Everything That Grows

This is my submission to Danish's Summer Shakespeare contest. I hope that I put everything in its right place.

I don't know if these submissions can be commented. I suppose yes...

What a great job! Surprisingly, I love it. Usually works with this "antique" sound don't excite me too much. It's not I don' like baroque or classic, or medieval music; it's just that I think it's quite difficult to add something to what was written in those years. However, in this case, the music is so fresh, so "easy" to hear (it's a compliment, I mean this music flows straight from the ears to the heart). It's like an "inner" dance, the tempo is not very fast, but happy.

It is also a pleasure to see and study your score. It's so beautiful (well, I find double pleasure when I listen to and see). I notice your great work with the harp, I have no idea about using this wonderful instrument, I suppose the notation is linked to how to use it.

Congrats! I always love your music, every new work is surprising.

Really great piece. I love older instrumentation, and I'm always interested in newer works that use them. The music is like a joyful dance that evokes similar feelings as the original sonnet. They both seem to me to be a mostly pleasant consideration of the natural things in the world, including humanity itself, only occasionally and briefly dipping into the darker aspects of time and how it quickly it destroys the things that grow. Great job!

Thanks, fellas, for your comments! That's probably all I should say for now.

Like Luis said before me, I've seldom been a fan of medieval music and ensembles. But what you've done here is nothing short of wonderful. The music has all the fresh scent that I find lacking in most ancient music, and you've written it in a way that sounds natural rather than contrived or forced upon. Long before listening to this I was looking forward to what you would come up with, and not only wasn't I dissappointed, but completely caught off guard by both the idea and its execution (I find the harp notation particularly accomplished, and won't even dare to hold a candle to you on the guitar). No doubt, this competition has brought out the best of many people here, and you're no exception.

Great job!

Austenite, thanks so much for your comments. I am also not a fan of Elizabethan music. I never seek it out, I don't keep any on hand, and I have no desire at all to study it or start listening to it now. But for this competition I never would have gotten the idea to write in such a style. But it was fun! And I learned a lot about the harp.

I don't know if you know this, but Beethoven was an excellent improviser and he often had to play the salons and sometimes share the stage with dilettantes and one trick ponies that somehow had gained favor with the aristocracy. So in a sort of 19th century "battle of the bands" Beethoven followed one such rising star on the piano. The crowd loved him - the dilettante - then it was Beethoven's turn. He grabbed a cellist's music, put it on the piano and turned it upside down. Then he played its crude little melody and improvised on it for fifteen minutes. Well, everyone knew what had just happened. Beethoven just proved that he could take a piece of crap and make something good out of it. This kind of thing inspires me because it's not the source material that is important. It's what happens when its developed. Inspiring, right?