Polonaise in Bb, Feedback wanted

Hi

1. Is the bass in the A section of the A section(bars 1-8 and 23-30) too dense? It's OK for me. It has the rhythm of a polonaise.

2. In the consequent phrase(bars 5-8), is the bass too close to the melody? Should I bring it down an octave? I'm just asking here because I noticed the bass and melody come close enough to form chords in my consequent phrase. In m. 6 the melody is mixed with the other hand. I would rise the melody an octave, instead, at this point. In m 28 and 29 the voices are crossed, it's not good.

3. In the B section of the A section(bars 9-22), am I handling my chromaticism correctly or not? It sounds a bit weird here. In m. 16 you have many non-chord tones together, and with the Bb in left hand you have a tritone (Bb-E), when Bb is played you need a consonant note (D for example). In the other measure he tonic F clashes with F# although it's a secondary note, its doubled. With C in left hand you have F a fith it's OK but we don't now it the chord is F or Fm or Fm7 ? It's ambiguous.

4. Is it too much of me to expect a pianist to play a polonaise rhythm in octaves for the whole B section of the A section? I think a good pianist can do it. But, it's my personal opinion, I don't like writing octaves unless necessary. Many octaves break the effect.

5. Do I smoothly transition into the inversion(left hand becomes right hand kind of inversion) or not? When does it happen?

6. Is my A section too repetitive with 2 periods and a motive sandwiched between the 2 periods and the repeat sign? I'm not very fond of entire repetition. I think that's a technique of the past. When I repeat a period or something like than, I always make changes.

7. Is 30 bars enough for the A section of a piece that I expect to be 200 or so bars long, or should I extend my A section further? Why do you think of the length of the piece? I prefer to focus on the material. I don't care if the piece is finally short or long. Long pieces with poor development ( I mean variation ) are boring.

On 8/24/2019 at 12:51 PM, Luis Hernández said:

In the B section of the A section(bars 9-22), am I handling my chromaticism correctly or not? It sounds a bit weird here. In m. 16 you have many non-chord tones together, and with the Bb in left hand you have a tritone (Bb-E), when Bb is played you need a consonant note (D for example). In the other measure he tonic F clashes with F# although it's a secondary note, its doubled. With C in left hand you have F a fith it's OK but we don't now it the chord is F or Fm or Fm7 ? It's ambiguous.

Well, a lot of the chromaticism that I hear in Chopin is scalar, the type of chromaticism I have in my polonaise. For example here:

Tons of chromatic scales used throughout the polonaise.

Also, my chromaticism is based on a motive, which helps unify the B section of the A section of my polonaise. I basically have miniature chromatic scales going on over a relatively diatonic arpeggio or scale, and sometimes that scale or arpeggio has a polonaise rhythm unto itself, like in bars 15 and 17.

On 8/24/2019 at 12:51 PM, Luis Hernández said:

In the consequent phrase(bars 5-8), is the bass too close to the melody? Should I bring it down an octave? I'm just asking here because I noticed the bass and melody come close enough to form chords in my consequent phrase. In m. 6 the melody is mixed with the other hand. I would rise the melody an octave, instead, at this point. In m 28 and 29 the voices are crossed, it's not good.

So instead of lowering the bass by an octave and getting perhaps a muddy sounding bass, I should raise the melody up an octave. That makes sense. Better to have a wide melodic leap than a muddy bass.

On 8/24/2019 at 12:51 PM, Luis Hernández said:

Do I smoothly transition into the inversion(left hand becomes right hand kind of inversion) or not? When does it happen?

The inversion happens at bar 15. What was previously in the left hand is now in the right hand and vice versa.

Could you reupload the piece I can not find it in musescore.

4 hours ago, Carl Clausewitz said:

Could you reupload the piece I can not find it in musescore.

 

I just happen to have the PDF and MP3 of this polonaise as it is right now with just the A section, so I will just attach those directly to my reply.

I'm going to answer while I listen.

Is the bass in the A section of the A section(bars 1-8 and 23-30) too dense?

Well, that depends on who is listening, for some people it could hide the melody a bit and make it lose some protagonism and focus.

In the consequent phrase(bars 5-8), is the bass too close to the melody? Should I bring it down an octave? I'm just asking here because I noticed the bass and melody come close enough to form chords in my consequent phrase.

No, it is okay, a third of distance is still a secure interval, and you have more than a third of distance, many composers do that, one of them who does it a lot is mozart, also if you down it an octave it will create a very large skip that would be incomfortable to play

In the B section of the A section(bars 9-22), am I handling my chromaticism correctly or not?

Most of the time, chromatism is used to created, secondary dominants and passing notes on the melody, feels a little odd because it doesn't add to much to the harmony more than a mere ornament.

Is it too much of me to expect a pianist to play a polonaise rhythm in octaves for the whole B section of the A section?

Well I have do that for a whole piece xddd, for a intermediate pianist shouldn't be a problem

Do I smoothly transition into the inversion(left hand becomes right hand kind of inversion) or not?

I haven't noticed until I read that xd, in your B section is a little obvious but that's because of the octaves, if you want to hide it a little just make it a single melodic line, to conserve the caracter.

Is my A section too repetitive with 2 periods and a motive sandwiched between the 2 periods and the repeat sign?

A little, more variety in the motives would help, it sounds like the melody is just repeating the bass

Is 30 bars enough for the A section of a piece that I expect to be 200 or so bars long, or should I extend my A section further? 

if you want to make it 200 bars long 30 measure aren't enough, unless you make yor other sections of 60 measures or so, I don't know which form are you going to use.

I think the bass is too thick at the opening -and that could be a problem (though I'm sure a decent pianist will, no doubt, compensate it). 

I'm not sure why you chose to put the chromatic passage in the bass either. Also, why so early? And, why in octaves? That's going to be a thick sound that will muddy up the sense of tonality -which it does do to some degree upon listening. 

That said, I love the thematic material. G minor is an awesome key to work with. 

Chromaticism to me is an embellishment (shocking yes, since I dont wrote tonally anymore).