Summer – A Song of Beauty and Melancholy – Submission to the YCF 2026 Summer Competition

Dear fellow composers, I’m pleased to present you today my submission to the YCF 2026 Summer Competition!

I must admit, that the task of the competition was really challenging, starting from „Nothing“ and than get the right ideas for „Something“ that is reminiscent to the mood of the summer day as expressed by Paul Verlaine’s poem.

The challenge.

When a composer has trouble coming up with a brilliant idea for a new piece, it sometimes takes several attempts, each of which yields different individual ideas.

And there are some pieces that consist of several ideas that have been “glued” together, ultimately resulting in something like a “collage song.” I’m thinking, for example, of “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles or “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings.

However, there also exists such a kind of piece in Bach’s Welltempered Clavier, the Prelude VII in E-flat major, BWV 852. That particular prelude starts with a short section with runs of 32th notes, followed by a „more serious“ part in slow motion, that reminds me at a „chorale“. The third and longest part is a fugato with two subjects that further develops the ideas from the first two sections.

So with this particular Bach prelude in mind, I had thus found the model for my own prelude, which serves as the „sketch“ for the quintet finally presented here as my submission. I always start to compose the pieces for piano in order to – on the one hand, have another piece for my preludes and fugues project, and on the other hand, because I find it to hard to mix the two phases of „composing“ and „orchestrating“ together.

So I have posted the piano version as a standalone piece "Prelude XXI in B flat major" on the „Piano Music, Solo Keyboard“ thread.

The poem.

When I came around to the second part, the “Chorale” section, I faced the challenge of treating the upper voice of this four-part harmony as the melody for a musical setting of the poem.

Since I don’t speak a word of French and have no idea how the syllables are rhythmicized, I looked at Gabriel Fauré’s setting of the poem in his Op. 61, No. 7 to find out which words are pronounced or sung briefly and which are longer. As an interesting fact, I discovered that Fauré had actually chosen the same key, B-flat major, that I had chosen before.

The instrumentation.

Now that the decision had been made to set the poem to music, I wondered how I could orchestrate it so that it would sound like a French “chanson.” My first thought was to choose the accordion as the main accompanying instrument. And since I wasn’t sure, I Googled: “What are the typical accompanying instruments for a French chanson?”—and sure enough, “accordion,” “guitar,” and “piano” came up.

In addition to these, and to take advantage of the possibility of a quintet, I use a trumpet and a cello. Both of these instruments are capable of contributing different timbres (the cello either played with a bow or pizzicato, and the trumpet either muted or unmuted), and during the poem stanzas, I always use the muted trumpet as a substitute for the human voice.

The title.

Another challenge. A title in French would be appropriate, but I do not really trust translation programs in such delicate situations, since I don’t understand the nuances of the possible result. Thus, I’ve chosen the simple title „Summer – A Song of Beauty and Melancholy“. The latter since the piece features more passages in minor than in major and, therefore, does not only express the joy and beauty of the summer day, but is somewhat melancholic, too.

Form and structure:

00:00 (mm. 1-14)

The first section is an „improvisation“ which introduces the warm key of B-flat major.

00:34 (mm. 15-29)

The second Adagio section could be a „chorale“ and is used to set the first stanza of the poem to music.

01:31 (mm. 30-90)

The third and longest section is a fugato based on two subjects, interspersed by further stanzas of the poem (second stanza 02:18 at mm. 48-63 and third stanza 03:37 at mm. 75-90).

The first subject quotes the first four-note motif of the „improvisation“ section and develops it further, paired with the second subject, thus creating a joyful and dance-like mood.

04:22 (mm. 91-114)

The piece finishes with a coda – or better to say – with a recapitulation of the „improvisation“ from the first section. Now in a more melancholic way, meandering between minor and major.

I hope, you’ll enjoy it. Wieland

Finally, as a kind of „non-AI proof“ I also attached my „working score“ from which the MIDI is generated. It is nearly unreadable and of cause not intended for playing but shows in detail all dynamics, articulations, agogics etc. I applied to achieve the final recording.

Praeludium-XXI-B-flat-major-accordion-with-coversheet.pdf WORKING-SCORE-P21.pdf

awesome. I’ll do this in two parts my initial thoughts and then I’ll revisit the score and I’ll try to find things to pick out and to justify some rankings which could be positive as well so don’t get scared.

Anyways, I kinda like the idea of this kind of acting like a sandwich with the bread, acting like this nocturne sort of like hymn sort of statement. and then a more wild, more tonically free section. I definitely appreciate the dissonance news here and the initial thought that I couldn’t even swap away was the frustration that you may have gone through, which may have caused this intentional dissonant harmony as a composer myself I also have gone through this sort of phenomenon so treated kind of as “key smashing”. I also appreciate the orchestration as well with the blending within the trumpet with its muted parts with the accordion, and also the blending within the guitar and cello making the sound simultaneously the same instrument. The one lick pic about the orchestration though is that I could barely really hear the cello on its own and pick it apart however, though this should be treated as a good thing, so you have your own justification for that.

I also liked how you did some of the program notes and your ideas with putting “lyrics” to the trumpet part and also achieving that singing voice quality with the instrument that’s not the voice the accordion was especially a nice touch as it’s going to buff your originality score in your orchestration score by tons anyways the only concern is the bow changes which should be achievable due to the low tempo, but just making sure that people will most likely start to miss notes and parts getting cut out around pages 6 to 10 in the cello part.

The supplemental techniques and fingerings provided are appreciated. I always enjoy that pedagogical style that you provide.

score -

average: 9.49

magnificent job here definitely going to be a memorable piece of this competition the only thing I would say though about why your orchestration score got a little bit off was just because of the bow changes, however, though they could possibly be possible. anyways, amazing job.

this production receives the “ fruit hunter award of excellence” !!!

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Fruit hunter

Entry: A Song of Beauty and Melancholy

Average Score:7.5

When I looked at the score at the distance, the first thing I noticed was that Piano and According parts are not separated but connected. It appears as if it one instrument and not two separate instruments. You have to disconnect the bars between piano and the according. Another issue I noticed is that is weird beaming patterns and stems positions. For instance, in the pick-up you have steams downwards, that is not correct. When they are connected like that, it should be up, since the majority of the notes are above the middle line. It looks just nicer that way. Another thing I noticed is you break beams a lot. This makes harder to read! You do this a lot in measures where the meter is 2/4. The only time beams are not connected is in vocal music. I see no vocal part. You have a lot of unnecessary dynamic markings. Hairpins are wonderful things. I would not use mezzo dymanics as much. Possibly changing from F to P is more effective vs F to MF. Also save those tripple markings for special moments.

However, this is highly creative. You have written wonderful textures using different instruments and timbres. I see no problem there. It was just overall engraving.

Total: 60/80