Fugue in D minor for violin, cello, flute and clarinet (live recording)

The piece starts off with an introduction before breaking off into a fugue with a highly chromatic subject.  This piece was an experimentation in contrapuntal writing, tension and rhythm.

Any feedback would be highly appreciated!

Its so refreshing to hear live performances! I really enjoyed the piece, you play well together. I especially liked the effect of the triplets played by the cello with the held notes above. Its a wonderful composition, thank you for sharing. 

2 hours ago, Papageno said:

Its so refreshing to hear live performances! I really enjoyed the piece, you play well together. I especially liked the effect of the triplets played by the cello with the held notes above. Its a wonderful composition, thank you for sharing. 

 

thank you for the feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed it. The middle section with the low triplets played by the cello is really quite a weird bit of the piece 😄

Bravo!!

4 hours ago, Brinsonian said:

Bravo!!

 

Thanks 🙂

Great piece! I love the orchestration! A well-composed fugue performed beautifully by a talented quartet, quite rare nowadays. It kind of reminds me of Sweelinck's Fantasia Cromatica in this string quartet arrangement: 

Thanks for posting!

23 minutes ago, Theodore Servin said:

Great piece! I love the orchestration! A well-composed fugue performed beautifully by a talented quartet, quite rare nowadays. It kind of reminds me of Sweelinck's Fantasia Cromatica in this string quartet arrangement: 

Thanks for posting!

 

Thanks for listening! 

I actually composed this piece in a week long music summer camp where we didn't get to choose the instruments. I had to make the best of this very odd combination of instruments but I guess it worked out in the end!

I've never heard that piece by Sweenlick I will check it out!

On 4/12/2021 at 3:25 AM, lox said:

 

 

The piece starts off with an introduction before breaking off into a fugue with a highly chromatic subject.  This piece was an experimentation in contrapuntal writing, tension and rhythm.

Any feedback would be highly appreciated!

 

 

 

 

It is a really good piece! The harmonic approach of the piece is really good, and its use of dissonance, as well as contrast, is effective. It is clear that you understand and utilised the conversational textures well. What I think you can probably explore is more distant modulations and extended chords, perhaps in a more contemporary style. You could try a more motivic approach to the piece, and explore the usage of extended string techniques, which will come naturally over time as your experience with strings gets better. Amazing that your double stop writing for strings is well-done and not overly-straining. I think however, that you could experiment with the return of the fugue in a different key from the first iteration to add that element of surprise. 

In the live recording of the piece, I think what would have been great would be if you could advise them to use more baroque style of playing especially given the nature of the piece to really enhance the effect. Baroque bows in particular, and require a faster velocity of the bow to play. There is a strong tendency to use the extreme ends of the bow and play those parts of the bow louder compared to the middle, as well as a characteristic tenuto-like articulation to the key notes of the piece. That could be something that can greatly enhance the texture of the piece, given its nature of a Baroque fugue.  

On 4/16/2021 at 3:10 PM, Joshua Ng said:

It is a really good piece! The harmonic approach of the piece is really good, and its use of dissonance, as well as contrast, is effective. It is clear that you understand and utilised the conversational textures well. What I think you can probably explore is more distant modulations and extended chords, perhaps in a more contemporary style. You could try a more motivic approach to the piece, and explore the usage of extended string techniques, which will come naturally over time as your experience with strings gets better. Amazing that your double stop writing for strings is well-done and not overly-straining. I think however, that you could experiment with the return of the fugue in a different key from the first iteration to add that element of surprise. 

 

In the live recording of the piece, I think what would have been great would be if you could advise them to use more baroque style of playing especially given the nature of the piece to really enhance the effect. Baroque bows in particular, and require a faster velocity of the bow to play. There is a strong tendency to use the extreme ends of the bow and play those parts of the bow louder compared to the middle, as well as a characteristic tenuto-like articulation to the key notes of the piece. That could be something that can greatly enhance the texture of the piece, given its nature of a Baroque fugue.  

 

Thanks for taking a look! 

I don't play a stringed instrument myself so writing for strings and knowing their limitations is always a struggle 😞 

I wrote this piece with a very motivic approach in mind. I do think perhaps extending the middle contrasting section to include more adventurous extended chords would be a good idea. Also, at 2:17 with the return of the fugue, it comes back in G minor, the subdominant of D minor.  I guess there are some flaws in the structure of this piece because the fugue kinda repeats itself at 2:17 and 2:53. 

I'm for the feedback though. Do you have any compositions of your own on youtube?

15 hours ago, lox said:

I don't play a stringed instrument myself so writing for strings and knowing their limitations is always a struggle 😞 

I understand! Strings are often hard to orchestrate especially for non-string players

15 hours ago, lox said:

I wrote this piece with a very motivic approach in mind. I do think perhaps extending the middle contrasting section to include more adventurous extended chords would be a good idea. Also, at 2:17 with the return of the fugue, it comes back in G minor, the subdominant of D minor.  I guess there are some flaws in the structure of this piece because the fugue kinda repeats itself at 2:17 and 2:53. 

Yea I think that part can be improved, maybe by going for more distant modulations. 

15 hours ago, lox said:

Do you have any compositions of your own on youtube?

I normally don't upload on youtube unfortunately. But I can link the drive link for all my compositions here! Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lhDLAsrn-ihh2xuUQ5beO7lS3E3gSOKB?usp=sharing

This was wonderful, both the composition and the performance. I love the unusual combination of instruments and the highly chromatic subject. I enjoyed that a lot! Thanks for sharing!

14 hours ago, JorgeDavid said:

This was wonderful, both the composition and the performance. I love the unusual combination of instruments and the highly chromatic subject. I enjoyed that a lot! Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for the compliments! I can't take credit for the unusual combination of instruments though because we had no other option (I wrote this over a week long music composition summer school at the Purcell school of music.) I had to find a way to make those instruments work together which was not an easy task!

15 hours ago, Joshua Ng said:

I understand! Strings are often hard to orchestrate especially for non-string players

 

Yea I think that part can be improved, maybe by going for more distant modulations. 

 

I normally don't upload on youtube unfortunately. But I can link the drive link for all my compositions here! Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lhDLAsrn-ihh2xuUQ5beO7lS3E3gSOKB?usp=sharing

 

I've taken a look at your scherzo for string orchestra. I love the theme and the chromaticism!

On 4/19/2021 at 7:13 AM, lox said:

I've taken a look at your scherzo for string orchestra. I love the theme and the chromaticism!

 

Ah thanks a lot!

great piece.  Like someone said, breathtaking to hear live people! BRAVO!