My first Symphony

Hi! First post with my new account. I posted a few little ditties here around 6 years ago, but someone ripped me a new asshole and decided to take some rest. I see Luderart and Austenite are still here (edit: this could be misunderstood: these weren't the ones that tore my work apart, and after all, it deserved to be criticized).

... Anyway as an introduction, I'd like to share one of my most cherished compositions, my Symphony. This was my first original orchestral work (i.e. not an arrangement). I wrote this in one month in 2019, even though some basic ideas date from many years before. It was an agonic month, since I could barely think about anything else.

I've refined the orchestration a bit since then. I'm self-taught but I've gotten feedback in a few spots by pros, and I've also implemented new things I've learned on my own. If you play an instrument and see some red flag, don't hesitate to tell me!

This was written with an overall early-20th-century aesthetic in mind, combined with very strong jazz influences. The first movement's in sonata form with an introduction, then follows a somewhat grotesque waltz (in lieu of a scherzo), then a dreamy slow movement, and finally some sort of pseudo-ragtime in rondo form.

Score here

Video (audio+score) here

I've made some minor tweaks to the score linked here after making the video, but you won't be able to hear the difference.

Wonderful music.

Great piece!  The waltz movement reminds me of "La Valse" by Ravel and the last movement gives me Leonard Bernstein vibes.  I wish I had more time to look at the score in detail to maybe give more critical feedback - from what little I've seen though I have to ask whether the enharmonics that you've used in the harp part are really streamlined to help the harp player most easily play the part?  Great job though - I enjoyed it thoroughly!

13 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Wonderful music.

Thanks

11 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Great piece!  The waltz movement reminds me of "La Valse" by Ravel and the last movement gives me Leonard Bernstein vibes.  I wish I had more time to look at the score in detail to maybe give more critical feedback - from what little I've seen though I have to ask whether the enharmonics that you've used in the harp part are really streamlined to help the harp player most easily play the part?  Great job though - I enjoyed it thoroughly!

 

Thank you, too! 😃The harp part is perhaps the one I've tweaked the most, precisely in terms of enharmonics. I'm not claiming it no impossible bits (because I'm very prone to slips), but I've tried really hard to have no more than 1 pedal change per beat and per foot (and preferably both feet in the same direction). I started to worry less about that after seeing the harp parts of some Mahler and of Strauss's Dance of the 7 Veils, though lmao

Damn this is great! I don't have too much to say other than really well-written piece! I really like the waltz at 8:30, especially how it contrasts with the "heavier" textures surrounding it. I also really like the ragtime at 19:36, which has a triumphant broadway showtune march feel to me.

A couple things caught my eye. I'm not a string player, but the col legno's on pg. 17 seem kind of fast, I'm not sure how possible they are? From some of your other comments it seems like you're a string player, so perhaps you know better than me, just thought I would ask.

The other thing is the quick mute switch in the horns on pg. 91. This is certainly possible, since alot of horn players have their mutes tied to strings wrapped around their wrists so they can just pull the mute out and drop it if necessary, but it still seems pretty quick to me. An alternative would be to have the con sord. parts played stopped instead? Just a thought.

If I have to be nitpicky and pick something I didn't like so much it would be the ending. Starting around 21:50 it seems to build up to anticipate a big moment, but then just comes to kind of a screeching halt, at least I thought. Just an idea, but I was kind of expecting a return to the triumphant broadway tune from earlier, maybe reorchestrated to make it an even bigger moment, to finish out the piece? This is just my opinion, it's your piece so don't mind me if you're happy with it.

Thanks for sharing! This is an "aesthetic" I don't often appreciate, but I've always been interested in learning more about. This is kind of open-ended question, but do you mind maybe talk about some of the techniques you used to create the modern vibe. Like maybe some of the harmonic structures, or how you organized the counterpoint? For example the melody on pg. 9, is this some kind of exotic mode, or is it just freely chromatic?

Welcome back to the forum, I'm looking forward to hearing more!

12 hours ago, gmm said:

Damn this is great! I don't have too much to say other than really well-written piece!

Thanks, glad you enjoyed! 😃

Quote

I'm not a string player, but the col legno's on pg. 17 seem kind of fast, I'm not sure how possible they are? From some of your other comments it seems like you're a string player, so perhaps you know better than me, just thought I would ask.

I took some violin lessons, but my comments also derive many times from feedback from string players that have played my music. I don't think the col legno's a big issue here (but I could be wrong!). The example of this technique in most books is from the finale of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, which has literally this same figure in 6/8 and a similar tempo. It's true that in Berlioz's work the basses aren't doing it, and they're known to be the slowest instruments in the family, but since there's no friction against the string (they only hit it), their greater weight won't be an issue here.

Quote

The other thing is the quick mute switch in the horns on pg. 91. This is certainly possible, since alot of horn players have their mutes tied to strings wrapped around their wrists so they can just pull the mute out and drop it if necessary

I thought putting the mute in and out could be almost instantaneous, like hand stopping. TBF I haven't made a very consistent distinction between both (even though I know there's some nuance), I could switch to the latter without problems. I really appreciate that you checked the score since I'm very prone to lapses and there always could be some hidden eyesore somewhere.

Quote

If I have to be nitpicky and pick something I didn't like so much it would be the ending. Starting around 21:50 it seems to build up to anticipate a big moment, but then just comes to kind of a screeching halt, at least I thought.

I've always been aware of that! I'm still not completely sure about this (this is one of the 3 spots of the piece that never satisfy me completely). On the one hand, I don't want to make the finale much longer because stuff like 7-part rondos are quite tedious IMO. It's meant to be a parodic denial of expectations where the woodwinds "mock" the theme instead of making a full restatement. But, at the same time, the finale is a note-for-note orchestration of what was an originally standalone piano piece, so maybe some extra tweaking would be necessary to make it fit with the overarching structure of a symphony. I admit I tend to rush work with finales.

Quote

This is kind of open-ended question, but do you mind maybe talk about some of the techniques you used to create the modern vibe. Like maybe some of the harmonic structures, or how you organized the counterpoint? For example the melody on pg. 9, is this some kind of exotic mode, or is it just freely chromatic?

There's a lot of intuition involved, I'm not a very calculating composer like Bartók/Schönberg/Brahms. Many times I start with traditional harmony and then 'parody' it. Many people tend to mention the counterpoint aspects in my music, and there's zero forethought in it, I just start with a main melody and some chords, and then add countermelodies that sound good and fit the chords. The chord language in this piece is very conservative, I basically only use chord structures that are 'legal' in common-practise harmony and conventional jazz theory (another thing is how chords follow one another, which many times deviates from both). As for scales, I use a lot of church modes, blues scales, and octatonic and acoustic collections. I've used some of Messiaen's modes in a few spots, but I need to assimilate them better int he future.

In the melody on p.9, I used something similar to Prokofiev's composition method. It started as a classical/romantic tarantella (see it here) I wrote maybe 8-9 years ago, with very traditional scales and chords. Then, one day, I decided to 'prokofievize' it, by making the skips wider and using more unconventional chords. The fact the melody emphasizes for a moment the Bb-F pair, a semitone below the tonic B-F# fifth a typical prokofievesque clash, while the F(nat)-to-E movement it does before the cadence is a jazzy blue note. Almost every chord movement in the main theme is a nod to a specific piece, including Grieg/Grainger folk reharms, Thelonious Monk, Ravel, Persichetti's book and the Final Fantasy soundtracks, all combined along more conventional things from common practise theory.

Hope this mess gives you some ideas!

Cheers!