[CELLO] Меня зовут Мартен (My name is Maarten)

Hello everybody!

Here is a little piece written for an assignment with the theme ''Self-portrait''.
I was assigned the cello as the instrument to write for. The duration of the piece had to be approximately 1 minute.

The piece shows my most obvious characteristics: I am full of energy, but I can also be very still and I can be driven by my emotions quite a lot, haha!
The Russian title of the piece Меня зовут Мартен is, because I notice that Russian composers like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovksy inspire me a lot.
What do you think about the piece? Any comments on the cello writing too?

Thanks for listening!

Maarten

I don't know you in real life, so this is like a piece of you. You wrote it talking about yourself.

It's a very little nice piece. Lots of expressions, catchy and profound, too. I guess you have checked all the technical issues... So difficult the cello!

1 hour ago, Luis Hernández said:

I don't know you in real life, so this is like a piece of you. You wrote it talking about yourself.

It's a very little nice piece. Lots of expressions, catchy and profound, too. I guess you have checked all the technical issues... So difficult the cello!

 

Thanks for commenting!

Yes, I know that the part is difficult for the cello, but is it impossible or so difficult that it is recommended to adjust the music?

m. 2: do you want a retake on that F? There's going to be a space in measure 1.
m. 4: do you mean portamento? That means something with the bow, that we use dashes for, instead of the weird glissando marking you currently have.
m. 9: left hand double stop pizzicato is unnecessarily difficult.
m. 13: your current bowings don't work out for this measure from the prior ones.
Andante appasionato: a lot of your bowings can be split here. Good cellists can mask the change.
m. 23: Why left hand pizzicatos? Doing one in 1.5 position, then first position is extremely frustrating.
Allegro energico: the bowings are awkward here, just as in the parallel section.
It's not impossible, but no cellist is going to do all the markings you wrote.

53 minutes ago, Monarcheon said:

m. 2: do you want a retake on that F? There's going to be a space in measure 1.
m. 4: do you mean portamento? That means something with the bow, that we use dashes for, instead of the weird glissando marking you currently have.
m. 9: left hand double stop pizzicato is unnecessarily difficult.
m. 13: your current bowings don't work out for this measure from the prior ones.
Andante appasionato: a lot of your bowings can be split here. Good cellists can mask the change.
m. 23: Why left hand pizzicatos? Doing one in 1.5 position, then first position is extremely frustrating.
Allegro energico: the bowings are awkward here, just as in the parallel section.
It's not impossible, but no cellist is going to do all the markings you wrote.

 

Yes, I want a retake and some space is fine.
I think I then misunderstood the term portamento. I want a glissando on the fingerboard. Should i just write 'glissando'?
The reason why I notated a left hand pizz. is because I thought there was not enough time go from arco to pizzicato. Is there in fact enough time? Then I will change that.
I have changed the bowings. Could you please check the piece again (attached to this post).
The choice for some left hand pizzicatos is that the rhythm becomes very fast, so my intention was to facilitate this by using both hands. Any way, I changed it.
The bowings have been changed.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Feedback is the greatest thing a composer can get!
 

Gloss is just fine; unless you want a minute amount of space. Port is something different.

Never do double stop left hand pizzicato. Normally, unless the pizz's are stepwise on the same string, you're going to want left hand pizzicatos to be only on open strings. There are exceptions but that list would be very long and specific. The passage you have is better, but a good cellist would not require the left hand.

1 hour ago, Monarcheon said:

Gloss is just fine; unless you want a minute amount of space. Port is something different.

Never do double stop left hand pizzicato. Normally, unless the pizz's are stepwise on the same string, you're going to want left hand pizzicatos to be only on open strings. There are exceptions but that list would be very long and specific. The passage you have is better, but a good cellist would not require the left hand.

 

Alright! 

I will remember that. Thanks!

Recording!

6 hours ago, ilv said:

Nice little miniature piece. In terms of pizzicatos, left hand pizzes are good when there's little time to go from arco to pizz. Long pizz passages should be executed with right hand pizz with time to go from arco to pizz and back to arco.

 

Thank you!