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Tonskald! I’m excited to listen to your piece – I’ve often considered the idea of symmetry and asymmetry in music, although your approach and source material (Olivier Messiaen) are new to me. Can’t wait to listen! This is my first listen to the work, so you’ll get my first impression thoughts (I type and listen at the same time). Here we go! I. Nice cello sample (and piano when it enters). I wish my sounds were that nice. #SoundSetsAreExpensive... Your theme offers some good possibilities. I like the style and emotion it presents. Cool tremolos, wasn’t expecting that twist. Also the double stops are quite effective. Good interplay between the piano and the cello. Everything is well-balanced and sounds good with the other part. @2:50, wow! In general this is really good stuff, and is very cohesive despite being through-composed. II. Interesting re-use of the shared material. The harmonization especially is sublime. To be honest, I’m going to sit back and enjoy this because so far this piece is awesome. Less typing, more listening! III. A little harder to follow the opening idea in this one – although it’s great composing. IV. The uneven time signatures pushed you into some really cool ideas – good idea. V. Cleverly and carefully done! Overall some really lovely music. The piece is super mature and very carefully thought out, and well executed to boot! Sorry I don’t have much to offer in the way of things that could be better, I’m not sure if there is anything I’d change. Good work! Gustav Johnson

HoYin! I’m listening to this piece for the first time while I free-write some comments for you. I’m excited – your description is really intriguing and I can’t wait to hear it! I. Captivating opening theme. I must admit that music in this style is hard for me to follow, modern harmonies/etc. isn’t my strong suit, but I’ll do my best. Your theme which will be used as shared material is robust enough to be recognizable, but also flexible enough to allow for sufficient material to be born from it. Good percussion accents within the piece, I wonder if maybe they could have been used to create a sense of motion that might help drive the phrasing? We finally get that around 2:00-2:15, which is really nice. The ethereal section is nice (2:30-3:00), and a nice use of pizzicato to create a new texture. 3:30 is really nice style-wise. Very emotional and brooding! II. Same opening, until the horns! That’s exciting, it lifts the energy a little bit. I can tell a difference in the texture of this one already. Careful on the low drone notes – be careful that they don’t clash or create unintentional dissonance. Good snare drum ostinato, it gets stale after a while. Some flams, rolls, or variations to help accent the phrasing may be nice. Another possibility is to share it across instruments (i.e. pass it to the brass or strings occasionally). I like when you alter the ostinato rhythm, it’s a good rhythmic pattern. I expected some more power from this movement, something indicating the vast strength of the prince’s army, but it seems reserved. Don’t be afraid to let out all the stops! Sometimes writing full orchestration with lots of doubling at loud (ish) volumes can be appropriate and effective! III. Good compositional techniques. Your interplay between voices is effective and well balanced. Waiting for something that sounds like a “Rite”, though, and while I hear plenty of spooky sounding stuff nothing screams “HEY WE’RE AT A FUNERAL!!” to me, haha. Around 2:20 (ish) we start getting to something that sounds more mournful. Around 3:00, now we’re getting somewhere, and this seems more like what I expected. Maybe I was expecting the wrong type of thing – I shouldn’t let my expectations get in the way of the music you’ve written. Oooh, I like the ending. That’s really nice, and I could have used more of that type of idea throughout the piece. Overall, you write well in terms of your individual lines. The complete picture is somewhat muddy for me, but there are also probably things I miss because I don’t have the best ears and I haven’t taken time to train them in this style. Your second movement felt the most cohesive to me, probably because of the obvious shared ostinato. I wish there was some core idea that each movement would have had unto itself. A good composition! Gustav Johnson

Thanks Gustav Johnson and Tónskáld for your reviews of my piece. I appreciate them (also KJ's) especially since we are all in the same competition together and it would perhaps be difficult to be objective in one's judgements of other entrants pieces! Thanks Gustav for taking the time to review the piece movement by movement. I appreciate the feedback, and your admiration of my work. Thanks Tónskáld. Interesting common point between our two entries! Let me add that I found your entry pretty impressive. I appreciate your feedback even more knowing you are a violist. I am happy to know that you are a big fan of my music!