Concerto Strings & Organ in FM (in Galant Style)

Hi, here my new composition a Concert for Strings and Organ based the Rule of the octave, some ascending and 
descending progressions and some schemas of the Galant Style, such as the Romanesca, the Prinner, the Monte, 
the Fonte, the Ponte, Cycles of Fifths among others. 

I have been working on that the last few weeks, after reading Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento by Job Ijzerman, 
which I find quite inspiring. I still have to explore the chromatic schemas probided in the book, which I will do in the next weeks.

Strings have only Violin I, Violin II and Celli, because the texture is mainly of three parts. 

If someone is interested in the schemas I used and Baroque style, I will be glad to discuss about that. 

Any comments regarding the form are also wellcome. I didn't analyze any string and organ concert of the era. Probably Organ concerts have more interaction between Organ and orchestra, but I wanted some slow movements just played by the organ. The arrangement and form could typical of a so named "Church Sonatas", or sonate da chiesa, with the organ having more the role of a Basso Continuo rather than a solo instrument, though in Baroque style I think they are just played be solo instruments, usually two violin cello and organ as a continuo. The same arrangement I used is also the same used by Mozart in some of his impressing Church sonatas, just in a more classical style...Anyway, I think my composition is something in between a Concert for strings and organ and a Church Sonata. 

Wow - great job!  I think this is a great achievement for you!  Throughout the piece I couldn't wait to hear the next movement - it always stayed interesting!  This Harmony, Counterpoint and Partimento book certainly seems to have helped you a lot!  Something that jumped out at me (I think because of the melodic tritone) is the 1st Violin part at meas. 501 where I guess you go into an augmented 6th chord treatment?  Other than that it was nearly perfect!  I think the amount of interplay between the organ and the strings is normal for a Baroque piece (from what little I know of course).  Thanks for sharing!

So beautiful and solemn. Love how the different instrument parts relieve each other. I like the soft harmonic structure with the descending chords

This is great! I love the adagio movement! I will have to take a look at that book too, seems really inspiring! Nice to see you are keeping up the good work, Guillem!

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoser, Thanks for your feedback. I'm happy you like that. Tritone you comment is just before an interesting new schema I learnt from the book. It's called Tonification in Descending Triads, meas. 498-500 you can see the local tonic is moving F-Dm- Bb, so descending in thirds. Vl.I is moving 5-4-3 with syncopation, Vl.II 7-1 (leading tone-tonic) and organ 5-1 (dominant-tonic). The Tritone you mention is a continuation of the schema to modulate back to the original tonic F for the repetition on the organ. I tryed some harmonies here and the more convincing to me was the aug. 6th as a double dominant. On that harmony the diminished 6 (Db) is usually on the low part, but I wanted one part moving 1-5-5 and the part more likely to move that way is the lower part as and answer of the movement 5-1 of the 3 preciding measures. 

After that schema meas.509-519 some different schemas follow one after another. First a 4 meas. 2-Stage Monte with modulation to the subdominat and domiant, here violin I is imitating violin II. 

Just after that follows a 4 meas. Monte-Romanesca (harmony I-V-II-VI) schema with a typically third species counterpoint on the base again with violins imitation one to another in 1 measure delay here a 4th below. Here I guess I broke one of Fux's rules that quarter notes are not allowed to make a 9th leap in that kind of counterpoint, but in that particular case I think it can be justified in favour of a nice ascending stepweise motion after that. Also being the leap on weak beat and being a diminished 9th doen't sound abrupt at all to me. Here I tryed again many other possibilies for the basse counterpoint and I found it was the best option. I circled the last A on the bass because it is let's say a mutation of the pattern before to link smoothly with the Bb of the next measure.

And here as a closing before the repetition followes one of the most common schemas in Galant Style, a 2 bar The Prinner, which is based on a movement 6-5-4-3 in the melody and 4-3-2-1 on the bass. The Prinner is one of the most used features as a Risposta (answer), after a opening schema. Here the Prinner serves to release the tension built up in the preciding 8 measures with the Monte and the Monte-Romanesca. The figures on the upper voice together with the 7-6 supensions in the middle part add some interest and motion the the schema the ascending 5th eightnotes on the bass balance the descending 5th on the melody D-G with and allow the get the perfect 5th of the half cadence by contrary motion. Finally, the quater rest after the half cadence create some expectation the hear the main theme from the beginning.

10 hours ago, Olov said:

So beautiful and solemn. Love how the different instrument parts relieve each other. I like the soft harmonic structure with the descending chords

 

Thanks @Olov! That's right, I'm also impressed how many things you can do with just a descending or ascending octave on the basse. That's why in baroque era one of the first things composition pupils had to learn was the rule of the octave, before to jump to more elaborated partimento techniques. 

8 hours ago, JorgeDavid said:

This is great! I love the adagio movement! I will have to take a look at that book too, seems really inspiring! Nice to see you are keeping up the good work, Guillem!

 

Thanks Jorge! I'm happy you like that. Whenever you want we can continue with some counterpoint exercises 😉

Un saludo!