BipolarComposer

A brief journey through my mental state.

A clown getting into trouble.

A good encapsulation of my mental state the past year.

Because

This was one of my first orchestral pieces. It was inspired by the tales of Marco Polo’s journey to China. It’s split into 3 parts, with part 1 being the journey to the east, part 2 being life among the Mongols, and part 3 being the Khan’s court at Xanadu. As many historians believe that Marco Polo embellished or even completely fabricated his tales of China. I wanted the music to have a very fake Chinese music feel to it.

Part Shostakovich Tenth Symphony… part Prokofiev Lieutenant Kije Suite… part Stravinsky A Soldier’s Tale. Very well orchestrated and thematically structured. Nice work!

Thanks for the kind words! It starts off with Oboe and English Horn calling back and forth, then the Bassoon takes the melody. When that melody comes back, it’s on the French Horn.

This is the fourth movement to my little suite, which finds the Tin Soldier separated from his ballerina, and floating down a gutter on a paper boat. The structure is a pretty simple ABAB, with a few changes here and there.

This is something that started for full orchestra but I wasn’t happy with it. I scaled it back for just 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and bass and I’m much happier with it now.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but this actually reminds me a little of the piano concertos of Camille Saint-Saens, crossed with a lot of Rachmaninov. Over all very good, the piano part is very well written and the orchestration is nicely done. The one thing I found lacking though, is that you never really allow the piano to have a truly lyrical moment. When you bring in that more lyrical theme, you immediately shift the piano back to a more virtuoso passage. Even when the piano takes up that theme, it’s still very showy/virtuoso. Sometimes it’s the note you don’t play that are the most meaningful! Other than that, great job!

A little song without words inspired by the mid 80’s

This started off as a funeral March for full orchestra, then I decided to scale back the instruments, and it went in a different direction.

These are each built around the same interval that begins the piece, with also some borrowing of melodic lines here and there.