Festival Sinfonia in D

While I wait to complete more of my opera to post I just thought I'd post something in the mean time.

This is a Festival Sinfonia I composed for a youth ensemble I was conducting some years ago. I had put together a Festival workshop with masterclasses, faculty performances and a student orchestra concert. It was a whole lot of fun.

Although, my personal composition style is tonal the style of this Sinfonia is not exactly my style. I thouhgt I would write something that closely resembled the Classical/Baroque style with a little touch of myself. My purpose for doing so was for a personal experimentation with certain ideas. For one, The first movement resembles the Sonata-Allegro form but had included some harmonic and melodic references to the African-American Spiritual. The second movement is a minuet that comes across as traditional but uses a harmonic philosophy that is closer to Schubert with some counterpoint. The final movement is a fugue. I always believed that Baroque music had so much in common with gospel music for many reasons that I will go into at another time. The fugue theme sounds pretty straight forward but there are "gospel moments" disguised within. There are other moments in the fugue where harmonically and melodically "gospel moments" are hidden. I wasn't trying to make an outright mix of the two styles as I have done in other pieces. As I said, I was experimenting on various things for my own compositional purpose.

Hope you all enjoy!

Is it just me or do the organ parts frequently deliberately clash horribly with everything else?

I movt

The main thing I noticed is your transition at 2:00 came just in time to save the listener, good timing.

From your description, I think you accomplished your intent of a baroque/classical mix. I couldn't tell about the organ clashing, but i think you could use some more relief, more without organ (and in the third movt especially, but it might sound better with a real organ, it's presence was very unwelcome in the third movt), it was overall too constant for my taste in the first. But keep in mind my taste is not friends at all with the classical period, and although I like Baroque better (especially Bach), it's not my thing either. So I'm saying what I liked instead of suggesting very much.

II movt.

1:15-1:35 is my favorite. At 1:27 I was afraid it was going to belt out the tonic over and over from that point on, then the chord at 1:32 was amazing.

III movt.

Other than the organ comment, I would say congratulations on writing a fugue. It wasn't very adventurous, and yet it kept the overall mood of the whole work. Maybe that's what you wanted. There might be a way you could look into orchestrating it differently so the different voices/entrances etc. are more easily heard. If you hadn't said it, I'm not sure I would have picked up on it being a fugue. Maybe you want that, but as cool as fugues CAN be and as difficult as they are to write, I think you should make the voices more distinct, which would also add a nice contrast to the sinf. as a whole.

This does sound like fun. Good work.

Is it just me or do the organ parts frequently deliberately clash horribly with everything else?

I think it might be Finale rendering issue. Maybe too much reverb as well.

I movt

The main thing I noticed is your transition at 2:00 came just in time to save the listener, good timing.

From your description, I think you accomplished your intent of a baroque/classical mix. I couldn't tell about the organ clashing, but i think you could use some more relief, more without organ (and in the third movt especially, but it might sound better with a real organ, it's presence was very unwelcome in the third movt), it was overall too constant for my taste in the first. But keep in mind my taste is not friends at all with the classical period, and although I like Baroque better (especially Bach), it's not my thing either. So I'm saying what I liked instead of suggesting very much.

II movt.

1:15-1:35 is my favorite. At 1:27 I was afraid it was going to belt out the tonic over and over from that point on, then the chord at 1:32 was amazing.

III movt.

Other than the organ comment, I would say congratulations on writing a fugue. It wasn't very adventurous, and yet it kept the overall mood of the whole work. Maybe that's what you wanted. There might be a way you could look into orchestrating it differently so the different voices/entrances etc. are more easily heard. If you hadn't said it, I'm not sure I would have picked up on it being a fugue. Maybe you want that, but as cool as fugues CAN be and as difficult as they are to write, I think you should make the voices more distinct, which would also add a nice contrast to the sinf. as a whole.

This does sound like fun. Good work.

Thanks for the comments. Keep in mind this peice was for a youth ensemble. In fact the ensemble was a very mixed level of performers. I used what many of the students were working on in their lessons and incorporated it into the Sinfonia. That may be why the piece may seem lacking as well.

So, that is the main reason the fugue is not all that adventurous. But as I stated the purpose of the fugue was also to mask and experimentation with techniques that belong to gospel music.

The entrances were very recognizable in the performance. The entrance issue in the fugue was probably due to balance issues with the mixer. I personally don't find it difficult to write adventurous or exspansive fugues.

The purpose of the Baroque/classical mix was to experiment with adding a slight reference to the African-American spiritual. Sorry you didn't appreciate the presence of the organ.

Anyway, thanks for listening and I'm glad you found some kind of enjoyment out of it. :laugh: