Alexander Reiger

Back when I was into creative writing, I tried my hand at writing a fairytale set in a fantasy world based on ancient China. The story was about a young princess locked up in a tower by her father the king for refusing to be married off to a foreign prince. I never got around to finishing it, but it did inspire me to write this piece. The style is heavily inspired by Joe Hisaishi, one of my all-time favourite composers. All feedback welcome!

Very soothing and Romantic (capital-R) piece! Feels to me like there's kind of a Beethoven/Chopin/Debussy mix going on there. Great work!

Nice piece! Your melodic writing is lovely, and I think the strings-woodwinds-piano combo works very well together. My main criticism is that the orchestration seems pretty sparse at times. I think it works well in some places (like bar 56 until the end), and it's nice to contrast sparser bits with lusher ones, but I think it would be nice to have more of a background texture going on in more places, to really convey the 'soundworld' of the nature scene you're trying to evoke. You might want to add more woodwinds and/or a larger string section to help with this (up to you of course). Other comments: I'm not a huge fan of the repeated woodwind notes in the opening, and that woodwind unison in bars 62-63 would sound better as a chord, IMO. Thanks for sharing!

@Luis Hernández thanks! Glad you liked it 😊

@PaperComposer thanks, I'm so glad you like it! 😊 Natasha is a ballerina actually, that's why I chose that picture (although the waltz isn't necessarily meant to go with an actual ballet dance). Thanks for your recommendation as well, hadn't checked out the Aviator soundtrack before but it's great! @Rabbival507 thanks for the feedback! Never thought about it much before, but perhaps I should experiment more with irregular structures. I think that the way I conceived it, the extended middle part (the 'C' section of the rondo) acts as the 'break', before moving back to stability as represented by the recurring 'A' theme. You've given me something to think about there though, so thanks! 😄

Ever since I started composing, I've always been interesting in programmatic music – music that tells a story or represents an existing one. This waltz was inspired by Natasha Van Meer, a character from my favourite novel, 'Special Topics in Calamity Physics' by Marisha Pessl. This isn't strictly a programmatic piece in the sense of following the exact events of a story; it's more of an attempt to summarise the character in musical form. More details about that in the score's programme notes (but please feel free to listen without reading them!). As always, any feedback welcome!

Great little piece! Really impressed at how well the expression comes across even despite the Sibelius soundfount quality. Kinda wish it was longer, but I guess you managed to express all you wanted to within those 30 seconds (which is pretty impressive in itself). It does have a very Halloween vibe to it – I particularly like the way the piccolo and bassoon complement each other, it really adds to that 'haunted woods' feeling. Just a note on the scoring – I think that when you have a line of single notes on a paired woodwind staff, you're always supposed to indicate who's playing (a2 if both, otherwise 1. or 2. respectively). I saw you did that for the bassoons at the beginning but not anywhere else, which leaves it ambiguous for the players. Also, I believe it's usual to specify the number of players (e.g. '2 bassoons' instead of just 'bassoons'). That's all – great work, thanks for sharing!

Sounds really awesome! I can totally imagine this on stage. You've really succeeded in evoking the 'alien' theme with the harmonies and orchestration. Hope to hear more songs from this project in the future! (I'm also trying to write a musical at the moment so I know the struggle 😂)

@PaperComposer thanks for the feedback! I guess I was trying to spice it up a little with the chromaticism, but perhaps you're right about it being out of place.

I really liked this piece, it sounds great! Wonderful, expressive melody, and I really like your mode mixtures in the harmony. The chromatic descent in bar 25 gave me major Joe Hisaishi vibes (Hisaishi is one of my favourite composers). Loving the unapologetic key change as well 😋 My only criticism is that it's a little too repetitive – both in terms of the melody and the accompaniment, but especially the latter. I think it would be an improvement if you changed the melody a little at times, and tried varying the rhythm of the accompaniment. Also, perhaps this is just my preference, but I feel like this piece deserves a full symphony orchestration. In fact, I might like to try orchestrating it one of these days, if you don't mind?

One piece of practical scoring advice: always beam the notes according to the beat. It makes it so much easier for the pianist to read. For example, here's bar 18 in your score: And here's how the notes should be beamed: Also, as you pointed out, some of the chords may be difficult to play for anyone who doesn't have Rachmaninoff-sized hands. (Not that that's stopped Rachmaninoff's pieces from enjoying lasting popularity on the concert stage, though, so I guess it's up to you 😁). Other than that, really fun piece! I enjoyed listening to it a lot (especially since I noticed our names are almost identical 😜). Thanks for sharing!

One of my early piano pieces. I hadn't originally conceived it as such, but after I played it to my dad he mentioned that it sounds kind of Chinese (and I realised that it does use the pentatonic scale quite heavily) so I gave it this title. Just a fun light-hearted little piece. Feedback welcome! I'd be especially interested to know if anyone has comments on the way I change the thematic material when repeating it.

I feel like this piece has a lot of potential. With some reworking, I think you could create something really good. I enjoyed the long sweeping melodies over 16th-note accompaniments. I also like how you mix these up with slower contrasting sections. It's good to give the ear some variety. I absolutely agree with Rabbival507's comments regarding thematic material – while the ear needs variety, it's also best not to introduce too much different, unrepeated material as this causes the piece to lose its cohesiveness. Perhaps you could try thinking in terms of sections (A, B, C etc., like in a rondo) – that's an approach that I've found works for me. Maybe you can try to work out a simple structure for a piece (eg. A-B-C-A-B) and vary each section to a greater or lesser degree when you repeat it. Now, in terms of playability, I'm not a violinist/violist so I'm no expert, but I'll repeat some general advice my composition tutor gave me: when in doubt, it's good to make it as easy as possible. Your piece seems to have a lot of double stops – I'm not sure how easy those are to play. That's just my instinctive reaction, though – you mentioned you're a violinist so I'm sure you have more insight than me. Hope this helps! I did enjoy listening to this piece and I hope you continue to develop it.

@maestrowick thanks so much for your detailed feedback! I'm glad you liked the piece 😊 I'd heard the same thing – perhaps the UK and US have different conventions?

A waltz I composed several years ago, which was originally a piano piece until I reworked it for string orchestra earlier this year. I'm trying to evoke a specific mood with this one – something beautiful but dangerous, elegant and alluring yet simultaneously threatening. As always, any feedback is welcome!