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Plus belle encor votre chère beauté  - 2026 Summer Competition Submission

Hello @MK_Piano!
The review of your piece is my last one, not because—far from it—it gives me a headache, but because I have great respect for it. This has nothing to do with the piece itself, but rather with you as a person, which I’ll try to explain briefly:
First of all, the challenge of the competition - to take Paul Verlaine’s poem “Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d'été,” as the inspiration of the composition, and to try to evoke moods of summer, love and beauty – was your idea, which might perhaps have arisen in your mind for a longer time. So you have a certain advantage over the other participants—or let’s say, a kind of “tailwind.”
On the other hand, I’ve already heard a lot about you—your compositions and, perhaps even more importantly, your insightful reviews—and that, combined with my knowledge of your professional background, carries the risk of being biased and expecting you to deliver an outstanding work (even before I’ve heard it at all).
Taking all that into consideration, I will give my best not to take that considerations as a „bonus“ or a „malus“, but trying to be as objective as possible in that sense.
Melodies Themes Motives and Harmony Chords Textures:
The entire piece is based on a simple yet effective motif that could be described as an “arch”. It is introduced by the piano in the opening measures and then repeated by the violin. Furthermore, this motif, repeated twice, forms the melody or theme of the “song” that unfolds after the introduction. The harmonies are „romantic“ and pleasant, dissonances or other „coloring“ is used in a subtle way. We have a variety in texture between the different instruments, while preserving the overall melody, allowing the listener to follow the piece with ease.
Form Development Structure Time:
The piece starts with an introduction that already „spoilers“ the melody and uses a cadenza as the „curtain opener“ of the song which now unfolds: Its three parts could be recognized as corresponding to the three stanzas of Paul Verlaine’s poem. Each part consisting of „melodic passages“ where the main theme is „sung“ and passages either calming down or developing the harmonic or rhythmic material further.
Originality Creativity:
The piece does not owe its originality from „experiments“, let’s say a spectacular instrumentation or other effects. It is well crafted, somewhat hiding the compositional details and skills applied behind an overall „solid“ and pleasant impression, and therefore one can recognize it as an original „Mason Kistler“ style piece.
Score Presentation:
I’ve noticed that you often use hairpins for dynamics without placing dynamic marks at the beginning and end. In my opinion, that’s not a bad thing (though there are some situations where I’d prefer to see a dynamic indication, such as in measure 24 for the violin), but I’ve listened to many orchestration tutorials in which this was considered a “mistake”, and the instructor insisted on explicitly specifying “from where to where” the hairpin increases or decreases the dynamics. Is there a general rule for this?
Beside that, I didn’t find things I would consider „engraving issues“ (and I admit that I did not explicitly search for nitpicks). So I would end up with a more general comments on the readability and „aesthetics“ of the score:
In my opinion, the font size for the strings parts is too small and make that parts hard to read. I suppose, that you’ve chosen that somewhat aggressive decrease of the font size for the other instruments than the piano to achieve getting three systems on one page (yes, this is sometimes hard – and on the other hand, having only two systems on a page would look ugly).
And there is another thing which makes the score somewhat „less enjoyable“ to read – and that has absolutely nothing to do with you and your engraving – since that is an inherent „problem“ of the scores produced by the most nowadays notation software: The result is „correct“ but seems to be „cold and mechanical“ when compared with older hand-engraved scores. There exists an interesting „Essay on automated music engraving“ from the developers of the „Lilypond“ notation software I use, where that issue is discussed in brevity.
Instrumentation Orchestration Playability:
Your choice of a “traditional” piano quartet is not exotic (as some of the other submissions), but rather solid, and it gives you the opportunity to create enough musical color to highlight the main melody in various variations, ensuring that the piece doesn’t become boring throughout its entire six minutes.
I’m sure you’ve examined the playability of some of the more challenging passages (and you’ve already mentioned this), such as the multiple stops in the string parts (especially for the violin at the end).
Execution of Given Challenge and Taste:
You resisted the temptation to take the competition’s challenge “literally” and set the poem to music to create a kind of “chanson”. Instead, you’ve composed a pleasant piece with a memorable melody that recurs in the piano and violin, conveying the feel of a song with clearly defined verses and transitions. The mood remains cheerful throughout the piece, evoking the image of the sun on a summer day; it changes only slightly in a few passages, as if small, fluffy clouds were obscuring the sun for just a few brief moments.
All in all, it’s a “solid” piece, if not the most solid of the entire competition. With this strength, your piece would certainly appeal to a majority of the “general audience”—in contrast to some other, more exotic or atonal submissions. On the other hand, you haven’t stepped outside this kind of “comfort zone”, so for a “more specialized audience”, such as the reviewers on this forum, pieces with their “rough edges” (and perhaps even their shortcomings) might have an equal or even better chance of attracting attention.
Melodies Themes Motives
Harmony Chords Textures
Form Development Structure Time
Originality Creativity
Score Presentation
Instrumentation Orchestration Playability
Execution of Given Challenge
Taste
10
9.75
10
9.5
9.25
10
9
8.5
Average Score: 9.5

By Wieland Handke · 11 minutes ago11 min
Summer's Day: YC Summer competition

Hello @Kvothe!
Interestingly, your entry—which was the very first one submitted to the contest—and the last one feature the same instrumentation: a (piccolo) flute, a viola, and a harp (while @JDevorMusic added two vocal parts).
Melodies Themes Motives and Harmony Chords Textures:
There is a melody played primarily by the viola and sometimes doubled or contrasted by the piccolo. The harp serves as an accompanying instrument and plays arpeggios—either “slow” ones, explicitly notated in semiquavers, or “fast” ones, notated as arpeggiated chords. With these ingredients, the piece develops a consistent flow that is occasionally interrupted by moments of “pause,” such as in measures 19–24.
There are almost no accidentals throughout the entire piece (except in the harp’s arpeggiated chords, for example in measure 23). However, this does not mean that the piece is written in C major (or A minor); rather, its harmony could be described as “pentatonic.”
Form Development Structure Time:
The piece has no „traditional“ form (such as sonata or rondo form), but develops the above mentioned melody and texture in a „free-flowing form“. And at the end, we have a kind of „fadeout“.
Originality Creativity:
This piece is unique among all the submissions and therefore creative, evidently due to its pentatonic sound and somewhat surprising instrumentation.
Score Presentation:
The score presentation is not very appealing to me. Especially the first page, with its large blank space, seems a bit “half-hearted.” I would appreciate it if the font size were larger for better readability, which, on the other hand, would lead to a more effective use of space on the pages.
And, as far as I know, a viola part never uses a violin clef – viola players are „monsters“ at reading ledger lines for their higher parts.
Instrumentation Orchestration Playability:
An instrumentation, consisting of a flute, a viola and a harp should be a useful choice. The flute and viola can interact with each other as melody instruments, yet each has its own register, preventing any overlap. On the other hand, when played pizzicato, the viola can “communicate” with the harp—the most important accompanying instrument. As mentioned already by other reviewers, the particular piccolo flute is somewhat weird, since it is usually not used as solo instrument and has a register that is too high to be a good companion to the viola.
Concerning the playability, especially for the harp, I see no issues with using the pedals, since accidentals are used very sparingly and, when present—as in measure 23—are separated by full measures of rest. I’m not sure if a harpist would enjoy playing broken chords in one hand and “fast arpeggios” in the other (as in measures 25–30), and the chords in measures 19, 21, and 23 seem too large to be played with one hand.
Execution of Given Challenge and Taste:
The piece has a playful character. However, I cannot recognize any (strong) connection to the topic of the contest: To take Paul Verlaine’s poem and create „Something“ in music. The mood of the piece does not necessarily evoke associations with a summer day or the beauty of a couple of lovers, nor does it have a typical “French” character. Rather, it reminds me more at the sound which is played (in an endless loop) in the background of a Chinese restaurant.
Melodies Themes Motives
Harmony Chords Textures
Form Development Structure Time
Originality Creativity
Score Presentation
Instrumentation Orchestration Playability
Execution of Given Challenge
Taste
7.5
7
6.5
8
6
7
7
7
Average Score: 7.0

By Wieland Handke · 32 minutes ago32 min
Saxophone Quartet no. 2 - Un clair jour d'été

Thanks. I used Musescore for the score and formatting. I used Blender to make the background for the cover page.

By Ninja Nolan · 1 hour ago1 hr
Rameau - Allemande in A minor (orchestration)

Hi, many thanks for your review.
Great to hear from someone who's actually played the piece!
I did try adding more of the trills and mordents initially; but they didn't sound good: so I took them out again.
I feel like these are idiomatic for the harpsichord; but don't work so well in an orchestral setting. Especially given the very dense ornamentation of the original score.
I can hear some issues with the pitching of the celli and violas around Bars 19-27. Can't seem to get rid of this problem, despite trying several different instrument libraries. Could be a bug within MuseScore, but I'll probably have another go at fixing it.

By Alex Weidmann · 5 hours ago5 hr
Fanfarria y Evocación

The reason there are no violins or oboes is that I wanted the brass section to provide the sparkle in this short piece.

By Luis Hernández · 7 hours ago7 hr

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