Allegretto (Concert)

Here is a piece that i'm currently working at.

Its not finished yet but i think its done in 2 or 3 more days..

Please leave comments,

Allegretto for Orchestra and Percussion

http://www.impressive-music-production.de/Allegretto.mp3

thanks for every comments!

Well, it's very good and well written first off. :P

It sounded like a peice that would be on a soundtrack.

The exciting phrase at around 2:11 changed the feel of the peice very suddenly, in a good way.

The orchestration and harmonizations were brilliant. It sounded like John Williams. It was a very excellent peice. Could you possibly post a score?

10/10!

keep up the good work!

Well if i finished it i will post the scoresheet of it (sibelius).

thanks for your comment eddwin!

I just finished the first part of the piece.

please take a listen, same link... look above...

Very nice work! Seems to be inspired by the Habanera from Bizets "Carmen" and is also reminiscent of Massenets concert music. And the instrumentation fits very good. IMP can indeed be proud of that composer... :)

Its just growing and growing,...

after the faster and louder parts comes quietness in it and the Theme will be variated in new moods.

have a listen,... same link, look above.

Florian

Very nice instrumentation, I like where the percussion comes in for the first time in the very beginning with the trumpet sound. I enjoyed the background mood and feel it had. Nice job.

The Movement is just finished now.

17.40min is the first Movement of my Symphony No. 1 "Brandenburger Fantasie"

Hope you enjoy it, i will post the Scoresheet in mid of january!

FL

Hi Nicola,

there are some point i agree and also some i absolutely disagree.

First is the Whole piece build of 1 Theme and 3 smaller Motivs, the first is on of Bizets Habernera (from Carmen), the second is the Second Theme (i called it so, cause its build of seconds as-g-as-fis-etc...)

There are just 3minutes of repeat (just fro the reprise) in that piece, the rest are variations of the theme and its motives...

Well i just wanted to create a mostly free tonality. but mostly is the piece in D-Minor... Its sad for me that you didn't found the Theme out :( So may ill have to fix it better.

It begins on 2.30 mins with the solo Cello.

In near 7min it comes a "tutti" with the Trumpet as Lead.

But some of your Points i will overwork soon! For that i can say a big Thank You :)

No i just lookinjg forward to study composition in end of 2007, well i am 22 and autodidact yet, learnd everything by myself. No Training, no School... (except the GCs... :D)

Thanks again!

merry xmas,

FL

Hi Nicola,

Well, i will overwork the End just once more to fix it better. The Big work begins with the other movements. In the 2nd Movement (very modern, BUT all in nice harmonies) will the Theme be the Bass of the Theme #2.

Well i think to get it done in End of January and i'll post it!

Hope for some more critics here,

well and a happy new year guys!

Wow. Im impressed! This is a true work of art. It really does sound like a soundtrack. You should submit it to a movie company. Is this on GPO Finale 2007? Im having a problem with mine remaining in GPO it wants to go to SoftSynth unexpectadly. Anyways, keep up the good work. I wish I had a score to look at.

Musically,

T.J. Menzel

T.J, I can answer for him, this is actually done mostly with EWQL Symphonic Orchestra - it's a much higher end sound library than GPO. ;)

Thanks Marius.

Absolutely, EWQL is Awesome. But there are some fact wich i don't like at all.

In fact are Problem with the Bass using the Full orchestra, i swallows under the rest of the instruments so you may not notice it very good.

TJ, i'll thank you.

Keep up the posting guys, and happy 2007 again!

Score will coming soon. I just need my new PC and then i'll write it down.

FL

Wow, I really enjoyed this. I'm not really experienced with music theory and orchestration, so I can't really come up with many criticisms to give you. But on a listeners point of view, it sounded pretty good. I love your use of percussion, being a percussionist myself I'm glad to hear someone that uses it very effectively. I agree with N.S. Canzano on that I couldn't identify the theme very well, although in some ways that made me want to listen more.

All in all, I really enjoyed this piece.... keep composing.

First off, I will say that I love your use of the percussion in general, and in the D minor sections your use of orchestral textures in general is really well-executed. The openness of the fifths and the octave doublings of your melodies give the piece a sort of ancient, expansive quality that I really enjoyed.

If I were to analyze the form of this piece, I would say that it breaks down into basically two main sectional concepts: (1) d minor/modal with traditional melodies and accompaniment and (2) sections that make more free uThe piece makes progress via an oscillation between these two concepts, and there are some moments near the end of the piece that make a combined use of both concepts.

Now the d minor sections, as I said, are rather traditional, and almost, I think, too traditional; you seem very afraid to leave the D-A "drone" (to steal Nico's term) and content yourself with melodies that work well with the unchanging harmony. The problem is that the section with the drone is just entirely too long. It doesn't develop enough to justify the static, unchanging harmonies; furthermore, when in these sections you do sneak off into new harmonic territory, it is just that: sneaking; perhaps a C major chord here or a B major (mediant relationship) chord there, but they never last too long, sound uncertain of themselves, and fold right back into the familiar D-A drone before they've really had a chance to say anything or go anywhere. This leads me to assert that your fundamental weakness, as I see it manifesting itself in this piece, is your understanding of tonal harmony. Have you studied harmony formally? Do you know what makes a good chord progression? Are you fluent in secondary dominants and temporary tonicizations? Your d minor sections sound like they are making attempts at these and many other tonal devices, but you don't seem well-enough versed in them to make full and confident use of them.

The other sections (#2 above) are much more freely composed, and while I hear tonal implications in these sections, they are nothing more than that -- momentary implied harmonies obscured by the complexity (perhaps the better word is 'complicatedness') of the various moving lines. In and of themselves, these sections are not bad; however, they simply do not mesh with the tonal, expansive D minor sections you composed elsewhere. Certainly your melodic material is reasonably similar throughout, but there is just too much of a difference of texture, of harmony, and of phrase structure, and the effect is that it sounds like these two sectional concepts come from two completely different pieces.

This vast difference, coupled with the fact that the overall form of the piece is a switching back and forth between the two, makes for a piece that, while pleasant to listen to and well-constructed on the micro-level, is not convincing on the large scale (macro-level). While the d minor sections do develop in some ways, overall the piece seems to wander because of the way you have constructed the large-scale form.

For this reason, I believe that the piece is entirely too long for what it is doing. I think you could make it, say, 70% of the length that it is now by (1) cutting out some of the d minor sections that don't go anywhere and (2) by asking yourself what purpose(s) the freer sections are serving, and if you did this, you would have a piece that is not only a lot more coherent, but a more concise (and therefore more powerful) musical statement.

Let me know if these comments have done you any good. Please ask me to clarify anything that doesn't make sense.

-Michael