Alto Saxophone concertino No.1 in f minor ‘Batterij’, Op.14

Alto Saxophone Concertino No.1 in f minor ‘’Batterij’’, Opus 14

Dear reader / listener,

I composed this concertino on the 14th of July for a national composition competition in Holland. The piece is about my black-out, which I had last school year. The composition is originally written for members of the Jong Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (Young Dutch Wind Ensemble) and me as soloist:

Alto saxophone; oboe; clarinet in B-flat; horn in F; bassoon.

Feedback would be very nice, because I have not received much useful feedback from the judges at the competition.

Kind regards,

Maarten Bauer (16).

Nota bene about the video: We had to practise the composition in less than fifteen minutes, so there are some mistakes. In my opinion it still sounds better than when it is played by a computer.

It's nice. I'm not sure how much you were trying to follow the classical rules, since you often do, but sometimes don't. It certainly sounds rather conservative. Parallel octaves and improper chord voicing (no third sometimes) are both issues if you were trying to do so.
A lot of forced and abrupt changes in my opinion. I've never had a blackout before so I'm sure if this was intentional, but it really sounds awkward here. The piece doesn't have to be programmatic.
The partials on the saxophone and the partials on the oboe are similarly piercing, and the crossed voices sometimes compete with each other too much.
m. 22: oboe with the appoggiatura not in the score?
Last measure: you go for one more quaver?
It's honestly quite good, not much to say about it. Very sound writing.

Thank you for listening and giving feedback, Monarcheon.

You are right about the ''classical conservative'', but also a bit programmatic, sound of the piece. The music of Beethoven, Mozart and especially Schumann and Schubert have had a huge influence on it and that is maybe why it does not entirely sound classical. I have not focussed on voice leading yet, but I will soon take a look at it.

The reason why the changes may sound abrupt and forced is that there was a time limit of four minutes, so there was almost no space to connect the parts smoothly. Of course this is no valid excuse.

The oboist played a wrong note at m. 22. This is not meant to be an appoggiatura, so it is not written in the score.

In my opinion the last quaver gives an extra unexpected boost to the end of the piece. 

I am glad you liked it overall!

Maarten Bauer

This piece is painfully short.  That's a bad thing since you have a great start!  Expand this, you have some great material here.

I look forward to hearing more!

3 hours ago, maestrowick said:

This piece is painfully short.  That's a bad thing since you have a great start!  Expand this, you have some great material here.

I look forward to hearing more!

 

I totally agree with you! The time limit of the composition competition was only four minutes...

When I have finished my piano concerto and saxophone transcriptions, I will look at the concertino again.

Thank you for listening.