Persia II - for string quartet, a "sequel"

This piece Persia II is a "sequel" to my "Persia" from 2011.

Some of you in this forum suggested I'd right a suite or something in that direction, so I decided to try it.

I do not want feedback on my old piece (Persia) in the YouTube link. I'm only attaching it so you can listen and hear the connection between the two.

- Does this sequel "Persia II" work as a part two?

- Will it be playable at written tempo? I want it to be the same tempo as "Persia", so it will feel as a double time.

- See what I did with Da Capo? 🙂 Could it work?

Hi Olov,

I think this exemplifies some quite idiomatic writing for the string quartet!  I like the pesante feel and your melodies are good.  As a kind of general criticism I have noticed that you pretty much tend to hover around your home key without modulating.  I think if you modulated to another key after stating your main thematic material it might open up your forms to secondary themes and also help you write longer pieces.  That's my suggestion.  Thanks for sharing!

I really like the first Persia piece which I think you pulled off really well. 
To be frank, I don’t feel much connection at all with the sequel. It sounds much more influenced by western classicism. 
 

Perhaps you are trying to depict a medieval crusader army of knights riding to the holy land to reconquer the holy land from the infidels of the East. 

On 2/4/2021 at 1:26 PM, Markus Boyd said:

I really like the first Persia piece which I think you pulled off really well. 
To be frank, I don’t feel much connection at all with the sequel. It sounds much more influenced by western classicism. 
 

Perhaps you are trying to depict a medieval crusader army of knights riding to the holy land to reconquer the holy land from the infidels of the East. 

 

Thanks for listening and commenting. You got a good point there, part 2 may not sound connected that much. I appreciate it!

On 2/4/2021 at 12:55 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hi Olov,

I think this exemplifies some quite idiomatic writing for the string quartet!  I like the pesante feel and your melodies are good.  As a kind of general criticism I have noticed that you pretty much tend to hover around your home key without modulating.  I think if you modulated to another key after stating your main thematic material it might open up your forms to secondary themes and also help you write longer pieces.  That's my suggestion.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks a lot for the nice comments! I'm glad you thought that the writing was idiomatic. About the modulation, In other works I've worked on, most not posted here on YC, I tend to modulate. The one I can think of was in the post called "Mozart-ian piece for oboe and strings.." etc, which you also kindly commented on, and you can check out the YouTube recording in the bottom of that thread if you haven't already 🙂

In this piece I didn't want to modulate actually, because I wanted it to feel "oriental" I guess, and persian music is more modal than tonal. But as Markus pointed out the Persia II sounds more western (and tonal), not connected to the first Persia. A thing which I agree upon.

I know you asked for no feedback but I just want to say I love the first piece 

the 2nd piece is nice and I think it works with the first but maybe calls for more   to complete the suite