Mini Piano Concerto No. 1

Hi all,

Here is the second work I am submitting to this forum- my Mini Piano Concerto No. 1. It's called a Mini Piano Concerto because it doesn't use a full orchestra but instead decently-sized sections of 5 string instruments First thing I have to say is that this is by no means the last complete version of this piece, there are some changes that I will continue to make, for example:

• Use combinations of bass clef and treble clef in the introduction of the exposition of the 1st movement and in the third theme of the second movement to make it easier to read
• Possibly rewrite the first theme of the exposition of the first movement (and its return) in 3/4 rather than 6/8 as it has been suggested to me recently. I disagree with that judgement personally, but I'd be interested in what you think.
• Some of the transitions need work. I say some because of the intended story of the piece which I will explain later.
• There are defeinitely a lot of notation errors (for example places where notes have flat and natural signs at once).
• Some of the thematic material might be developed more- here I'm thinking of the fragmented material in the first movement.

Anyways, in short the idea behind this piece is a sort of 'tortured soul' kind of thing, with an idyllic, dreamy second movement (no concerto would be complete without one in my opinion). I should also point out that this was my first ensemble work, so I'm not proud of the orchestration at all.

I have attached the mp3 file generated by Sibelius, the PDF score and a Commentary/Analysis document I wrote to give you some technical insight into the piece and to try to explain why I made the decisions that I did. (Yes the dates in the file titles are still the most recent even though they're from September, I haven't uploaded the wrong files).

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night!

P.S. I'm posting this at 3:25am so apologies if it's just one big rambling mess.

Hi Charles,

Lots and lots of really nice ideas. In addition to what you have mentioned above, I think the first and third movements would benefit from a little more 'expansiveness' and virtuosity. You might want to add in some more dynamics, bigger chords/arpeggios/runs, particularly in the opening section which needs to immediately capture the listener's attention. I'm not going to touch on any of the things you've mentioned as you know they need work.

I'm impressed that you chose to write something quite so ambitious as your first ensemble piece - I would encourage you now to take a step back from this, writing shorter characterful pieces until you can really get the hang of managing lots of instruments. Then, when you come back to this one, you'll be able to implement all that practice and elevate this piece to another level.

The second movement, while the chord progressions may be a little bit cliche, is actually really beautiful. I wish you'd taken a bit longer on each section and texture. I found myself wishing for a real melody appearing early in the piece - taking until the E major section for this to appear. The jump of tempo at letter F is a bit too sudden in my opinion, but you get some much more fluid and rich orchestration appearing.

A little word of advice on writing for strings: at the start of the third movement, this kind of extremely rapid arpeggiated figuration is almost never effective for a section of violins. You would be better to create one chord split between the two violin parts (using double stopping if you wanted) and repeating and repeating it. This way, the fluttering feeling remains but without the feeling of messy soup which is what your version is likely to become if played by live instruments.

I do like your ending section with the piano's arpeggios rising across the strings. However, I'd like to pose the question of why the movement ends in a different key from the one it started in? If this isn't entirely intentional, you should add a bridge section before that coda to bring you back into the home key.

A fantastic effort, thank you so much for sharing, and I apologise it's taken me so long to get round to actually writing this review! 

I have a question: does Sibellius still come with some audio libraries that would perhaps improve the sound quality of your good work? That doesn't really matter when it comes to the composition itself imo but I tell you this in case you feel more comfortable with better sounds, specially for some of those string tremolos e.g: near 7:30 

There's quite a decent amount of material here. I have briefly read your explanations but personally I don't need them. It's fine you have justifications and that you want us to know the reason behind your decisions but it's your composition after all so whatever you decide will be fine.

Regarding those notation mistakes. I don't know if you're going to account these details too so I'll comment them:
• The margins and the pentagram size should be tweaked in order to take the most advantage of the space in the paper. Right now there's nothing but free space in almost half of each page. You might also want to divide the score in parts. I would personally like to see the piano voice alone.
• This  and this  but you are probably aware of them already.

Keep composing man! Looking forward to see the score polished and finished!