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Ok, I'll have a go. No big drama though. Vaguely similar to Ivan (above) I'm writing a lament to one lost to this wretched disease. Unfortunately the score will be a neatened up version of what my daw produces and hope that will do.

Oh, Maarten, this is beautiful, and so touching. The B minor modality you've employed adds quite the sense of listlessness and wonder. I also like the way it builds as it progresses, but never too obtrusively. And your in-score directions are thoughtful and detailed. The choice of instruments is eclectic, but I think they work well together. If I may be so bold, this is minimal music at its finest. Excellent medium to express your intended emotions.

I have no experience in the industry, so I won't be able to help with that. I listened to the soundtrack before I read this, and that's exactly what I was going to bring up. When it comes to orchestral music, there is basically two ways this could be mixed (yes, I'm over-simplifiying it). You can either mix it to sound like a live performance of an orchestra, as if you were listening to a classical piece by one of your favourite composer, on site. Or you can mix it in the "cinematic" way, which dismisses the "room sound" of a concert hall a bit so that you can have the experience of "feeling inside the orchestra". This works very nicely on film, because cinema rooms can really place you within the action with their high-quality sound systems. Your soundtrack stands in the middle of both. It neither sounds like the real thing, because there is no "room sound", which makes it all seem artificial (at least for the orchestral sounds, though), nor it plays on the strengths of a high-quality sound system. I guess it just takes practice to get it right, though, so you will surely get better at it in the future.

I think it’s fair to say this website hosts a mix bag of individuals, with contrasting interests and ambitions. Without encouraging a digression from Simen’s music, I’ll simply state we should respect everyone’s individual tastes.

As always, your compositions are done with total perfection but I never hear Simen N in these works, rather a full-blooded imitation of baroque music of late 17th and early 18th century. I was really hoping you'd get bored by now and try to find your own personal language so listeners may say: This is definitely Simen N, not Corelli for example. I know you will probably berate me for writing this (as you have done it before) but I can't help myself, I find it a shame for such a talented composer like you to be satisfied with pastiche.

The piano part is too much repetitive, you should really try to use more different chords (not harmonies) or piano progress (counterpoints, thematic material, more varied rhythm, motivic variation and development etc...) As far as you address the use of high register: actually, it's not the highest register at all - cello can relatively confortably play up to d6. It is accesible to most players with about 6-8 years of cello playing.

You have the beginnings of a truly great piece of music. there are flashes of truly great melodic writing. However I think the relatively limited scope of the piece is letting you down quite a bit. there simply isn't enough happening in the rest of the music in order for to justify the title of sonata in my opinion. some counter point plus variations In the piece are desperately needed I think what you have currently would work really well as a second subject as sonatas tend to have more of an attention grabbing first subject. at the moment there is predominantly one style for 10 minutes. as I said there are flashes of really great melodic writing. perhaps turning this piece in particular into a song will help but principally I think in order to call it a sonata work needs to be done on it.

Very nice. I liked the descending chromaticism which certainly achieves your goal for creating a sense of harmonic instability. The rest at the end just before the ending threw me off a little since it seemed a little out of the blue but perhaps a human player would have pulled it off more convincingly.

Nicely done! I hear a LOT of John Williams. What a great composer to emulate! I also took part in the competition! The video's in a post I just made. Best of luck!

I'd like to enter as entrant.

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I'd like to enter as entrant. So at the end the member voting won't be anonymous? Like, if I compose something everyone will know it was me who composed that piece. That might give some older members some advantage because they have more reputation. Maybe we could give Noah the score and Mp3 of our piece and then he would post that piece on the forum and noone would know who composed it.

Well. If a clarinet could speak a language, this would be it. I felt like I just came from a four-minute clarinettish diatribe against how the oboe always gets the spotlight. Fine job, sir. Birdsong-like in its melody, it absolutely explores the limits of this charming instrument. Thanks for sharing! I hope you're able to get it performed.

I guess so, but most of that time will be spent into a piece dedicated to my grandfather. (He's quite ill, you never know...)