Violin concerto

Hello, I'd like to humbly ask for feedback on my Violin concerto. The piece consists of three short movements. It doesn't have a programme. It's one of my older pieces.

Nice work, I like some of the chord choices (bars 10-11 of first movement etc.), the overall sense of a flowing structure, some of the virtuosic writing for the violin being welcome after sustained passages with long, high notes - though I wonder if the violin is generally written too high throughout? (It doesn't have to have an entire movement written sul G, all gruff and daggers, but more of a contrast in the writing for the violin (mostly in articulation) might give the piece more flavour.) I would have also liked a faster movement in there (the fastest being the last movement, which has quite a moderate feel). That said, there was a lot of good writing, and writing a concerto is always an ambitious undertaking! 

1 hour ago, BritishCompositeur said:

Nice work, I like some of the chord choices (bars 10-11 of first movement etc.), the overall sense of a flowing structure, some of the virtuosic writing for the violin being welcome after sustained passages with long, high notes - though I wonder if the violin is generally written too high throughout? (It doesn't have to have an entire movement written sul G, all gruff and daggers, but more of a contrast in the writing for the violin (mostly in articulation) might give the piece more flavour.) I would have also liked a faster movement in there (the fastest being the last movement, which has quite a moderate feel). That said, there was a lot of good writing, and writing a concerto is always an ambitious undertaking! 

 

Thank You for feedback; I agree that using some of the techniques You suggested would improve the piece, I might rewrite it in future. It is possible, that this much high in violin is for some people quite unpleasing, but here it seemed to me as a kind of characteristic effect of the piece.

I like this piece!  Your youth is showing!  Just a minor critique regarding the order of your instruments in your score:  the string orchestra should be the bottom-most in the order and the soloist should be right above the 1st violins with the percussion right above that.  Also, during long periods of silence the timpanist can actually slightly re-tune any of the drums to better fit the harmony that might be coming up in the next section - I just noticed that you were using low A's in the timpani in a section that was generally in E minor which seemed unnecessary.  I like your instrumental combinations that you choose to accompany the soloist in the 2nd movement (the oboe especially).  The combination of horns and bassoon is also really nice.  I think I would have enjoyed the 3rd movement even more if you had written more complete sounding phrases imo.  Your phrases always seemed clipped or using elision too much (where the end of the phrase is simultaneously the beginning of the next phrase).  I think the melodies need a bit more space to breathe that's all.  Thanks for sharing!

1 hour ago, PaperComposer said:

I like this piece!  Your youth is showing!  Just a minor critique regarding the order of your instruments in your score:  the string orchestra should be the bottom-most in the order and the soloist should be right above the 1st violins with the percussion right above that.  Also, during long periods of silence the timpanist can actually slightly re-tune any of the drums to better fit the harmony that might be coming up in the next section - I just noticed that you were using low A's in the timpani in a section that was generally in E minor which seemed unnecessary.  I like your instrumental combinations that you choose to accompany the soloist in the 2nd movement (the oboe especially).  The combination of horns and bassoon is also really nice.  I think I would have enjoyed the 3rd movement even more if you had written more complete sounding phrases imo.  Your phrases always seemed clipped or using elision too much (where the end of the phrase is simultaneously the beginning of the next phrase).  I think the melodies need a bit more space to breathe that's all.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Thank You for the feedback; it's actually really helpful since I hope that in the future I'll find some violinist to collaborate with and in this case I would definitely rewrite it. But please tell me "imo" means like imotion or is it something else?

imo = in my opinion