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Nice job! Where's the score? LoL I voted for your piece for 2nd place because I felt there were other pieces that developed the theme more fully. You definitely had the most unique reharmonization of the theme and overall won my greatest overall impression that the music made on me. You chose to tell a unique musical story after the presentation of the theme but I didn't really feel like it was really related in any way directly to the theme. I felt like you could have used the theme more extensively throughout your piece and maybe explain the story behind the title and the lyrics more. You kinda just wrote a piece that quoted the theme and later was inspired by the theme without directly transforming it. I love the result however - it is a very cinematic mood that you've created and I loved studying your score to figure out harmonically, how you got that magical sound you're so famous for. I feel like the harmony in this piece had a certain Thomas Newman kind of vibe. Nice job! Also - from what I remember you once again overload the viola section with too many parts and it wasn't clear in the score whether they should be split into 4 individual sections with each section on one note or maybe two sections with two notes each double-stopping. Thanks for participating!

So I wrote this hoping to base all of the melodic material in my piece on the original theme by Yoshimatsu (Waltz of the Rainbow Colored Roses). However, I deliberately didn't listen to the original piece (only the first couple of seconds where the fragment of the theme is presented) so as to, hopefully be inspired only by the fragment and allow for more possibilities which might have been tainted had I known how Yoshimatsu developed it in his piece. I came up with many versions of the theme in my musical notepad and then more extensively in my notebook without really any idea of how I was going to put the piece together. It was just lucky that I somehow managed to create themes that progressively accelerated in tempo when put side by side with each other. I decided not to include the theme itself in my composition as I thought many people might take that route so I thought it might be more fresh to present the listener only with original versions/transformations of the theme. The theme in it's original form (as in both the rhythms and the pitches of the theme) does not appear anywhere in my composition. However, I kept the piece in it's original key of D minor, so the pitches of the original piece should be easy to spot for anyone looking through the score. I also used inversions of the theme, retrogrades and inversion retrogrades (loosely rather than strictly). With respect to the inversions and inversion retrogrades I used tonal/diatonic versions rather than "real" inversions (I transposed them diatonically into the key/pitch level I wanted them to occupy). This is a medley where each of the themes that comes up is a variation of the theme. Also, the bass-lines, accompaniment figures and counter-melodies are also based on the theme. Although the harmonic progressions aren't directly derived from the theme. Let me know what you think of the result and if you have any curiosities about specific transformations of the theme! Also - it would be great to know if anyone actually voted for my piece so let me know (since I didn't win 😖 LoL). If you didn't vote for my piece and would like to let me know why that would be great too, so feel free to criticize!

Nice piece that has a unique style and sound to it. I like the textures! The one thing I can think of is that it's a bit hard to hear the different passages playing at the same time. Like it sounds a bit muddy, might be the MIDI sounds also. How about panning the instruments just a bit (Right and Left), so the sound gets more separated. I don't know if that would work? And see what reverb is on the sound. In this case, perhaps dry is better than a room reverb, for instance.

I'm usually not a great fan of such "experimental" music, but I must admit I really enjoyed some areas, e.g.: from 0:23-0:35 or 0:46-1:00, very interesting ending. The beginning was too an-harmonic to my taste. As for 0:35-0:46... I would not dare try it on the piano. Thanks for sharing!

Impressed by the complexity of the composition, this must have been a lot of work! I agree with Papercomposer on the fact that we sometimes feel "out of breath", as it is really rich and filled with many alterations. Nonetheless, I really appreciated the listening (loved the passage from 1:10-1:20). Would be great to hear in a church though... Thanks for sharing!

Hi, I actually voted for your piece for second place as I felt it was quite interesting! However, it wasn't without some noticable flaws. While I understand it was a medley, the issue kind of lay in the fact that there was no clear structure. The development of the themes and such seemed to come about at often unexpected timings, which was also partly due to the transitions needing to be improved so that the piece will sound more seamless. In addition when it comes to instrumentation, I would have preferred if there was more representation in the winds particularly, especially since oftentimes it felt more like it was 1 wind instrument playing with the strings rather than a full orchestra, so maybe you could have made a climax or chorus at the end? That was my thought. I found the development to the theme interesting and unique, and was quite a fresh take on the theme. However, to be honest, to me the main drawback about this piece was that the piece as a whole seemed a little pedestrain. It seemed to lack character which could have been attributed to the lack of a realistic portrayal due to the midi simulation. There is no real drive that pushes the piece forward and keeps the listeners' attention. While the idea of the development of the theme is there, for example you could have added more countermelody, more interesting backgrounds and a suitable narrative that could justify its flow. That's my honest feedback for now, if there's anything else I will comment further. Thanks for participating, I still really enjoyed your piece!

Congratulations to the winner and the 2nd and 3rd place winners. I wonder if we could be provided the number of votes each of the three winners received as well as the total number of voters/votes. Also, can the rest of us participants get a private message of the number of votes that we received, if any?

got my 1st place vote

I have to agree, I think one of the main issues with this piece was also the fact that it was too lengthy and maybe I should have cut down on the variations. Yea I felt that the musicality of the piece should be improved because they sounded slightly disjointed due to the lack of transition between variations, and I won't repeat the same mistake of using a chromatic ascending sequence, as it forced me to include too many variations and in the end with not enough ideas some of the variations actually sounded more like filler (particularly var. 9). This was my first whole-hearted attempt at a theme and variations so I hope to improve on this form in the future. Thank you for your comments though!

Nice job and congratulations on 1st place! So I voted for your piece as 1st place because I thought you did the most extensive development of the theme. You transform the key, tempo, mode, and rhythms of the theme quite exhaustively. My criticism of this is that it seems to progress as more of an exhaustive exercise rather than a piece of music. Also, by changing the key of each variation you separate the variations from each other when they should really be transitioning into each other. It starts to sound like a gimmick for the sake of tonal novelty. It would have been nice to hear two variations smoothly lead into one another through some kind of modulation. About your choice of keys - going up by half-step in each variation isn't really that great of a musical choice and it gets old. You could have come up with some kind of macro-tonal scheme based on the theme for your keys. I'll leave you with a quote by Brahms reflecting on the nature of Variation form (and also reminding I think that Variations are both a form and a process): "I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer. Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject . . . . But it seems to me that a great many moderns (including both of us) are more inclined - I don't know how to put it - to fuss about with the theme. We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it. And so the melody becomes quite unrecognizable." - Brahms, letter to Joseph Joachim, 1856 Overall I think you fall pray to something I have been a victim of myself when writing variations - to lose track of the musicality of the result. Thanks for your participation!

this is my competition piece. As I have previously stated I will not concede and will now be using litigation to try and stop the steal. In all seriousness, congratulations to Joshua and thanks for all your votes peeps!

I would agree with @PaperComposer, I really did enjoy your work, especially with it's film music style of grandiose and aura that it portrayed. However, I felt that the theme was not developed enough in the piece, especially considering the criteria was specifically judging for how well the theme was developed. That said, I still feel it would make a good standalone piece and I really liked your piece, and I actually voted it first haha. It was a really good effort and I'm now very interested to see your future works as well!

I don't think there's really anything wrong with the form of this piece or that you should adhere more stringently to some kind of pre-set form. I just think you could have built your piece more extensively using the theme as the basis for all your melodic material. In a sense more unity to your themes I guess. But that's my cerebral composer brain looking for order in the chaos ... LoL You're welcome and thanks for the music!

well i guess the thing to work on for the next competition is form. thank you for the kind words and the vote

Hahaha thank you! I really did enjoy your piece as well and it was really done!

a seasoned composer who knows exactly what hes doing, when he's doing it. I envy that. Very bright and colorful piece and orchestration. Love how its always moving around quickly.

In meas. 42 I felt like it would have been cool if the bass voice played an Eb on beat 2 to transition between the E natural and the D. I think the pitfall of including so much free counterpoint in your fugue is that the associations between the subject and the surrounding material are lost and everything starts to be perceived as a sort of contrapuntal noodling. I know you said you included lots of invertible counterpoint but if you don't give the listener space or a melodic hook to let them know they're hearing something familiar then they get buried in the complexity of the incessant counterpoint. I think the fermatas in the middle of this fugue were a good idea because it gave the ear a much needed break from the incessant contrapuntal rhythms. I do however hear that you stayed very true to the subject and had multiple entries of the subject in many different keys and sometimes even in stretto so good job there. I am not entirely sure about the motivic unity of the episodes with the subject. I did hear that you fragmented the subject in the bridge to bring the subject in the 3rd time in G minor again. I think it would have helped considerably if you had a consistent counter-subject in this that was always paired with the subject - it might have given the counterpoint more logic. Sometimes it just seems like you just go into an unrelated prelude-like treatment in between the middle entries of the subject. The episodes should really be more based on the subject I think. Anyway - overall it was an enjoyable fugue! Thanks for sharing!