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Greetings. This is my very first post on the Young Composers community, and I would like to share one of my piano compositions that I had composed several weeks ago. This piano piece is a polonaise, which was written to imitate Frédéric Chopin's compositional style. Due to my busy schedule, I did not have the time to practice and record this piece. So instead, the audio file was exported from MuseScore 2.3.2. Any feedback would be appreciated, and I hope you will enjoy it! Carl Koh Wei Hao

Revision of one of my old contrapuntal exercises for a small ensemble. The subject was given. The slurs in the score are only meant to indicate phrases. Still needs some tweaking.

@Henry Ng and @chopin, thanks for listening! Henry, The pathetique sound is exactly what I was going for in the intro because I don't want the story to end happy or sad for the listener - I want it to feel ambiguous and emotionally driven. My main goal of the piece is to leave all interpretation up to the listener and to let them create their own story. The sound will be more full with nearly 62 string players: 16 Violin I, 14 Violin II, 12 Violas, 10 Cellos, and 8-10 Contrabasses. I get my numbers from Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of Orchestration in case anyone was wondering. I am worried about the English Horn being overpowered by the low brass. I'll add a decrescendo and sotto voce in the brass to a pianissimo to try to combat this. Extended in the wind section? I have an idea of what you're talking about because it does feel abrupt. I did want there to be a change in character at this point. Maybe the Flutes, Clarinets, Contrabassoon, and Horn could end the phrase better and decrescendo? For Chopin, No need to worry, I promise the intro will be expanded upon. It will return later in the piece as falling action and more of an ending rather than an introduction. I really wanted to introduce the main theme in the Cellos and establish it as the centerpiece of the work. Thank you very much for your pointers. I will be sure to heed your great advice and make the most of the orchestra. It's only fair to do so for the audience and players. The Violas and Bassoons make a great pair for a tenor melody. I would go as far as saying Bassoons can be paired with nearly anything and it gives the melodic/harmonic line such great depth. Might be a stretch, but I will attempt to make this a very long work. I don't like prolonging sections unless there is a good reason for it. I'm looking at anywhere between 20 to 35 minutes for the time being, but who knows. I only have a rough draft of a musical map for the time being. In Mahler's symphonies, I do sometimes feel that I've heard a section for long enough and that I'm ready for the next part. However, the wanting for the next part only makes it better when it finally arrives. The final movement of his 2nd Symphony is a good example. Thanks, Patrick

The piece will be Christmas-themed, written in my style, but it won't deviate much from the Romantic style. I will be posting it in a few days or hours. Stay tuned!

Hey thanks for the feedback! Yeah, this is my first foray into romanticism, and I admit I don't really have much background into understanding romantic harmonies. I do try to reflect the romantic style as much as possible, although I perhaps approached this composition with a more classical mindset. Glad you enjoyed the piece nevertheless!

That will be amazing to hear! Will that be also a chopinistic piece, or piece in new style?

This is a string quartet, more or less in a Classical style, that I've just finished, after working on it in fits and starts for years. The intention, in part, was to explore the integration of Baroque contrapuntal writing into the Classical idiom, a la late Beethoven. Any comments or criticisms would be most appreciated. Thanks!

My first impression of the waltz is that it wanders aimlessly up and down the range of the keyboard. It seems ironically happy-go-lucky in a way, but then your repetition in a minor key gives a welcome contrast to that. In general your repetition in various different keys is what makes your seemingly aimless melody work pretty well. And your half-starts give a nice and graceful variation to the melody too. Good job! The second movement does sound very sweet and lovely and like Brahms. I do think that the alberti bass in certain spots sound out of place and too suddenly classical. The third movement contrasts a somewhat melancholy first theme with one that's once again overly happy and overusing the tonic, subdominant and dominant chords. This movement I thought was perhaps the one with the most depth, but the Romantic period in music was usually expected to portray more deep emotions than you've done with these pieces in general. I did enjoy this movement the most of the three however. I often wonder whether people compose by working on the first thing that comes into their head, or if they labor for a long time in search of just the right kind of melody that they want to actually finish. Just saying, if you came up with this relatively quickly you might benefit from more searching. Overall, these were still quite enjoyable however - don't let anything else I said lead you to believe otherwise! Thanks for sharing.