Exeliksis for Chamber String Orchestra...

Sorry to bump this, but I'd like to share a rather... unwelcoming review of the piece, to you.

http://www.thefounder.co.uk/pdfs/The%20Founder,%20Issue%2010.pdf (page 21)

Following the Elgar was a premi

Meh, is his music being performed alongside VW's, Elgar's and Debussy's?

Well, this piece is detailed enough. It's obviously finished, so I can't tell you to change anything. The dissonant string melody in the slow section (the two violas playing a semitone apart) is sort of boring though.

Do we still live in the 19th century?

[/prescribing some Schnittke to the reviewer]

the moment in his review where he said he wanted to laugh made my blood boil in anger at his stupidity and lack of understanding. if this "reviewer" was alive 100 years from now he would be jumping up and down and reveling in your superb voice. as for now....he proves my theory that art isnt for most, nearly everyone for that matter. i personally loved your piece, granted im in music theory 1 and my seed hasnt grown yet, so i dont fully understand your work, i just know it works and sounds grand :D:D

Thanks guys. :)

Mark, Mano, cheers for the support. :)

Oboeducky: Did you get a chance to show the score to anyone? Wondering what they thought about it... :)

thatguy. Cheers mate. Glad you enjoyed it!

Everyone: I really wasn't bothered by the review (if I was I would've hiden it instead of posting it ;)), but imho I just feel that it's a completely amateur and rude above all review. He can tear my piece in tiny pieces for all I care. I may agree or dissagree, but comments like the one about my degree in harmony etc, have no place in any review, since he's never met me, don't know what I do etc. The review was about the piece, not about me... (and about the night, btw)

I agree with all those who thought that the reviewer was wrong on the merits of the piece and vulgarly rude in his comments. There is some modern music, say Ferneyhough's, which I can't really enjoy but this piece is one I find emotionally moving and dramatic. I thought the beginning was very strong followed by a calmer middle section and then a dramatic ending. I listened to it again just before writing this and I liked it even more on the relisten.

Thanks :)

I like the aleatoric stuff, very nice. Good to see you putting that ph.d to good use :-p

As it always is with harmony in classical music, some like it spicy, and some like it mild. This work was clearly too spicy for the reviewer. I have to say that I disagree with him, though, in his overall assessment of the piece. Both of you have, in fact, fulfilled your purposes: you have constructed an entertaining piece of music, and he has constructed an entertaining review.

For a composer with a degree in Harmony, I must say it was noticeably missing in this piece

This just in! "Harmony" can only consist of 3rds and 6ths.

Glad that you like it guys. :)

As I said, the reviewer was quite rude, imho but even for me it was an entertaining read. :)

that's one sweet piece, Nikolas!

i could see your influences pretty clearly, obviously including Bartok and Penderecki, maybe even a little Schnittke..... i have to say, my favorite part of the whole piece was probably from the beginning of the cluster buildup until the end. I like how you notated it, too!

Wow that was a lot to take in. In a good way!

I love the beginning, the first like 5 mins. The dissonance was great and really pleased me. Starting at H, it got a little rough for my taste, however, i respect it and commend you for the daring choices. It was artfully done and all those choices of the dissonance must have been hard. Overall i really did like the piece, a nice work to add to 21th century music. It kind of reminded me of John Adams in way.

Anyway, well done!

Nikolas

I went back and read what I had said about this the first time and I still say the same.

But when it comes to reviews and reviewers, I offer this curse:

May the fleas of a thousand camels inflict their jockstrap.

My favorite review of one of my works was

The more I listened to it, the less I hated it. (paraphrased)

I know by you posting the review, that you feel the same.

Some people just don't know good music when it is right in front of them.

Well done Nikolas!!!

Ron

Disclaimer: these comments are coming from a person that doesn't listen to much 'avant garde' music.

The opening section was nice and had me in suspense. The theme felt sensuous and mysterious, voluptuous even, bathed by sounds that seemed to mix consonant and disonant intervals in a really pleasing way.

The final section was rough for me though, in a nails on chalkboard kind of way. I had to turn down me headphone volume. The piercing, complex, beating intervals and the high screeching strings were incessant. Maybe your aim was to produce a kind of atringent effect, in which case, you succeeded abundantly.

So, part of me wished it would have 'developed' differently but there were parts that I really liked. I guess some of your later choices just clashed with my rather old-fashioned ears.

Greg, thank you. :) I'm glad to see people prefer different parts of the score every time. Exactly like tenor10, he prefers the first part, you prefer towards the end ;) Everyone to their taste I guess. :) But it feels great for me!

Tenor10: Thank you for listening, mate. Much obliged! :) As I say above, I feel fine that people prefer different parts of the score. For me it does feel like a whole, and I wouldn't know what to place after the first part (the part that you enjoyed), other than what I did. It was in the plan from the very begining.

Ron (rofiler): thanks for posting here. Yes, I know what you mean ;) hehe. About reviews: they're a part of a game, this wasn't a serious review, and certainly doesn't count for much, for me, anyways, but I do like to show it, along with the work. I feel the need to be honest about everything.

yrogerg: This was mostly the effect I was going after in the second part, so, yes, you got that well! I was going for... the thickness of sound, the "growing and growling" a bit I'd say. I didn't expect everyone to like it, but I'm glad that you enjoyed the first half of the piece. :) Thank you for posting and for listening.

Hi Nikolas. That was really really cool. I enjoyed the whole work all the way through, but it was from [P] to the ending that really did it for me. I love the unnerving feel of quarter tone clusters and having the cellos and basses accompanying was an incredible idea.

Great great work.

I just listened to this, twice. Amazing piece. I really like how it explores different degrees of homophony and polyphony, and chromatic density. To me it seemed like a development from a very polyphponic structure to greater, homophonic blocks, which become so dense that they melt together to clusters, finally culminating in something that unites extreme polyphony and extreme homophony: A massive texture made out of individual voices, which through their number melt into one single sound, which then dissolves, gradually reducing the "homophonic" feel again and making the individual voices heard. Like this there's both a rounded form and continuous development.

I love how you subtly introduce an idea and gradually develop it until it emerges in its most pronounced form. Like the idea of the cluster: You can already see its roots in the chromaticism of the first part, then, at H, the two Violas show a first real, but very thin, cluster. Then groups of instruments playing the same "voice" in very dense mixtures (and sometimes clusters) come in, building up to one big chromatic cluster before P (is the double bass written in the same octave it sounds btw?). Then the cluster gets even more dense with the quartertones slowly coming in.

Cheers Matt. Glad you find a chance to listen to it an post. :)

Gardener: Your first paragraph is EXACTLY what I had in mind. EXACTLY! Thank you for posting. :) It shows that I did my job, as a composer (and naming the piece as well) well enough. If something like your post passes to you, through my music, then... I'm pretty much exstatic about it!

No, contrabass sounds an octave lower than writen in the score.

Thank you guys! You two made my Sunday morning! YAY!

I've looked over the score and I find this to be a very complete and integrally shaped piece. I enjoyed the humor it brought to mind comparing the score and soundfile. Well done!

Thank you. :)

Language barrier question:

"I enjoyed the humor it brought to mind comparing the score and soundfile." I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean.

No, contrabass sounds an octave lower than writen in the score.

Ah. I was just wondering because I looked at the score and in bar 119 everyone was playing in a chromatic cluster with the exception of the double bass, which is one octave lower. But listening again I hear that the double bass is lower, without the gap at this point being hearable at all. (I really should have noticed that in the Vc+Cb passage after P anyways.)

Language barrier question:

"I enjoyed the humor it brought to mind comparing the score and soundfile." I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean.

I can never interpret the correct version of pieces. I have my very own way of interpreting pieces, and so it was humorous to interpret my way, and then to listen to your performance. I won't go into details, but sometimes I liked yours better, sometimes I liked mine better. For the specifics which I would prefer my conduction over yours, I had nothing against your conduction. I loved the whole thing. The overall progression was fresh and exciting.