Duet for Violin & Viola

This is my second piece I'm posting here. I started working on it when I was at a bit of a writer's block with regards to my quintet piece, then took a short break from it to finish my quintet off, and then finally finished it off a little under a month ago. This one is much more melodic and structured compared to my previous composition, and I tried to focus on having it be less complex and rather more beautiful and open to interpretation/expressiveness. The idea in my head while writing this piece was, as cliche as it is, love. Movement 1 represents a blossoming love, Movement 2 represents these two as happy newlyweds (still excited with the freshness of their relationship), and Movement 3 represents the same couple much older and wiser, but still happy and loving. Hope you enjoy!

Hi

I felt almost compelled by your notes to listen to your work (I was going to do it anyway).
In general terms I like it a lot. The simplicity is effective. For example, the beginning of the last part (adagio) is surprisingly simple but beautiful.

I don't need to clasify everything I hear, but sometimes it helps (me) because I see things that seem proper (or less proper). For example: I'm very fond (too much!) of dissonances, but in this style (tonal and classic), the flat 9 interval is odd (m. 111, m. 119-120).

I think this is between classic and minimal, or, if you don't like the term, a music using repetitiv structures.

The whole structure is also nice. There's only one thing I miss a little: modulation. Not sure (I have to listen to it again) but it seems it's all the time (or almost) in the same tonality (Ab).

Hey there, again.

For me personally, it may be a little too simple, in that it seems very set on simply being stagnant throughout. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but none of the movements really develop enough for my personal tastes. 

In the first movement, I'd suggest watching out for crossed voices, as with duets they sound a a bit too novice-like. 

You play viola, right? I'm a little confused by your bowing choices for a lot of this. Like in the second movement, after your intro measure, you have them start on an up bow? That's a little odd, or so I would think. Maybe you're just better at bow control than I am, haha.

Double stops! They're your friends especially with only two instruments, also considering you don't have a real "bass" sound in this piece. The whole thing sounds... "surface" to me, and doesn't delve as deeply harmonically or structurally as I would expect from a piece about love.

Cheers!

16 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Hi

I felt almost compelled by your notes to listen to your work (I was going to do it anyway).
In general terms I like it a lot. The simplicity is effective. For example, the beginning of the last part (adagio) is surprisingly simple but beautiful.

Thank you!

16 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I don't need to clasify everything I hear, but sometimes it helps (me) because I see things that seem proper (or less proper). For example: I'm very fond (too much!) of dissonances, but in this style (tonal and classic), the flat 9 interval is odd (m. 111, m. 119-120).

Interesting, I didn't consider that.

16 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I think this is between classic and minimal, or, if you don't like the term, a music using repetitiv structures.

The whole structure is also nice. There's only one thing I miss a little: modulation. Not sure (I have to listen to it again) but it seems it's all the time (or almost) in the same tonality (Ab).

 

Yeah I mostly tried to center the piece around Ab, though now that you mention it giving some tonal variation would be far more interesting. Thanks for your criticisms.

13 hours ago, Monarcheon said:

Hey there, again.

Hi!

13 hours ago, Monarcheon said:

For me personally, it may be a little too simple, in that it seems very set on simply being stagnant throughout. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but none of the movements really develop enough for my personal tastes. 

Interesting. If you don't mind me asking, how would you develop a piece like this to avoid it becoming mundane?

13 hours ago, Monarcheon said:

In the first movement, I'd suggest watching out for crossed voices, as with duets they sound a a bit too novice-like. 

Good point, and will do.

13 hours ago, Monarcheon said:

You play viola, right? I'm a little confused by your bowing choices for a lot of this. Like in the second movement, after your intro measure, you have them start on an up bow? That's a little odd, or so I would think. Maybe you're just better at bow control than I am, haha.

Personally, I would consider something like that the job of the violist to figure out bowing wise. Like if I was playing this I would do a double up bow or do a retake, but I feel that's something to leave up to the performer's personal preference in deciding what they will do there.

13 hours ago, Monarcheon said:

Double stops! They're your friends especially with only two instruments, also considering you don't have a real "bass" sound in this piece. The whole thing sounds... "surface" to me, and doesn't delve as deeply harmonically or structurally as I would expect from a piece about love.

This in particular is really good point that I just hadn't really thought much about. In general I feel I tend to underutilized double stops (maybe it's because I hate playing them, haha).

13 hours ago, Monarcheon said:

Cheers!

 

Thanks a ton!

Like Luis said, mess around with the tonality a bit. If you listen to the 3rd movement of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony, there are parts where he really goes off the rail with chords in a very "love-theme" type way, and keeps it lush throughout. Of course, there are some times were it does get a little boring, and for the same reason... it hovers around A major too much. You'll see what I mean!