Henry Ng Tsz Kiu

Hey @Mooravioli! Thx for your timely review! You’re never late to review (my) piece here! I don’t know how I get the pentatonic in the last refrain. I just got it in one take when trying to finish the whole movement at December after I just resigned my freaking job. Maybe it’s my own way to escape the reality haha…. To further elaborate my response to @PeterthePapercomPoser, the repeated chords are composed under agitation, so it may sound too loud haha. I just went for it without thinking any of the consequences and found in b.87, “oh I reach G minor”, and my mind suddenly wanna twisted that passage to E major, a false recap, and twisted it once again in F minor with the whole dramatic sequence pushed up a minor 2nd. It’s just a composing adventure for me, I never intended to have the movement went like this to be honest haha! For my practicing piano, in fact I didn’t practice much until these two months after I quitted my full time job. However it’s still not long practicing session every day, as I wanna do other things as well. I lost my interest on my three piano pieces learned for an exam as well, so I played my own movement and would learn other new pieces. I didn’t play this well (of course not very well) when I graduated. I only improved my piano skills after teaching piano, weirdly without practicing piano at all. Maybe because my musical understanding improves, my piano skill improves. The 3rd movement would be the last for this Sonata. Stay tuned! Henry

Hi @nostalgia, I like the opening texture with tone clusters in left hand and the harmless melody in the right hand. It sounds like while you are contemplating in your right hand the rain is mesmerising in the left hand. I like the development as well. I like at the end the mind is not disturbed by the somber mood finally. I think b.21 and 22 is not playable at all by most pianist with the right hand playing a tenth simultaneously, unless you don’t need them to be played together. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus, I like your arrangement here. It sounds more like Bach’s Crab canon in his Musial Offering than your original version. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hi @nostalgia, The three pieces sound interesting. I like how you mark clearly which hands to play the chords and notes. The third one sounds like Mario for me haha. I think they are definitely playable, only a bit difficult, after all they are etudes haha. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hey Alex, Thx for your review! It is at least easier than the other two movements haha! Yeah I will keep use this linkage of Locrian and pentatonic in the 3rd movement as well. I don’t know where I get the idea from haha. Henry

Yeah so I suggest you changing the alto, not the bass....😅

Yo Vince, Thx for your very encouraging review. 🙂 Yeah I never like forcing my originality by being original for the sake of originality. I always think that you will attain originality only if you have something original and distinctive to say, otherwise that originality is just artificially. Hopefully I can find my own voice one day, I feel very happy and grateful that you are moved by my music. Some people tell me that I”m too unrealistic a person and live in my own world. I do and probably will in my life. I can only be myself. The third movement has some passage inspired by playing your preludes, so thx for that haha! Henry

Hey @PCC, Thx for your 2 reviews! Yeah the b.76-112 is quite hard to play in a run, so I quite a lot of mistakes there in my recording. B.69-75 is not that hard for me as I play much of Brahms’ op.117. Bell sound is featured in his no.1 and 3. The 2nd episode just use previous elements: a rising fourth figure come from 1st movement and the falling fourth motive from the 1st refrain C sharp minor melody, and the Locrian scale in the intro. I won’t change the b.18/34 chord as with a preceding C sharp at the bass it would sound too much confirming to me. I wanna lessen the cadential sound there. You mean the 2nd episode or 2nd refrain?😜 Thx for your reviews! Henry

Hey Mike, (not intrusive to say “Hey”), I don’t know why I write with more and more Pentatonics. It seems like I’m more attracted to it after writing the pentatonic passage in the fourth movement of my Clarinet Quintet as hinted by @Thatguy v2.0. The intro is quite out of place, except the rhythmic motive and the first half of it keeps being used in the 2nd Episode. I think of removing it to maintain the coherence, but at last I keep it. The opening theme is written without any emotion at all LoL, and I never realise its beauty until probably a year later. At the time of writing it it sounds weirdly official and a routine slow movement melody to me, but that can be a bias. I now know it’s quite good haha. The melody in 2:40 is the one I love much more, since it contains the painful emotions I suffered last few months. I am afraid the harmony is too simple but I decide to keep it as the melody with the flourishing notes and counterpoint is already quite complicated. The 6:10 is the false recapitulation of the opening theme. I like the way I twist it to F minor. And all those key changes are easy, they are octatonically related keys. I just let the music go where they want and I almost have no control on that haha! The 8:35 breathing point as @PeterthePapercomPosernoted is deliberate. I want the pentatonic keeps flourishing and it makes the sufferer forgets his own suffering by just hearing the pentatonic notes, like one forget his own pain when noticing a utopian world. Thx! I always put coherence as the most important aspect in my music, since without it my music would be just fortuitous sketches combined together. Thx for your recommendation haha! Henry

Hi @gaspard, Another two very lovely piece in Renaissance style! Lovely performance too. I have nothing much to add. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hi @Symphonic, That bii chord in 1:11 sounds very nice to me. Next it becomes more like his op.10 no.1 with those arpeggios, with fury. 2:25 sounds quite nice to me too, which sounds like the recap in the original piece. I really love the 4:45 passage when the melody reappears and the left hand is like the prelude G major accompaniment. The augmentation in around 9:00 is lovely too. Your playing is absolutely amazing. Those slips don’t affect your music a bit with those passionate tone. For me I less like those passages between the appearance of the theme, since it sounds a bit unrelated to the theme, but I think it’s inevitable for an improvisatory performance. Another is personal. I don’t like the Picardy 3rd ending haha, although you use the middle passage of the nocturne very well. I just love the original tragic ending too much haha! Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @panta rei, I think this one is really graceful and a bit sad with the F minor. I especially like the counterpoint you have in the middle passages when you let both the soprano and alto to take the melodic lead. The harmony in b.41-50 sounds very nice. For me I think maybe the middle section stays a bit too long on B flat minor, but that’s personal. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi Ivan @Ivan1791, This sounds fxxingly great Ivan! Since I compose no orchestral music myself so I think there’s nothing to change! B.10 sounds really like that famous oboe solo in Beethoven’s Fifth! Thx for sharing Ivan! Hope you get more fun in your orchestral arrangement and make yourself happier. Henry

Hi @Samuel_vangogh, I really like the mixolydian used in the music. The counterpoint sounds nice, and the quartal chord as well. B. 19 sounds like English Renaissance music to me as well! I think you portray a great mysterious mood here. Maybe you can make the themes more apparent too, but that’s personal opinion since the less apparent theme definitely helps the mood. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @MJFOBOE, I quite like the orchestration. I think the opening rhythmic motive is used a bit too much. Henry