Classical Symphony - Movement I

Hi all,

Been working on this for a while as an exercise in sonata form and, specifically, development. Since it was an exercise, I kept the language very tonal so I didn't have to worry about dealing with more contemporary techniques.

Would love to know what you think.

Thanks!

yep, very Classical indeed.  I still would like more counterpoint though.  

Use Doublebass instead of Contrabass and you don't have t write C Trpt for the abbreviation. Just use trpt, the conductor will already know. 

Hi Maestro,

Thanks. I was actually being deliberately homophonic with this one. I was working on fragmenting and recontextualizing material and felt like I would get bogged down compositionally worrying about too much about counterpoint.

Point taken about the trumpet marking. I'm a band guy and used to writing for Bb Trumpets. Old habits I suppose.

On the bass part, I don't even remember why I used the archaic marking for Cello and Bass. Maybe I was in an anachronistic mood that night. But I'm used to seeing Double Bass as two words instead of one. I checked the orchestral layout section of Behind Bars and it uses a two word spelling. Is there something I'm missing?

that's find.  Violoncello is the appropriate word though; use it.

The audio player cut out on me half way through, but I got the general idea. 

You pretty much got the sonata form down, so no complaints there. It's interesting in the 1st B theme section, you chose to go to E flat major rather than D major. I think what you did works well within the context. The development section was also very good, though I felt there was a slight tone/character from what came previously. The orchestration textures and harmony made it sound like something Tchaikovsky would write...but it wasn't too bad. Harmonically, there were a couple of odd-ball dissonances thrown in randomly...was kinda odd. I agree with maestrowrick, counterpoint can really enhance this piece.

Orchestration was good. Personally, I would do away with the trombones. You're string bass writing seems to be on the higher range side, I think some of the passages should be brought down an octave to double the celli (an octave lower). I've seen Contrabass and Double bass notated in scores, although I do prefer using "Contrabass" myself. 

Hi @danishali903,

Thanks for the feedback. Quick question: Do you happen to remember where the dissonances jumped out at you?

This is amazingly detailed. Good job!