Conversation for String Quartet No. 1

Finally I have a piece to road-test the new format of the website, and am able to finally post it after several unsuccessful attempts: my second "Conversation", my first for string quartet. And if I may say so, I consider it one of my profounder musical utterances, and therefore fit to mark the special occasion of the unveiling of the renovated version of our website. I hope that you will be able to enjoy hearing it.

Here is the link to my first Conversation, For Oboe and Clarinet:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/archive/music/listen/8190/conversation-no-1-for-oboe-and-clarinet/

Can I be honest? I don't really like it that much. Melody transfer has a huge place in compositions that try to do this kind of thing, but I didn't hear it turn out all that well. Near the end there's a lot of crossed voices and clashing tones and the beginning feels empty and, to me, confusing rather than engaging.

That's only my opinion, and who am I to tell you that you shouldn't be proud of your work? Keep at it!

Cheers;

Thanks for your review and opinion Monarcheon. I appreciate your honesty and your humility in considering your criticism only your opinion. I admit that the final part's "clashing tones" take some getting used to. However, you must keep in mind that this is a "conversation". In the beginning, which you characterized as feeling empty, it is the instruments taking turns in making their contributions to the conversation. In the end they are all contributing at once but not always in harmony, resulting in the tone clashes that you noted.

P.S. I must congratulate Chopin on the new system of "Works With Few Reviews". I just found out that two of my works that had had no reviews at the time of posting several months ago had just gotten reviews. Before this new system, those works would probably never have gotten any reviews.

Echoing Monarcheon's opinion, the piece feels more like an "argument" than a " conversation". Granted, the instruments take turns at the beginning - it's just that the topic doesn't seem to be very exciting or memorable, doing which the concept, very clever in itself, could be better executed. Then the instruments increase their pace of exchanges and ultimately "talk" over each other, very much in a "clashing" way - but, since the initial subject wasn't that sticky, one gets the feeling of a dialogue spinning out of control.

Generally speaking (and this piece being no exception), the shortfalls most reviewers have pointed out in your works have little to do with their whimsical nature, the philosophical concept behind them, or their stated goal. I can think of "sententiae" and "conversations" as valid artistic genres as themselves, without any question. What is puzzling for some of us is their execution, since the success of a given concept depends a lot on the particular, engaging elements which make a specific composition to stand out as an example of it (think Mendelssohn's Songs without Words or Liszt's Symphonic Poems). You've been able to pull out the feat with good results in some of your pieces, but tend to fall flat in others, and this inconsistence leads your work as a whole to be underapreciated.

I'd suggest (if you were willing to take any friendly advice) to go back to your more "successful" pieces and look at what you did, and try to carry out the traits of these pieces into your newer works, so that the quality of your output can be more consistent. By doing this, you can deploy and reinforce your musical individuality while allowing listeners to know what to expect (perhaps in the same way that Berlioz, Debussy, Satie or Ives managed to master their craft while remaining staunchly individualistic).

Good luck!

Thanks Austenite for your review and advice. As this is only my second example of a "Conversation" piece, I think I am still exploring this genre. I hope to be able to compose better examples of conversations in the future.

i liked some of the ideas that you show us in this piece, but when i thought the music was just started it was over.
As a little piece it is fine, but i think you have some nice material to develop and make something a bit bigger. I would made take a look at the voicings. like the others sayd, sometimes the are "confusing", and mixed.
But it's nice. sounds good and i'm sure it would be fun to play. Just feels like it needs some more developing.

:)

I actually like this a lot, excepting the last 3 measures which to be frank, just sound like a mess of notes with no coherent structure. I think you have a good theme here which could use a lot of developing. Primarily when the viola comes in I was waiting for that to actually go somewhere, but then it abruptly cuts out and back to the cello, and ends about as quickly as it began. I don't know how many one minute "conversations" I've had, and this piece is just begging for some more work to be fully fleshed out. I would say that the structure of this piece seems to favor a string trio (Violin, Viola, Cello) over a string quartet, unless you have a really good reason for the extra violin to be there.