Gluck Thing

Hello everyone!

Here's a chamber piece I wrote a while back.

The brief was to write something in response to Gluck's 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits'.

It starts reasonably elegantly then quickly spirals into mischievous chaos with an irreverent disregard for Gluck's compositional ideals!

Do have a listen if you get the chance and tell me what you think!

Thanks very much!

Jamie

Wow...This was really nicely. The arrangements was nice and the use of each instrument was done very cleverly and subtle. It has a Danny Elfman feel to it. The transition from light to dark was executed well as I did not notice any spectacular chordal jumps. It kept me captivated throughout. As it transitioned into the darker parts there were still familiar parts of the first half that kept it flowing smoothly.

Nice work!

Be careful with 9-8 suspensions and 7-8 suspensions when the bass is in inversion; it can really muddy up the feel. Suspensions also do this.
The skippy parts are quite pleasant, but are unfortunately are plagued by some random stops and awkwardly resolving whole tone harmony. The chords in the buildup to these fast sections were very awkward sounding and it didn't sound intentional. 
Overall, it really is nice and atmospheric, though it's your job to keep us there! Cheers!

Hey - thanks for replying so quickly! You are sterling people!

Glad you liked it LostSamurai. The transitions were intended to be pretty jarring, so if you had noticed spectacular chordal jumps I would have actually been delighted! :) And yes, happy you were able to follow the motifs as they went on their little journey.

Thanks for the very helpful critique Monarcheon! Yes, these suspensions are indeed imperilled by mud, especially in slightly more busy orchestrations like this. I'd tried to keep things reasonably lucid while at the same time having a sense of mess, but I didn't quite get the balance right. And as for the peculiar rhythms and lydian and whole tone stuff, I very much wanted that awkwardness! So, much of what possibly doesn't work, I'm afraid I willfully chose it! Very insightful comments though, you obviously listened to it with splendid ears and mind!

Much appreciated!