sebastian

Hi... Of course that the frequent changes in the time signatures are arbitrary! But that doesn't mean that they are random... I wouldn't call it hidden genius at play, but there are a lot of reasons for which I chose certain measures, like palindromes and fitting melodic lines, preferably in a measure of uneven number (the prime numbers being of significant importance from an esoteric point of view and others). I don't have the time to discuss every measure - even though I would love to, but I can assure you that the frequent changes in time signatures are not random... Thank you all for your nice comments!

Thank you guys so much for your time and words... :blush: I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! Theoretically, this piece is supposed to be played in Germany, next year... But, as I said, I've become a bit sceptical, and I just hope that it will be played... I will let you know! Again, thanks a lot! Sebastian

Hi... I started composing it at the beginning of July and I finished it a couple of weeks ago. My former professor of harmony - from highschool, told me about this conductor who was looking for some almost-modern works for a fix orchestral apparatus. I started working at once, even though I'm beginning to be more sceptical about these offers. My only concern was to compose a piece in which I could be free of any constraints (the fact that it was supposed to be less-modern wasn't a limitation). I've only wanted to have fun writing it. And I needed a little break from Sonata of a murder :zip: . The title is intentionally written like that, to let the viewer/listener understand what he/she wants. (You can see the title like this if you want: A story... about <>) I hope you will have fun listening to it, and maybe even enjoy it! :happy: Mp3 O poveste... despre! Score O poveste... despre!

Hi! I like how you manage the repetitive force of ostinato... But try not to resume your compositional capabilities to copy/paste technique. Maybe you've already done this, but try to play with your motifs (use inversion, recurrence, play anagrams with it... :P ). Also, I would suggest to pay a "little" more attention to your harmonies, especially to the dissonant ones. I will not talk about playability... or about your score... At your age is a great thing that you keep composing, and your music is full of energy and life! You have enough time to organize and keep your scores clean! ;) (Just my opinion...) Although, if you plan to have your pieces played, you could pay more attention to playability! Congrats!

Thank you Heckelphone, I will keep writing as long as you'll do! You compose beautifully and I'm really curious of your evolution as a composer! Hi... Thank you for your time Weca... Unfortunately, that's bad :( , at least for me... I knew when writing at it that there will be some similarities, but I really tried not to say the same thing (or the least, in the same manner). Anyway, I think it's a bit too early to state that someone has a "recognizable style" after 2 "share-some-traits" works. Hi Nikolas... I hardly wait your review! I know that the score needs a lot of work... It would be great if you could also point out some graphic flaws I might've missed... Thanks a lot guys, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Pieter, of course you may perform it, all I can do is... wish you luck? :toothygrin: Sebastian

Hi! I hope the title didn't horrify you... If it did, it wasn't my intention. The sonata form was imposed for my final exam at composition, last semester, finished in June this year. The idea of depicting such a "human" act was born after reading Crime and punishment by Dostoyevsky, but the project gradually and rapidly inflated into having multiple meanings. So, yes... This is a programmatic sonata, but it doesn't stop here. The perspectives vary from philosophical to religious and social, maintaining a dramatic stream of programmatism. It's obvious why it has programmatic content, but I have to mention that it isn't a strict and whole depiction of Raskolnikov's story, I merely tried to evoke his inner and outer world (after all, a world of conflict, dispair and emptiness) and to immortalize his premeditated murder(s). The subject of murder (homicide) is exhaustless in the ideative world of Philosophy. Now the definition of this act - the killing of one human being by another - can be extrapolated to all things! Because all things (that we know of) are affected by time. And time means curriculum - course of actions, cycles, cycles imply duality (dichotomy) and the transition from a part to its opposite can be visualized as an "apparent death" fallowed by a "rebirth" (or "resurection"). In nature this "death" occurs naturaly (like the seasons - winter=death, spring=resurection), but the human mind can came up with stories in which the Sun is killed by a god, or the Sun will never arise if they didn't sacrificed enough animals on the Winter Soltice, hence the idea that we killed the Sun. There is the dichotomy between light and dark, warm and cold. In the abstract world, we have the old vs. new, an important and vital dichotomy that assures progress (although it is known that not all novelty is benign). A new idea threatens the old and safe tradition, and usually one of these two kill the other. Sometimes transitionally, other times violently... So if the lugubrious side of "murder" (the actual meaning) imposes drainless matters into discussion , the more interpretative side of the deed (the metaphorical meaning) brings up substratums from all arias, both synchronic and diachronic leading to numerous myths and beliefs. In the reprise I inserted the Prohod (Prohodul), that is the name and chant of the burial ceremony of Jesus Christ. The religious factor was intended long before the ending of the sonata. The "light vs. dark" duality is immediately transfered into our minds to its interpretation that is "good vs. evil" (the oldest story in the book). My intention though, was to emphasize the importance of the murder and sacrifice of this event/story. The cruxifixion of Jesus Christ was a human act, a deliberate act, through choice and free will, and allowed by the Creator - the Father, through sacrifice. Paradoxically, through this act, man is saved from Hell, and he is offered the option of Heaven. Here is a crime (murder) comitted by the creation - Man, allowed by the Creator - God, against the Son of God with the sole purpose of saving the created. The substratum of this wisdom is present in the mythical space, where an artisan commits the ultimate sacrifice to save his work (in this myth, Manole, an architect, paved his wife into his building - a monestery, to make it everlasting). The social crime, the cycle of cycles is all around us... We just need to look... I want to mention that these are just my personal views and interpretations and there is no intention of offending or depriving one of having his own ideas and beliefs. There is a postface where I've explained myself (even more :blush:), but it's in Romanian, and I hope that what I wrote here is enough. I'll try my best to answer your questions, if there are any... PDF Sonata unei crime - PDF MP3 Sonata unei crime - MP3 P.S. In the score I chose to write two endings, leaving the interpret to choose, being a matter of "free will" afterall... The mp3 has only one ending, choosing the one my influences liked, but, if I were the one playing it, I would've chosen the other one...

Congratulations! Very moving... I really savoured it... Bravo!

I honestly thought about doing a related orchestral work... Because I just adore this Great Mechanism that is The Universe... Or Multiverse, to be more precise! :P Our Universe is the best symphony ever written, a model to every creation we concept! I think, this is the reason I composed The Fundamental Forces of Our Universe, to approach the same Universe, but from a different perspective, a different scale... And I do agree that there is so much more to a Supernova... At a first look it implies the known dictum: Destruction is a form of Creation... When I wrote it, I didn't had the knowledge I have now about the phenomena... It would be interesting to make a second Supernova! :D Thank you for your time! Sebastian

Thank you for your time and for your opinion! :) Sebastian

Hi Mike! I've changed the link! It will work now! Hi Scriabin Sunset! First of all thank you for your time listening to and commenting on my work... If you look at the date, Supernova was posted in 2006... And I was 17 years old... My point is that all these were already said and you might want to try other works of mine that are more recent! :) I do not agree on the fact that there are no discernable melodies, au contraire. They are not memorable because, back then, I wasn't interested (unfortunately) in development - symphoneta as I was after phonascus - which is the opposite, coming up with new melodies. For example, only in the first minute there are at least 3 melodies, not counting the motifs... You say lack of memorable melody, I say abundance of melodies. The subject of memorable melodies is highly subjective, and it implies repetition (variation) of a sequence of sounds and/or rhythms. A memorable melody does not imply musicality, expressiveness, depth... I'm not saying that my piece has these attributes, not even close, I'm just saying that memorability is not and should not be a pursuit, if the music does not ask it... The piece has many flaws, but I do not think that the lack of memorable melody is on of them... And Yes, it could've been shorter, but it was the exhiliration of the copy&paste technique that overwhelmed me :P . As a side-note, John Williams is not one of my favorites composers... Though I enjoyed his Cello Concerto... Thanks again!

Hello... This is a private message I've sent to darkangel2008hk on the 27th of july... First I want to congratulate you! I'm glad that you're looking for novelty, I see that you used here the alpha chord (A - C# - E - C; you can add a G , it will be complete ;) ), Bartok used it a lot, Ligeti, Stravinsky and many others after them... Now... If you do present this to a professor, you could take care of your score a bit... But that's not so important... The music is... You've exploited here the zero in music, which is great and bold... Of course, I'm referring to the musical pauses! But... It's like playing with fire... If you do use the pause as an important element in your piece, you must assure that it would make sense... Like, for example, a conversation between two characters... There has to be a pause somewhere! So the pause here is essential, it's a part of the whole! If you were to put in music a conversation, many pauses would make the subject interesting, provocative, who knows what subject? Imagine now, your piece is a conversation... :hmmm: Would you like to be part of that dialogue? What I want to say through this analogy is that the pause - a non-interesting element - ask for its opposite - an interesting and rather alive element! Of course you can have the static element for a while, but not for the entire piece! And to be more specific, I refer myself to the copy-and-paste technique that you continue to use... It's ok to say again what you have said, but you should never say it the same way... Because in real life, is the same... Try to play a piece twice, and see if you can do it in the same way... There will be at least a small difference... You're not bound to A-C#-E-C or to F#-A-C-E... Use the same structures but use other notes... like E-G#-H-G and add or remove notes... Try to evolve your music, or make it remain static in an interesting way! The rhythm... I see that you do not use exceptional divisions like septolets, or quintolets (I don't know how to spell it in English, sorry... Hope you understood though). As I said, if you want a ABA structure, or a ABABA, or a sonata, try to bring a change to the returning section! Think of the seasons... Every year we have a spring (let's pretend that there is no global warming) but each year is different, other events happen that year, it's not like we're going back in time, right? The same is in music, I presume... But, as nothing is absolute, you can repeat the A section exactly as it is, if you have a strong reason, or if the music ask it, or if you're... lazy! :P I do have some pieces that repeat the same things, and now I found them dreadful... It's pity to not try to let the music become what it's meant to be... Listen to more music! More and more! I should do the same... We all have to do so! It's good what you write, but I don't think that you are satisfied with that, aren't you? So keep trying, as we all do! Good luck!

Hi darkangel2008hk... I hope that the story with your brother beating you it's a bad joke...:( About the music... I will try to help you through honesty, and not through false praise! There are some pretty good ideas here and I quite enjoyed them! Like the section around measure 100, with that morbid piano atmosphere, it's really a brain wave! Also around 187... Very powerful, you do have the juice for that kind of energy! Good for you! But... It's interesting... I've seen, by chance, your comment on one of the pieces here where you questioned the status of the composer... You said that, first of all, the composer is a human being, and that you must "see" your music from the listeners perspective... I wonder, have you "seen" this work from the audience perspective? Or from the interprets' perspective? What would the percussionist say? Or the harpist? Or... the conductor? I will let you answer those... rhetorical questions... Also, I would advise you to quit the copy & paste "technique"... Only if you want a minimalist work... then you are encouraged to do that! I will confess that, in my previous works, I was too lazy to bring something new in the second A (assuming it's an ABA work), or lying to myself that it's what I wanted, so copy/paste was a good way to elongate my musical piece. Quantity doesn't equal quality. If you want a certain sound - like those rapid notes at the timpani - and the instrument (the real one) cannot offer you that (always consult an Orchestration treaties) look for an alternative! Your orchestral apparatus is pretty massive... You do have options! Also you have some alternative measures that doesn't make sense... If they exist, they have to have a purpose! You know what I mean... For example you have a measure of 1/2 followed by a 3/4... Why the first measure isn't a 2/4? Use alternative measures when the music ask it, not the desire to look "modern/contemporary", although alternative measures are quite "classical" now... :P You have the ideas, you have the desire, but do you have the patience? Look for the most critical and impartial individuals and try to resist their criticism! And I'm not referring to blogs or forums... Go to as many professor as you can and show them your works and try to filtrate the advices that suit you. But do not be stubborn and say that the timbres are what i want or things like that... Listen to as many composers as you can... chronologically or not and be critical to yourself! Try to taste from everything and then create your own "sandwich"! :laugh: Good luck and congrats!

Thanks blackballoons! I'm glad you liked it! :P

Hello... I just wanted to share with you the joy of winning a prize at a composition contest... :blush: I participated at this contest: Site Informal al Concursului International de Compozitie "De la Romantici la Contemporani" with The Fundamental Forces of Our Universe and with another piece that I will post it as soon as possible... Apparently, this suite entered in the final stage... I was a bit surprised because my other piece promised a lot more (according to my taste and my professors'). The Weak Nuclear Force and The Gravitational Force were played 2 times in my Conservatory, by a professor of mine, who will play the same pieces on the 26th, when the prizes will be given. Unfortunately, the 2nd and the 3rd pieces hadn't yet been played because of the time-consuming difficulty... But I hope that they will be, in the near future! Thank you all for your time! Sebastian

Hi! thanks for your comment About Gravitation... My idea of this force might not be accepted by many... The fact that the virtual particle of Gravitation (the graviton) is so weak is explained by some scientists through the "M" Theory (previously, the String Theory). Here, the Gravitation is as strong as the other 3 forces, even stronger. The reason why we feel it so weak is because it doesn't affect only our 4 dimensional universe (time included) but also other dimensions. It's like a pluri-dimensional force. And it seems that this might also solve the mystery of this phantom particle, the Graviton. Again, I'm no expert... Is just what I've understood from my documentation. I'm just an amateur that enjoys quantum Physics. :) Again, thanks! Sebastian