Concertino for Classical Guitar And String Orchestra

I composed this Concertino for Classical Guitar and String Orchestra (in three movements), one of my more ambitious compositions, around 8 months ago. I had intended it for performance by a guitarist friend who sometimes performs with orchestras. However, that has not materialized yet. So here it is for your enjoyment. It is the first concertino I have ever written.

Hi

This is one of the pieces that have reappeared with this new system in the forum.

In general terms, I thing this peculiar style of yours doesn't work as well as in the soliloquies. The main fact is that the strings are running together in a vertical sense all the time (almost). I don't see, then, five families of strings, except for the amplification of the timbre.

In the Adagio you use a chord by 4th very often, in fact is a chord of two notes: D-G-D-D-G... It sounds like "ancient Roman music". Next, a resolution towards a chord made by G-G-G-G-D... It is ambiguous, is this a Gmaj withuout third? -well, the minor third sounds somewhere else in the measure. I tell you this because I like it, ambiguity is a good tool many times.

The last part has a beautiful motive, but it happens the same: the strings appear or disappear just to emphasize the motive.

On the other hand, the guitar has lots of polyphonic capabilities. Here it is used as a monophonic instrument. Well, that's your choice, of course.

In conclusion, and it's only my opinion, this kind of approach to music works much better when the center is the melody. This concertino was devised thinking about the melody, so the strings here have a minor role.

Thanks Luis for your review. It is good to finally have a review of this Concertino, one of my rare pieces for any kind of orchestra. I agree that I might be more successful with soliloquies. However, I liked this piece as one of my best and most ambitious pieces with orchestra. Concerning the guitar being used as a monophonic instrument, that might be true of most of the piece; however as you will see in the score, there are some parts where the polyphonic capabilities of the guitar are used. I agree that this is a concertino where the melody predominates and the strings' role is mainly supportive. I appreciate your feedback. I hope that this piece will one day be performed.