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The kind of issues you've all expressed will easily work themselves out as long as we keep Leftist hands out of "the orchestra." It's human nature to forgive and even provide cover to "the aggrieved." But then we are easily fooled. And so we watch as they destroy our institutions one by one. Maybe it is the Boy Scouts, or the "school" or the freakin' New York Times. Maybe you don't have kids so killing the boy scouts is not a big deal. Likewise the New York Times, which is now a former newspaper. But eventually they get around to destroying something you really do care about. Once the Left gets its hooks into something, it's over. Because it never is about the grievance anyway, it is always about power and "The Shakedown." Unfortunately, those whose whole world is centered around classical music may cave in to demand after demand. THAT will make your dollars dry up faster than anything. But if classical music remains a healthy, un-political organism then modern music still has a good chance, I think. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html

Hello, fellow composers! This is my first topic and first submission for a review of one of my compositions and I'm very excited to share this with you. I work with pen and paper, using a piano for the most part, and only in the later stages of each section of sketchwork do I continue refining the sketches through the Dorico interface. I usually expect to record this with professional musicians in some way or another, so I never spend any time fiddling with the digital performance of the work, to be honest. Because of this, the performance is decidedly robotic, but it still manages to give you an idea of the work as a whole, and I'm sure that your ear and imagination are good enough to be able to realise what it could sound like if it were performed by real, living musicians. (The audio attached is produced by Dorico running NotePerformer 3.) This work was recorded in January 2020 for Signum Classics with Kerenza Peacock (violin) and Huw Watkins (piano) at the Britten Studio in Snape Maltings. Sadly, I can't yet share the audios from that session, since the album will be released in March 2021 for the label's catalogue. Sonata for violin and piano in F major, R. 6 I. Adagio — Allegro assai II. Andante sostenuto III. Allegro con fuoco IV. Adagio ed intimo In my next posts I hope to share work with you that is still in progress so that any input from you will definitely have more weight than at this later stage in the work's life. Oh, I almost forgot! If you're interested in having a score to follow, or if I'm lucky enough that you'd like to perform this work in a recital or concert, please send me a message and I will happily oblige. Wishing you all the best, Rodrigo Ruiz

So I guess you used Reaper to make this piece. The quality of sound is very good! The music is a little tragic sounding for the occasion. I kinda expected to be uplifted by the music in this context. The recording is very clear and of excellent quality though. Good job!

Whoa! This is quite thickly orchestrated for the piano! Sometimes overly much so. I would say to use the damper pedal less when you're writing for the really low register of the piano. It sounds really muddy down there - unless of course that is what you intended. Obviously you know how to write virtuosically for the piano - now I just wish you had picked more unique melodies. I guess your melodies sound really waltz-y so I guess you intended that. Also, the thickness of your chords in some places is the most salient feature of your music. Overall I enjoyed this piece. Introduction was a little drawn out though.

I'll enter as an entrant

I'd like to enter as an entrant. Thank you!

Here's a cello piece I've been working on for a while. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to composing and mixing orchestral music so any feedback will be much appreciated! 😄

Schoenberg isn't music, it's numerology. That's why it's not popular. Beethoven endures because Beethoven wrote good music that was rooted in the tradition. The common practice period was an outgrowth of what came before; not some totally new invention that defied all that came before it like serialism and all other manner of modernism do. The entire point of Shoenberg, like all modernism and atonalism, is to reject hierarchy in favor of "equality", generally as a political statement. However, there is no good art without discrimination and hierarchy. For example, dissonance is only beautiful within a hierarchy of consonance. "Music" like Shoenberg differs from Beethoven on this crucial axiom: The latter's music is born of techniques rooted directly in the listening experience, whereas the former's is rooted in subversive, pseudo-intellectualism. Such systems, which are present in all atonalism, are ultimately a dead end. You say for example that Shoenberg's music is "a thing to be dissected". This has never been the point of art and music throughout human history until the 20th-Century subversives like Kandinsky came along to mask their low ability. The point of creating art or music is an attempt to rival the beauty of nature herself. The Fjords of Norway and Hohenzollern Castle are alike in that they have stood for ages, and their beauty is still revered; it is self-evident across time. There is no need to "dissect" or "explain" what it all "means'. To gaze upon it beauty, and the mastery of craft it took to create it, is an uplifting experience in and of itself. These abstract conceptualists who insist that art and music are actually about or at least better when we can play some trite game to figure out what the artist is "saying" — which, as a funny note: These people say music is "subjective" in quality, but apparently it can convey the artist's intent objectively despite this — and that the "meaning" is what it's all really about, don't seem to realize that they could get their message across a whole let more effectively and clearly if they just wrote it down.

Very nice! Reminds me of the Strauss Burlesk, both for its quirky harmonies and for its acrobatic timpani part (which is probably a little too acrobatic here). A few notes: The bombastic main theme is repeated a few too many times, and all the tuttis have a "sameness" about them that only adds to the problem. It feels like the same 8 or so measures are being repeated with only an occasional break in between. A Scherzo (or Minuet) usually includes a contrasting Trio section, but I never get that sense of contrast here, because the B section is interrupted too many times by a bombastic tutti that either is or sounds just like the main theme. The third is missing from the final F chord in the main theme (m. 12, for example). I don't know if this is by accident or by design, but I suspect the former. Ideally, the grace notes on p. 10 should be eighths and sixteenths (instead of quarters and eighths). The woodwind sectional arpeggiation on p. 16 is very difficult to pull off in performance, and likely to be ineffective as a result. Maybe have just one instrument (clarinet, for instance) playing an upward arpeggio, and the other instruments starting on each beat (instead of each half-beat). The Horn 2 in m. 11 is playing a D when the other instruments are playing a Db. That said, I really like this piece. The orchestration especially is very well done. Good work, and thanks for sharing!

Hi everyone! This is my first attempt at a string quartet. It is the first movement of a larger string quartet that I intend to make in D Minor. It would be nice if you could review it and leave some feedback. Thank you! (really sorry I only have the midi mockup, haven't got it performed yet) link: https://youtu.be/yVSecRZSyCg

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.