String Quartet No. 2 "Romance" Mvt 1- Work in Progress

This is my major work for 2021! It is currently a work in progress, with the exposition completed for the first movement. Feel free to take a look! It is a rather ambitious work with 3 themes for the exposition.

The style of the work is rather romantic, taking inspiration from composers like Dvorak, Brahms and Borodin. Hints of their influence and inspiration from their string chamber works are littered throughout the work. 

This is the first piece where I paid particular attention to the harmonic approach, so be encouraged to comment on the harmonic approach.

What is your comments on the piece currently? Is there anything that should be altered with the exposition at current? (Is it too long as some have stated) Is it too ambitious for an exposition? What should I explore more in the development? There are a lot of differing opinions on the piece currently, especially from my composition teachers.

Structure:

First theme: in D Major, first melody by violin 1, second iteration by cello with interplay with violin 1

Second theme: in B-flat Major, using neapolitan chords and interplay 

Third theme: Antiphony in rapidly tonicised keys, fast and lively

Motifs:

1. 2 slurred semiquavers, 4 staccato semiquavers

2. long-short rhythm

3. off beat pizz

Wow!  You weave a rich tapestry and create some very organic variations of the main theme in the beginning!  You use your variations to create contrasting sections and developmental ideas that follow the main theme for quite some time (I guess up until meas. 38).  I would call those first 38 measures the first theme group which I think already includes it's own self-contained development.  You take the piece in an interesting direction modulating into Bb major, G minor, E minor, C major, C minor, A major and Gb major before finally finding a recapitulation of the first theme group in Bb major.  I am interested to see where you go from here.  I can see why you bring up your harmonic approach.  I think it seems as if you sometimes modulate just for the sake of modulating rather than with an intended purpose.  I don't really think you have a very strongly stated second theme group in this piece (if you're aiming for a sonata form which I don't think is a must either).  But that's just my opinion.  If this were my piece I would focus on finding a variation of the first theme that is even more contrasting than what you have and go with a theme and variations form for the whole piece.  Again - just a suggestion.  Thanks for sharing - I really enjoyed it!

12 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

You take the piece in an interesting direction modulating into Bb major, G minor, E minor, C major, C minor, A major and Gb major before finally finding a recapitulation of the first theme group in Bb major.  I am interested to see where you go from here.  I can see why you bring up your harmonic approach.  I think it seems as if you sometimes modulate just for the sake of modulating rather than with an intended purpose. 

Yea you're right, what I wanted was a more tonally ambiguous section that explores many abstract keys through tonicisations in a seemingly random fashion (but yet still transitioning smoothly between the keys) to create a sense of surprise and unexpectedness in terms of the shifts in tone colours which would have lost its effect if I followed a strict format per say in terms of which keys I modulated to. In a sense, that was actually the element of contrast in terms of the key and harmonic colours which complemented the shifts in texture of that subject (antiphony vs homophony/melody+countermelody with accompaniment) compared to the first subject and theme that was stuck to D Major. 

12 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I don't really think you have a very strongly stated second theme group in this piece (if you're aiming for a sonata form which I don't think is a must either).

Hmm yep that I can agree, the second theme does not take the prominent role in the piece especially compared to the first and third theme. Rather, I would say that it takes on the role of some sort of bridging theme between the 2 major themes rather than a standalone theme by itself. However, that theme is still quite crucial to the piece, however, as it opens up a lot of motifs and melodic ideas (something I plan to heavily explore and develop in the development), as well as to provide the transition between the 2 starkly different main themes. I experimented with removing it but made the piece feel very incomplete. (I especially like the melody at bar 42, which really brings out the feeling of romance and constricting passion, so removing that would severely hamper the characterisation of romance that is intended)

Right now, I think the plan would be to provide a few more variations of the theme in the development with heavily usage of the motifs from the bridging theme and the tonally ambiguous one. 

12 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

If this were my piece I would focus on finding a variation of the first theme that is even more contrasting than what you have and go with a theme and variations form for the whole piece.

Hmm, I think I would not be going for this though unfortunately. I do see it as plausible, however I think that in the context of a full romantic string quartet with 4 movements which I already mostly sketched out, starting off with a theme and variations would not be a good way to open a string quartet. What I would preferably do is to continue with the sonata form and develop the motifs of the second and third theme as I feel that it does have promise and suits the work particularly. (Especially because in a sense Romantic string quartets in particular have a unique sense of constant momentum and push-pull effect characteristic in the first movement that can't be fully realised in a theme and variations form) Probably I may rework the second theme (bridging theme) to shorter perhaps, or to make it more prominent in the development. I probably will make it so that the bridging theme is more a transition subject that introduces the development's motifs rather than a full theme, so that the new motifs can leave sufficient room for extensive elaboration in the development section. Thanks for the feedback though! I greatly appreciated it!