Leaderboard

Based on what I'm hearing, I don't have very high hopes for the future of music. I think it will continue to get more electronic, pret-a-porter and instantaneous. It doesn't take much in the way of skill or talent to make music anymore, nor are such qualities to be valued or sought after. Art music in particular has a bleak future from where I'm standing. I don't try to do anything new in my own composition. The newest thing I do is purposely look backward for inspiration, using old tools to create new music that sounds old. That's relatively unique, but I don't know how much future there is in it.

I see absolutely no slurs in this entire piece, and given the "legato" marking at the outset of the piece, I feel like that's not at all what you want. Remember, without slurs the implication is that you want a separate tonguing/attack for every note. I think if you're going to divisi the 3rd clarinet (or flute 2 or whatever other instrument), you should indicate "clarinet 3-4" in the score. The same is true of the first trumpets; however, in the only place you divide them up, the lower divisi is doubling trumpet 2, which is totally redundant and unnecessary. You HAVE TO label your percussion part; just because it sounds like a cymbal on playback does not mean that particular line and notehead universally means "cymbal". Remember the cardinal rule when labeling percussion parts: HIT WHAT (what instrument?) WITH WHAT (what beater/stick/mallet?) MOVE TO WHAT (what instrument will the percussionist play next?). The last one in this case does not apply since there is one solitary cymbal roll used, but still. You have a fermata over only some of the notes in m.33 visually, a double barline at a key change is a nice courtesy to extend to players and conductors

That's not correct; the opposite would be more accurate. Mozart wrote the majority of his music for the private enjoyment of patrons, and only towards the end of his life did he take a very big risk and try to live solely off compositions for the public (operas for the most part). Haydn spent most of his life as a servant at the court of Prince Nikolaus of Eszterhazy and was not allowed to write anything which would be performed outside the palace first. Modern composers, however, have to have some kind of public-spirited clause to get commissions from arts funds, or else make their music commercial enough for it to sell to the public. Again a rather specious argument. As I said before, Mozart was considered modern, even advanced, to most audiences of his time. In addition Mozart's music contains many subtleties that are not readily apparent without careful study. The overture to Haydn's The Creation certainly doesn't sound traditional and direct (in fact it could have been written 200 years later), whilst on the other side something like Schoenberg's Five PIeces for Orchestra is anything but subtle and uses very clear, almost mathematically logical methods. The underlying technical principles are the same in all music, it is simply the surface style and other essentially superficial factors that change.

WOW Max I can imagine you as a REAL prince riding your UNICORN past beautiful sceneries on your way to the battlefield with cannons and M-16s. Okay i should get serious. In the beginning, the strings play constant running notes with a sense of urgency, and the scary brasses play repeated rhythmic motifs. A sense of intensity has already been built up at the beginning, capturing the audience's immediate attention. I love the the brass rhythmic motifs!!(the very fast semiquavers. Or is it demi-semiquavers?)It gives a very transitional leading line and provides the piece with a strong directional movement. =) There are beautiful slow sections. I love how you make use sustained notes to create a sense of "far-far-away-ness", like an emotional desire venturing far and beyond! I never expected brasses can sound so....NICE. You're like Hans Zimmer! And then, you have thess slow sections. Slow and grand. One might expect that this portion will be more sentimental and "heartfelt" sounding, but unexpectedly, the tension from the first theme is still prominent, although not very obvious. It is like INNER tension! I really like this! A contrasting piece to your Adagio, in terms of musical qualities, Prince Max. -CJ