Piece for flute and cello in Eb

A short piece exploring contrasts between legato and staccato. 

Nice job!  I like the deceptive cadence and phrase extension you added to the end of the B section.  The contrast between the staccato and legato sections is effective as well.  The only thing is that I expected the B section (staccato) to go on for a longer time before the recapitulation of the A section (legato) came back.  The proportions between the time spent on the A and the B material is totally skewed in favor of A.  Seems like you should spend more time on the contrasting section.  Just a thought.  Thanks for sharing!

5 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Nice job!  I like the deceptive cadence and phrase extension you added to the end of the B section.  The contrast between the staccato and legato sections is effective as well.  The only thing is that I expected the B section (staccato) to go on for a longer time before the recapitulation of the A section (legato) came back.  The proportions between the time spent on the A and the B material is totally skewed in favor of A.  Seems like you should spend more time on the contrasting section.  Just a thought.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Thank you for your comments, very much appreciated and I agree with you, it was skewed to favour the legato section so I extended the 4 bar staccato phrase to an 8 bar phrase and shortened the legato recap to 4 bars. The flute was a little whispy at times so I transposed it up to FM too.

Nice job!  I think it sounds more balanced!

Really fun piece! I think you did a pretty effective job of showing the staccato/legato contrast. I like this kind of simple, whimsical major two-part harmony – it reminds me a lot of Petzold's Prelude in G Major. I also think the flute and cello sound really great together. Good call on the transposition, it does make the flute sound brighter.

If you were looking to improve the piece further, I'd suggest a little modulation might be a good way to do it. In the Petzold piece, he modulates to the dominant in the first half of the second section before going back to the tonic. You've kind of done something similar in bars 15-16 with that B natural, but it doesn't really seem like a modulation, it feels more like just an accidental. That's just a thought, though – it's a very nice piece as is!

2 hours ago, Alexander Reiger said:

Really fun piece! I think you did a pretty effective job of showing the staccato/legato contrast. I like this kind of simple, whimsical major two-part harmony – it reminds me a lot of Petzold's Prelude in G Major. I also think the flute and cello sound really great together. Good call on the transposition, it does make the flute sound brighter.

If you were looking to improve the piece further, I'd suggest a little modulation might be a good way to do it. In the Petzold piece, he modulates to the dominant in the first half of the second section before going back to the tonic. You've kind of done something similar in bars 15-16 with that B natural, but it doesn't really seem like a modulation, it feels more like just an accidental. That's just a thought, though – it's a very nice piece as is!

 

Thank you for taking the time to review my music and for your kind words.

Composing short pieces in a single key can kinda work if there's enough contrast between the two sections but I think there is a fine line and the ear can tire of the same chords quite quickly. In this piece I've probably reached the limit of a single key but it is subjective. Looking at the score I seem to flirt with modulation with the use of a dominant dominant which I suppose adds a little extra flavour.

On 11/16/2020 at 12:52 PM, Papageno said:

Thank you for taking the time to review my music and for your kind words.

Composing short pieces in a single key can kinda work if there's enough contrast between the two sections but I think there is a fine line and the ear can tire of the same chords quite quickly. In this piece I've probably reached the limit of a single key but it is subjective. Looking at the score I seem to flirt with modulation with the use of a dominant dominant which I suppose adds a little extra flavour.

 

I agree; I think there is just enough contrast, especially between the A to the B section. However, I would suggest making the beginning of bar 7 a D minor chord, switching to C major on beat 3, then to the tonic in bar 8. Having 7 be the tonic chord as well as 8 makes it more difficult to tell if the section is ending. It resolves a little too early, in my opinion. Another thing is that at the end of 31, I think the cello could jump down an octave since the top and bottom voices tend to want to move in opposite directions. 32 is great as it is.

Other than those couple things, I think this piece is really well written and fun! I'm glad I decided to take a minute out of my day to listen to it. 🙂

Nice job. I believe you have changed the name of your account, Darren. I heard some of your earlier stuff and can see marked improvement. One of my preferences when composing minuets is to modulate to the dominant towards the end of the A section. This allows one to focus already on modulating back to the home key towards the end of the B section. Most minuets from that era have this tonal structure for this reason. 

Id quite like to work with you on your journey, as you clearly share my inspiration of this era. feel free to private message me if you have any questions or suggestions. 

21 hours ago, MissCello said:

 

I agree; I think there is just enough contrast, especially between the A to the B section. However, I would suggest making the beginning of bar 7 a D minor chord, switching to C major on beat 3, then to the tonic in bar 8. Having 7 be the tonic chord as well as 8 makes it more difficult to tell if the section is ending. It resolves a little too early, in my opinion. Another thing is that at the end of 31, I think the cello could jump down an octave since the top and bottom voices tend to want to move in opposite directions. 32 is great as it is.

Other than those couple things, I think this piece is really well written and fun! I'm glad I decided to take a minute out of my day to listen to it. 🙂

 

Thank you very much for your feedback back and suggestions, they prompted me to revise the score and improve the cadences. 

16 hours ago, Markus Boyd said:

Nice job. I believe you have changed the name of your account, Darren. I heard some of your earlier stuff and can see marked improvement. One of my preferences when composing minuets is to modulate to the dominant towards the end of the A section. This allows one to focus already on modulating back to the home key towards the end of the B section. Most minuets from that era have this tonal structure for this reason. 

Id quite like to work with you on your journey, as you clearly share my inspiration of this era. feel free to private message me if you have any questions or suggestions. 

 

Thank you, Markus. I will do 🙂