Allemande in C major for Unaccompanied Cello

Hello everyone!

This is an allemande in C major for solo cello that I just finished. It is my second suite dance piece for the cello (the last one was a minuet). It is in [:A:][:B:] binary form and 4/4 common time. The first part is 14 measures long and modulates from the tonic, Cmaj to the dominant, Gmaj . Part B is 22 measures long and goes through more modulations: Cmaj -> Am -> Em -> Am -> Cmaj.

Any feedback or suggestion is appreciated! Hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening!

gorgeous writing, is this part of a suite?

from a notation standpoint are you aware you can add odd bars into you're piece so like at the very beginning the notation sent so odd? just something to consider, I look forward to hearing more form you!

I enjoyed it very much. It sounds "sincere". Beautiful.

It is a nice Allemande!  Will you write a Courante for it?  I once wrote a whole dance suite for string orchestra although it might be lost now.  I'll have to look for it.

6 hours ago, Bradley Scarff said:

gorgeous writing, is this part of a suite?

 

from a notation standpoint are you aware you can add odd bars into you're piece so like at the very beginning the notation sent so odd? just something to consider, I look forward to hearing more form you!

 

Thank you so much Bradley Scarff! It is not part of a suite yet since this was just my second attempt at any dance suite style piece (and, sadly, the minuet solo cello I did before was in F major and not C major). I plan to keep on composing on all the other suite pieces forms so I might try to compose them in C major with related motivic material. Not sure yet how that will turn out, though. But eventually I would surely like to turn this Allemande into a suite. 

I did not know about the odd bars! Thank you so much for letting me know! I will check that out on Sibelius and update the video!

6 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I enjoyed it very much. It sounds "sincere". Beautiful.

 

Thank you so much Luis Hernández! I am really glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the comment!

6 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

It is a nice Allemande!  Will you write a Courante for it?  I once wrote a whole dance suite for string orchestra although it might be lost now.  I'll have to look for it.

 

Thank you PaperComposer! I plan to write a Courante, Sarabande...etc, but since these are being my first attempts at each, I was not planning to relate them to this Allemande in key nor in motivic material, but I might think about it.I do plan to write the whole Suite for this Allemande in the future though, when I feel confident for it.

Did you share the string orquestra suite in the forum? I will look for it! If not, consider sharing it here if you find it! If you have any advice for writing a whole suite let me know! 

Thank you for commenting!

14 minutes ago, JorgeDavid said:

Did you share the string orquestra suite in the forum? I will look for it! If not, consider sharing it here if you find it! If you have any advice for writing a whole suite let me know!

No it's not in this forum.  I wrote it years ago before I joined YC.  I might have it saved on an old rewritable CD - I'll try to find it.

I guess it depends on whether you intend to have the dances and the dance suite as a whole be more true to their Baroque roots or if you want to modernize them.  My only advice for writing a dance suite is to treat it like a symphony where each dance is like a movement with it's own unique character and key (in the Baroque era they were all the same key but when I wrote my dance suite I changed keys and also alternated between major and minor).  Usually there's some kind of macro-tonal plan for the keys - or you could simply gravitate towards closely related keys.  Also, check out this video:  The Baroque Dance Suite - it also gives some more modern examples of the dances mentioned.  The Bourree in E minor mentioned in the video is also a piece I recently learned on guitar during the corona-virus quarantine.  There are other dances that could be fit in between the Sarabande and Gigue such as the Polish Polonaise.  The Italian Tarantella is a dance that is in many ways similar to the English Gigue as well.

I hope you have fun!  I'm sure I will enjoy listening.

When writing my dance suite I did some research about what characterizes each dance and makes it different from the others.  Besides the fact that the Allemande is in 4/4, the Courante in a fast 3/4, the Sarabande in a slow 3/4 and the Gigue in a fast 6/8, there is plenty of room to interpret the characteristics as you wish.  Sometimes certain dances are expected to have certain rhythms or a specific number of pick-up notes (like the difference between a Bourree and a Gavotte is supposed to be that the Gavotte has four 8th note pick ups while the Bourree has two) but one can find plenty of musical examples that do the opposite of what is expected.  Of course - feel free to do your own research and come to your own conclusions - just my 2 cents (-:

3 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

No it's not in this forum.  I wrote it years ago before I joined YC.  I might have it saved on an old rewritable CD - I'll try to find i

Make sure to share it if you happen to find it, I am sure it must be really good! 🙂

Thank you so much for the video about the baroque suites! It is really useful as a summary of the common dances that appear in a baroque style suite. Also, I had not though about composing a suite in a more symphonic way, with each piece considered as a movement with different keys. I should consider that too! So far I have mostly studied only the Bach Cello Suites so I have to admit I am not really well-versed in modern ways of composing suites. I will need to check some modern composers suites out!

Regarding the research of the suite and its form, I am studying the Cello Suites of Bach with the aid of a book called "Bach's Cello Suites: Analyses and Explorations" by Allen Winold. It is a book I recently discovered but I am really enjoying it and I think it goes quite deep into the different characteristics of the dances. As you say, most dances are defined by the time signature, the binary form and sometimes the tempo, but beside those general traits there seem to be a lot of room for variations. In the book some other features, quite insignificant most of the times, are defined (the author only take into account Bach cello, french and english suites and partitas for defining these features). For example, in  Allemandes Bach tends to start with anacrusis and also to end each part with a post-cadential one measure melodic line. I tried to keep those two features for the sake of it, since they are not really form defining. In the end, as you said, there is a lot of freedom when composing these dances, which is something I love!

Thank you so much for all your advices PaperComposer!

Bravo, very catchy motifs and also very Bachy. Congratulations!

3 hours ago, Guillem82 said:

Bravo, very catchy motifs and also very Bachy. Congratulations!

 

Thank you so much Guillem82! 🙂 Congratulations to you again for that nice first symphony you posted this week!

Beautiful! It has such an interesting introspective feel at times and the harmonal was a delight. It inspires me to look more into baroque dances. 

12 hours ago, DarrenEngland said:

Beautiful! It has such an interesting introspective feel at times and the harmonal was a delight. It inspires me to look more into baroque dances. 

 

Thank you DarrenEngland! I am glad you enjoyed it! 🙂  Thanks for commenting!