Symphony in C Mov. III - Allegro molto

Here's the third movement scherzo of my symphony in C. I'm composing the work in the spirit of Beethoven. He never wrote a scherzo in a minor key for a major key symphony so I thought that would be an interesting direction to go in. This is a piano recording of it, I'll orchestrate it after it's done. I hope you enjoy it, one more movement to go!

7 hours ago, ilv said:

Great job. Keep it up!
Happy orchestrating.
P.S. It sounds great as a solo piano piece.

 

I'm really glad you enjoyed the piece. Your encouragement means a lot to me. Thank you! :) 

I found this movement much better than the first. I love the tonal scheme in the scherzo: a to d to E-flat//B-flat to a. The extensive use of and focus on D minor in the recapitulation was a clever touch, I thought, and the return of A minor comes across as a sting-in-the-tail. Definitely loving how you have managed to transform a conventional point of return into something so witty. Certainly, it makes sense to have the trio in F major, the submediant of A minor, given the emphasis on the Neapolitan (also the rising fifths from E-flat to B-flat to F [and in the next movement, to C!]); even then, F is so strongly highlighted in the main theme. And, of course, A minor is the submediant of C major! I love how you feigned the return to the scherzo in the middle of the trio, but it is a sleight of hand that works only once; I know why it's there twice (because you repeat the 'second half' of the trio literally), but the structure of the trio is flawed, since you already have a 'rounded binary' that closes in F for the 'first half' (with no repeats or cadential articulations, and the ending of the A section and the very brief bridge being run-on? That could work as a clever play with conventions, but ... I won't go so far as to say that the entire trio section comes across as a misreading of how Beethoven repeats the trio twice, with the 'dance' interspersed, in the 'dance' movements of some of his symphonies, e.g. nos 6 and 7 ). If I were to do it, I'd expand the 'first half' here (i.e. trio proper), and continue from the feign in the 'second half' here as if I were repeating the 'first half' (trio proper) again, but veer off subtly and prepare for the return of the scherzo.

Other advice: I would have loved to hear the rhythmic elements more carefully incorporated into/delineated by the structure, because the syncopations appear to be all over the place, although that's fine in its own way, and I think some of the sections could do with some tonal tightening, but I'm not prepared to give any advice on that front without having analysed the music first with the aid of a score. But it's good work as it is. Again, my quibble is that the weaknesses are plainly audible to anyone who's put in their time for analysis; you might want to consider picking that up further to help with composing this kind of stuff.

Some 'peccadilloes': you really should get rid of the parallel octaves and consecutive (unequal) fifths around 0:37 to 0:38 (the two bars with C-Ab-F and Bb-G-Eb in the bass), and wherever else.

Well done; congratulations!