

I humble present to you my entry for the YC summer competition. The competition was centered around this poem: Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d'été | Song Texts,… | Oxford Song.

To me, when I read this song, I imagine a harp, piccolo, and harp playing together. The images that came to my mind were flowing classical melodic themes mixed in pentatonic moments. I try to capture the mood and aura of the piece the best I can. I hope you enjoy it.

Summer's day pdf.pdf

Hello

I’m going to give my opinion on a few points, but without awarding a score.

Firstly, the choice of the piccolo is a bit odd. Much of the part written for it could be played on a conventional flute. At certain points, however, this isn’t possible.

One advantage of the piccolo is that, in the higher registers, it can be played less loudly than the flute. Although the dynamic markings are a bit sparse.

One thing I don’t like is that the flute and viola play in octaves… two or three octaves apart. This creates a rather large and constant gap in between. Although at times it is ‘filled in’ with a note from the harp.

The viola is also a bit odd because much of its part is in treble clef, which seems more appropriate for a violin.

Writing for the harp isn’t easy either. Once the issue of whether pedal changes are feasible has been resolved (something I haven’t analysed), the problem is that it doesn’t seem very idiomatic for the left hand to be arpeggiating all the time. It’s an ostinato that already creates monotony. The range of the chords in each hand at that speed strikes me as far too wide; I’d limit it to an octave (for example, bar 23). I also find what happens in section B a bit complicated, where one whole hand is occupied and the other is too, doing different things.

As for whether it captures the spirit of the piece, I won’t comment on that because it seems so subjective to me that I can’t really judge…

I believe that a chamber piece of this style requires careful attention to dynamics, accents and balance.

Best regards.