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.

Thank so much for your input @Luis Hernández.

I wanted to step out my comfort range (solo piano writing and string writing) and writing for three different instruments. Boy, this was sheer challenge. I understand what you mean. I think you implying there is unbalance of timbres between piccolo, viola, and the harp. :(

i enjoyed it, just like what the other guy had said I do believe in these points as well with the large gap with the Viola and piccolo, and also I believe that you could still written this in alto clef as it’s easier to read as a Viola player

I will see how it is scored. Then, i will go back revise it

Hi @Kvothe !

I agree with the alto clef suggestion by @Fruit hunter and the register issue by @Luis Hernández . To me it sounds like Chinese music featuring mostly pentatonic melodies. I think you can feature more solo moments by each of the three instrumentalists in their unique color: The high unique register of piccolo and the C string area of viola are never explored in this piece, while the harp is almost monotonously playing broken chords except the glissando near the end. To me chamber music should have the players fully enjoying their own parts with some challenging passages, while playing together there should be 1+1>2 effect, rather than weaking all players' uniqueness. Thx for sharing.

Henry

Sadly, I have strong feeling that piece might land well with competition. :(

Hello

It’s fine to experiment and explore different sounds.

But these extreme approaches need to be handled with care.

The piccolo is not, by its very nature, a solo instrument, but rather an extension of the flutes.

Of course, there are passages where it can take a solo moment, and so on, with the necessary support. Even complete works.

And there are reasons for this. And that is what I’d like to discuss, in the hope that it will spark debate and help us learn in general.

If we turn to Rimsky-Korsakov’s classic treatise on orchestration:

“Instruments operating above the high octave (i.e. notes higher than C6 or the C on the sixth additional line in the treble clef, such as the piccolo or the extreme register of the flute and the violins) have an extremely brilliant and penetrating sound, but lack body, ‘thickness’ and harmonic weight.”

(Note that the piccolo sounds an octave higher than it is written.)

There is, therefore, a ‘rule’ regarding lower doubling. Specifically for the piccolo or flutes playing above C6, the melody must be doubled an octave lower, assigned to the oboes, clarinets or violins.

More recent authors (Adler and Piston) justify this as follows:

-Loss of Fundamental: From C6 upwards, the human ear perceives the shrillness and upper harmonics very strongly, but the fundamental frequency loses its acoustic ‘weight’. The lower doubling ‘anchors’ the melody to the orchestra’s mid-range frequencies, giving it body.

-The ‘Floating’ Effect: If the lower doubling is not performed, the melody becomes detached from the rest of the orchestral texture, sounding disconnected, thin and ‘floating’ above it without blending in.

-Aural Fatigue: As noted in contemporary orchestral literature, maintaining pure melodic lines above C6 without a cushion or lower doubling causes fatigue in the listener due to a lack of frequency balance.