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below is the first movement of my piano trio. which I've spent a good while working on, any feedback would be appreciated.

Listen to Piano Concerto No.2 3rd Movt (Final edit) by Mark McDonald on #SoundCloud https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/rjHBs Hi all, This is the final edit of the 3rd Movt of my 2nd piano Concerto. I've extended the cadenza and ironed out the wrinkles along the way. For some reason I couldn't stop twiddling with it until I got it to this point, but now that I have, I'm happy to think of it as finished and leave it without further twiddles! I've now started working the material I have for the 1st and 2nd movements so hopefully I might have a completed work in another couple of years 😂. Anyway, I hope you like it and if you did hear the first version, I'd be interested to know what you think of the differences. This particular movement started life a few years ago as a piano improvisation and gradually got molded into what it is now, as did most of the material for the other movements, let's see where they end up! Hi all, I've not posted anything for over a year, been busy with other things, but I have also been working on my second piano concerto. I have the bones of the 1st and 2nd movements, but there is still a lot of work to do on those. I do however, have the 3rd movement finished (barring a few minor edits that might arise over the next few weeks), and so I thought I would like to share this with you all. Thanks for listening. It's a bit more modern than my first piano concerto, I wouldn´t say contemporary exactly, and like all of my work, it is a tonal, classical piece. I hope you like it and as always, any and all comments are welcome and replied to. If anyone would like to see the score, it's mess lol but available if you want. Kind regards Mark https://soundcloud.com/user-729021187/piano-concerto-no2-3rd-movt

Nice job on this trio! I feel like I can honestly say that you have definitely improved since the piano concerto movement that you had the cadenza challenge with. I actually enjoyed the chromatic neighbor tones in m. 43 and 50 - they were almost expected in the classical period. I like the overall dark mood you paint here. My favorite classical pieces also tend to be the darkest (especially of Mozart and Beethoven). One thing that jumped out at me is the B naturals you have in measures 18 beat 4 in the piano and then the violin in meas. 20 beat 4 and then again the piano in 22 and the violin in 24. Since you change the harmony to C minor in those measures you are jumping melodically to a non-harmonic tone and it sounds wrong to me. Either a C or an Eb would fit much better in place of that B natural to my ear. That's just some options. In m. 166 you have parallel fourths between the violin and cello - it didn't jump out at me as sounding wrong though. Great use of dynamics and good ending! Thanks for the music!

I enjoyed the piece. I would remark its strong structure and the good balance between the three instruments. I like you didn't give the piano a second role. I also noticed that E natual in some measures (50)... It is clearly a retardation, it catches my attention because it is against a second. But I don't think it sounds bad at all.

Very nice! This is very well structured and organized, and I enjoyed hearing the different ways you twisted and turned your motives to keep the piece new and fresh throughout, while still coherent and logical. I'm usually not a fan of chamber music, but this kept me interested through the entire piece. I especially liked how you handled passing the melody back and forth between the piano and the strings. The only thing I noticed is there are a few instances where you have some pretty sharp dissonances on top of each other, like in m.43 and m.50 you have an major seventh between the E natural and the F that is a little surprising. Also in m.54 you have a minor second between the D natural in the violin and the D flat in the piano. And in m.169 on beat two you have a D in the strings against a C in the piano followed by an Eb in the strings against an F in the piano. These are mostly pretty momentary, but it might be worth it to comb through the piece for similar cases and evaluate each individually to see if there might be a better solution. I think for the most part you can get away with it because they happen so quick, but the examples at m.43 and m.50 kind of jump out to me, I think because the dissonances are highlighted by the staccato notes. The other thing that jumped out at me was the transition to the A major section starting at m.92. I see what you were going for using the repeated quarter note motif to transition, but it still felt a little forced to me. I also noticed there is an extra beat at the end of m.118, I wonder if this was intentional? Overall though this is really good work. Thanks for sharing, it was a fun listen!

Am glad to hear you survived. and sorry to hear you had to go through it. best of luck. the music is gorgeous too.

So heartening to learn you survived this wretched scourge upon us and hopefully will recover fully in time. Although I haven't caught it, I've seen the effect on others all right. The piece is rather beautiful. There's a lot of dance and light in it in spite of everything. Fragmentary themes have never worried me as I've trained myself just to listen. Even so, it makes perfectly good musical sense to me. I'm not going to dissect it - there's nothing to crit really. It is as it is and should stay a memorable work, a milestone in your recovery. Locrias hours was a little plaintive that came as a sobering contrast to the earlier pieces and the one that follows which is a little more tense (Art not born of happiness). Congratulations on putting together what actually comes across as a profound work, given the circumstances. I'll be listening to this one again later.

1) as the memory returns the swallow I like the harmony in this piece and there's a nice touch of modified pentatonic at the end. 2) decided the trip. bored of the sky, the starfish The phrasing of the melody and the harmonies you choose in this piece are also surprisingly accessible. Maybe you have a good reason for using those triplet rhythms in this. I personally try to keep my rhythms as simple as I can in my music but maybe you were going for an improvisational feel. 3) Captive wave behind Neptune's back licks the shore This part seems to skip a whole page in the score ... was confused about that. The melody and harmony were kind of meandering in this but not in a bad way. The ideas had a unity to them. 4) from oblivion in locrias hours (Does this have to do with the Locrian Mode?) I am confused about the title since this piece does not exactly stay in the Locrian mode as there are A naturals in it. At first you seem to avoid using any type of B in the beginning but towards the end you sneak in a Cb and then a B dbl. flat before finally using a B natural. 5) art is never born of happiness This one seems to be written in a kind of harmonic major scale that I like - having the augumented 2nd not just between the Ab and B natural but also between Db and E natural. I like the sound. 6) like a microbe I travel in the immeasurable universe Many mostly diatonic sections interspersed with sudden outlandish chromaticism! LoL An enjoyable suite! Although I am sometimes hard pressed to find a relation between the title and the music - very clever and poetic titles that your friend helped you devise. I am glad you survived COVID - you are valued here. Thanks for the music!

This is incredible. Really, I love this piece it's just a great job.