Leaderboard

Hello! I'm pretty new to the forum and just posted here for the first time yesterday (in the large ensemble section). I thought I might post another piece that I composed last year for the piano: Ballade in F-minor. With most of my pieces, I tend to improvise themes or notate melodies in my head and develop them at the piano. This piece took that method a step further; nearly all of the musical material and the sequence in which it appears came from a single improvisation (obviously, I heavily edited it during and after transcription to paper though). As such, Ballade has a very quasi improvisando feel throughout. This piece, because of how it was composed, was an opportunity for me to sharpen my editing skills. I suppose you all will be the judges of how well I did at that editing. Constructive feedback would be very much appreciated. There are a few different areas I'd enjoy feedback on, so choose your favorite (or favorites). What was your favorite part of the piece? What made it enjoyable? What did you dislike most about the piece? In a similar vein, which were your favorite and least favorite themes? Why? How did you feel about the different styles and moods present in each of the themes? How was the engraving? I'm sure that if you followed along with the score you noticed that it got very dense in several places. Were there any unclear markings (e.g., the floating ties at the Adagio tranquillo)? Are there any places where expanding to three staves would make the score more readable? Don’t be afraid to be specific here. Did anything in the piece feel out of place? How well did the consonance and dissonance throughout the piece balance? Did you feel that the Adagio tranquillo at the end was too big of a transition or a bad ending? Do you have any comments about my compositional technique (things like harmony, transitions, melodic writing, etc.)? How well did I execute the ballade form (use Chopin as a frame of reference)? What did this piece remind you of (could be a composer, piece, image, scene, or something else)? Any overall suggestions for improvement (in this piece and in general throughout my compositions and style)? I haven't tried to get this performed (yet), so for a recording, I just sightread the score this morning, worked on it for a bit, and then recorded it with my phone. The recording isn't super great, but it will definitely give you a better picture of the piece than Finale MIDI, even if it sounds like this. I'm also attaching the score below, so feel free to follow along. Thanks for listening to Ballade! I hope that you enjoy it. 10 November 2022: I've attached an edited score along with a recording. I'll leave the previous score (not the recording; it's not letting me have two mp3s), but be aware that "Ballade in F minor Score.pdf" is the edited score version. Also, my preemptive apologies for the poor performance of the coda. Ballade in F minor.mp3 Ballade in F minor.mp3

Masterfully-spooky composition

Your kind and thoughtful feedback genuinely made my day and you have my immense gratitude for that! 🙂

This is an absolutely wonderful piece. It's very motivicly dense, which shows a very strong understanding of form and craft. As a lot of other people have pointed out, it strongly resembles Beethoven in certain passages, though I don't think this detracts from the work as a whole at all. As with others though, I do find the textures a bit dense. Though you seem to be aware of that and are planning to add more contrast by way of later movements. One thing I haven't seen people mention, however, is the passage from Measures 142-151, which to be reminds me of Schubert with it's repeated rhythmic figures slowly building into the outburst of (I think?) the recapitulaion. Overall a truly masterful piece, I look forward to hearing what comes next with this composition.

Ill definitely be participating.