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Thanks for feedback @PaperComposer 🙂 About the rendering I agree with you : hinted at it in my introductory comment. I'm aware of this "show the soloist's skills" vocation of many concertos. Thought about it while writing, but it's not the way my inspirational flow came out. About the melancholic mood, beware of the upcoming adagio, which I already started and will go deeper into that way, though, while I won't give another term, this word "melancholic" sounds to me a little bit too pessimistic 😉 Bon appétit, since it's lunch time in California 🙂

A nice intense atmosphere and interesting harmonies. But surely it's just an intro to something? It naturally wants to lead on from the closing bars. What happens next, I wonder, and I can't wait to find out! Great stuff.

I do hope that if this were performed a cellist would give your introductory cello melody more life than this rendering does (I don't know if you intended it to be played in strict tempo but it seems like it could use some rubato). Also I would be wary to give the cello double stops of a tritone in the range in which you did there in the introduction. I feel like the writing in general not just for the cello is a bit underwhelming in this and you maybe could have used some more virtuosic variations of you melodies (maybe using the technique of diminution to give the themes more energy and vitality?) Right now it just seems like a melancholy mood set for cello and orchestra rather than a concerto which is meant to really show off the cellists abilities and build a kind of interplay between the soloist and the orchestra. Overall it was enjoyable for what it was which is more of a melancholic mood. Thanks for sharing!

This sounds really cool! I love the trombone drones in the beginning. I think the key change up a whole step is kind of a cheap way of buying your melodic ideas more time to be exposed to the listener. Usually that kind of modulation is used in the latter half of a pop song to create some much needed interest after hearing the verses and chorus a few too many times. Although you do create some variation after the halfway point by augmenting the folk song melody to longer note values. I like the mood this creates. I feel like the intensity was a little muted I felt like but maybe that was your intention. It sounds kind of like background music. Thanks for sharing!

I like this but I feel like you limit yourself to only harmonic and melodic variation. You could also change say .. the tempo or the register at which the individual instruments played. Correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like you write for the instruments in basically the middle of their range. Also maybe this piece didn't particularly need a tempo change anywhere but it's just an idea which could really make your music much more diverse even within the span of just one piece. Of course it's still quite atmospheric and heady. Thanks for sharing!

yes it's light green and the letters of the title are kind of sporadic

That might have been the book I randomly picked up in the bookstore I mentioned in the original post of this thread but don't quote me on that. Does it have a discussion of modes and cross-relations in it?

Thanks! btw concerning the lydian mode I've heard @gmm comment that even lydian can sound dark .. I guess it's all about how you use it. EDIT: Have you seen the modes organized by their supposed respective darkness or brightness? Lydian is supposedly the brightest mode on the scale.

interesting stuff. Your chromatic language is darker than mine, I can learn from this! Good job

I have completed the first and second movement of my wind quintet and I am in the process of completing a rondo as a third and final movement to this work. I will probably use the second movement for a competition local to my home, the Isle of Man. There are usually only two others who compete in the composition class - the same two every year! - and we couldn't offer more different specialisms. I will be eternally grateful if an experienced contrapuntalist offered some of their wisdom should I need it. Obviously I am adhering to the classical tradition. I have spared you this time from repeating sections. I do not intend to add any repeat bars for the competition. EDIT (9/1/2020): I have now finished this work. I had to rework some parts of the first movement due to a couple of parallels. I also added some more material to the flute part in the second movement development as I felt it was somewhat absent during a particular passage. The third movement, which is a rondo form, closely follows the structure of JC Bach's rondo in his Sinfonia Concertante in C Major, C42, for which I have started a post in the music appreciation part of this forum for those interested. Covid has unfortunately led to my local community to lock down recently, so I will be able to focus some more of my time towards music pursuits! Thanks for listening. Markus

I think, with equal temperament now the standard, the keys no longer really have unique feelings associated with them in any scientific sense -- other than the range of the instruments being used producibg different timbres. But people still tend to assign the keys general moods based on (or simply inspired by?) the days before equal temperament, when there were very real differences between the keys. In Ye Olden Days, there would be quite a bit of difference in the ratio of the sound waves in, say, a major third in one key versus a major third in another key. One might be much closer to the perfect fourth interval, while another might be closer to the minor third interval. Thus, playing a piece in one key versus the other had a big difference on the mood of the result. I'm given to understand that some keys were cacophonous and pretty much unusable. When the equal temperament system came along, these subtle differences in pitch were 'flattened out' in favor of a standardized system. On a more personal level, as a guy with a guitar who can just move a capo up the guitar neck and sing a song in whatever key I choose, I can tell you that I never choose a key for a song based on the native 'mood' of that key. It's always about finding the right key for each song for the range of my voice, and making sure that meshes well with the pitch of the guitar.