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We must pronounce restaurant differently. I've always pronounced it "rest-raunt", as long, long. I never realized there were Americans who pronounced all three syllables, I thought that was a british thing. Anyways, I find that I quite often break the rule you're talking about. Because even though the word is pronounced as [stressed, unstressed] I find myself wanting to extend it. I imagine it as a trailing off at the end of the phrase, with an assumed softening (rest-raunt) that I find natural in the way I might sing these lines, with less forward motion, specifically with no intent to move forward, but rather hold to a pitch. I'm curious as to whether after this explanation you still disagree with me. Because this has become something I have accustomed to doing, hearing another perspective would be quite helpful. I've also edited the score a bit, mostly minor harmonic stuff, singability things.

An astute comment if ever! Agreed, and I suppose it's an exercise and something to aim for among beginner to intermediate experience composers (if you'll pardon those descriptions, please). I also agree with about 5 minutes being a reasonable time for a concert piece. Perhaps there are cases when a piece may go on for longer but they should be the exception. Maybe a concertante movement since there are soloists still around. I half-heartedly tried a single movement Sinfonietta (which I thought was ok but failed with inadequate rendering), then a Symphony which was unsatisfactory so I kept just the middle movement as a lone piece. I've no intention of writing another unless it's for fun - light music, e.g. Don Gillis' Symphony 5 1/2. Like many musical forms if you include dances of the same era, they're now outdated, relics from the days of the Sunday concert being "higher-brow" entertainment. Minuets, Sarabands, Bourees...enjoyed by the elite and the effete. This doesn't mean that these forms or the associated music shouldn't be the basis of composition, as long as the composer is aware of their provenance. .

Frankly, and I know I'm in the minority here, but most long-form musical works are simply vanity projects in an era where rich people no longer pay you to compose them. I do not know that I have ever listened to any symphony in its entirety, in a single sitting, no matter how good it is. Honestly, most pieces of music longer than 5 minutes really have no business being that long, and starts to either descend into an unnecessary amount of variations and repetition, or may as well be multiple pieces. Elvis had over 20 #1 hits and I don't think any of them were longer than 3 minutes. This was in the '50s and '60s, when we are told people had longer attention spans. I feel there is an important thing to learn there. Most people here don't seem to be film composers or TV, but rather aspiring concert composers (at least from what I've noticed) and thus they don't really realize just how much story can be told in 1-2 minutes. In most cases, that is plenty long enough to say what you want to musically, in one coherent idea. So in short: I don't have any plans of writing a symphony. Right now, I'm putting the finishing touches on an album of adventure orchestral music for TV. The company requires at least 10 tracks, but if I'm being honest, I do feel like I said what needed to be in 8.