Classical Overture: The Tempest, Student Piece 2

  So much for a Baroque Trio Sonata!

   Turns out counterpoint is DIFFICULT!  

  I got sidetracked reading Swafford's bio on Mozart.   Turns out, at his death Mozart was contemplating doing an opera Shakespeare's  The Tempest as the Libretto.   What a shame.

    What would it have sounded like, with Mozart at the height of his powers?   

         We will never know.  But I took a stab as a short composition exercise.  I got to use a pretty full orchestra sound, using the instrumentation Mozart utilized in his last overture, The Magic Flute---adding 3 trombones.

    A few details:  I read a synopsis of the play ( I saw it long ago, and my memory  needed refreshing).

         In brief, there is a shipwreck, and the stranded sailors get tangled up with the king/sorcerer on the island.  There is romance (of course) and even better--- a monster that Prosepro uses as a slave, who dreams of dispatching Prospero and making himself ruler of the island.

    The overture is in 4 parts:  (ABA format with intro)

 1. intro:  A slow minor key introduction.  The arpeggios are intended to imitate the sea/waves and shipwreck.  Whatdoyathink?

 2.   Main theme:  a terse up-beat theme in C major,   a simple fanfare with a lot of tonic/dominant hoopla.

  3.   B section : A minor march:  This is intended as a comical "sinister" march representing Calaiban--the monster and his diabolical scheme-- it gets a little grandiose--like Caliban's dreams...

  4.  Recapitulation: a return of the main theme, with little variation.  I wanted to add a little something more, and might if a nice idea crops up.   The coda works in the wave motif -now in C major along with the flourishes from the piece as it closes out with one last brassy fanfare.

    I cleaned up the score, and there are dynamics aplenty this time.   A brief (5:15) overture at least fairly consistent with the 1780-1810 period, I think.  NOT Mozart! But another homage to him.     

   Any feedback would be welcomed.   Gonna take a break from composition and post some comments...

This is a nice fun little overture! I think my favorite parts are:

• The introduction: I really liked the arpeggios and the overall mood, definitely very foreboding
• The Andante section: I like how this section is very lightly orchestrated, it contrasts well with the main fanfare theme

If it were me, I would have the main theme played a little faster (maybe right around 120 bpm). This would make it a little more energetic compared to the introduction. 

I also like the main theme, but I feel like it needs some development. You stay solidly in C major the entire time, maybe try modulating into another key, then returning to C major later?

Overall it is a fun listen, thanks for posting!

Some really nice stuff going on here. I would have liked to see some more harmonic development though. For a good solid minute it just oscillates beweek I and V. Regardless of the rhythm that it goes back and forth with, it gets a bit repetitive and straining. Other than that best of luck and keep praciticing!

11 hours ago, gmm said:

This is a nice fun little overture! I think my favorite parts are:

• The introduction: I really liked the arpeggios and the overall mood, definitely very foreboding
• The Andante section: I like how this section is very lightly orchestrated, it contrasts well with the main fanfare theme

If it were me, I would have the main theme played a little faster (maybe right around 120 bpm). This would make it a little more energetic compared to the introduction. 

I also like the main theme, but I feel like it needs some development. You stay solidly in C major the entire time, maybe try modulating into another key, then returning to C major later?

Overall it is a fun listen, thanks for posting!

             Thank you for listening.

     You hit on the two main things I considered when starting: form and tempo.

      As far as development--and there is another comment regarding the main theme relentless key of C---  I --as usual--looked at Mozart for models.  There are two main ways to proceeed--development of the thematic motive( the Magic Flute), OR and ABA set-up (The Abduction from the Seraglio).     Keeping in mide that I had about 5 to 6 minutes to make my case, I chose ABA.    The A section Theme then is mono-thematic, with an A/B phrasing that gets kicked around to the woodwind and string choirs with a codetta.   Nothing fancy.  I agree that a modulation or development would make it more interesting.  

  My choice was to use the B section for variety, and keep the development terse.   Just enough to keep it in your head.

  I defintely want to try a more typical develpment (more like Beethoven or von Weber).  In this case, it would be a total reimagining.   I will definitely revisit some models and see what Mozart did in these cases.   I do know he had MANY 4 minute/4.5 minute overtures thatjust got in/got out.  Perfunctory--if brilliant.

  Tempo wise, I wrote with the 108 bpm.  I can try juicing it to 120 and see what I get.  I was hoping th echange from long note values and moinor key to short notes and C major, as well as the themes themselves would do most of the heavy lifting....

  Thank you for the comments!    

11 hours ago, gmm said:

 

 

7 hours ago, Brandon S said:

Some really nice stuff going on here. I would have liked to see some more harmonic development though. For a good solid minute it just oscillates beweek I and V. Regardless of the rhythm that it goes back and forth with, it gets a bit repetitive and straining. Other than that best of luck and keep praciticing!

 

  Brandon ----

                     I agree that the C major theme doesn't have much in the way of develpment legs.  See my commnet about ABA form vs. devleopment.

                        Looking at it now, something a little more interesting phrasing wise would have been doable, and added little to the timing.  In my defense, there are plenty of Tonic/Dominant chained classical overtures--young Mozart included.

             I'm planning on writing a second mvmt for my flute concerto allegro, and maybe a short motet to give vocal writing a try.  But a revisiting of an overture is definitely on the horizon--something more extensive and using a development approach vs. ABA.

             Thank you for the listen and comments.  Thematic Interest is something I will defintely key in on moving forward.

Uploaded corrections and changes.

  Considered Gmm's comments, and speed up main theme/a section to 115 bpm.  120 seemed just too rushed.  On the other hand, I slowed the intro from 108 bpm to 100.  Between the two, the dramatic shift is clearer and the a section "pops" more.  This may also help with the sense of running on/variety.  

     That section is now barely a minute.

  Made some note corrections, improved the transition to the recap., and thickened the texture of the recapitulation a bit.  It sounds the same but somehow different now---a little more depth.  A few voice leading issues improved.

   In all, an improvement.  Thank you Gmm!

Nice work man, keep it up!

Listening to the outer sections, it feels like you sometimes have some very nonstandard bass motions that make the piece feel somehow a bit... "off". For instance there are actually relatively few root position dominant chords throughout, which just starts to sound a bit strange after a while. You also seem to have the third of the chord in the bass voice on many of these dominant chords, and since it's often doubled basically as much as possible, it produces a sound uncharacteristic of the classical era where doubling the third much at all was seen as a voice-leading faux pas.

Overall, you seem to like doubling your bassline on every instrument that can play it all the time, which makes it sound very heavy and belabored. Consider letting the bassoons and even double basses rest sometimes -- or, perhaps, if you still want a genuine countermelody in the bass voice, give it to the celli alone, and let the bassoons and bass underneath add accents of color or emphasis that can better reflect standard bass motion, particularly around dominants, where as I mentioned before, I would quite like to hear a few more roots in the bass and less emphasis on the third. The bassoons could also be put to a more colorful and interesting role; explore the upper range of the instrument more, as it has a really nice sound that blends well with strings. You do explore this range quite well in the middle section, giving it a melody that sits very well in its best range, but it would be interesting to see it put to more varied uses even in the outer sections than just doubling the bassline.

I myself remember when I had the same problem as a learning composer, of wanting to make the bassline as strong as possible by doubling it everywhere. It's not a unique issue. It takes a little bit of "deprogramming" in a sense to learn to be comfortable giving the bassline a lighter touch; besides just using fewer doublings, this includes not even always placing the bassline in the lowest register possible on the instruments playing it, making it lighter still. I've had passages in my music where the bassline is being handled by, say, a single bassoon soloist, or just a pizzicato bass section, even when the stuff on top is relatively "busy". As long as you don't clutter the registers up, and you make sure that that bassline is really the only significant thing happening in that general range of frequencies, it will still be heard even if it is relatively thinly supported.

Sean---

  yes -you nailed it.   The cello/bass doubling was fairly standard 1750-1800.   But yes, I did add the bassoon in many, many cases.   

   I wasn't aware of the rule regarding dominants, and will try and make a pass to clean things up, lighten the bass texture.

            I will mull over a more characteristic roll in the A section for the bassoon-- 

          VERY helpful!  Thank you.     ALSO-- if you could recommend any textbooks where period compostional practice is covered in the kind of detail you offer, I'd really appreciate it.  While I'd love to go back to school and take formal theory/composition classes, the fact is I'm old and busy...

On 11/19/2022 at 7:42 AM, Rich said:

   I wasn't aware of the rule regarding dominants, and will try and make a pass to clean things up, lighten the bass texture.

---

          VERY helpful!  Thank you.     ALSO-- if you could recommend any textbooks where period compostional practice is covered in the kind of detail you offer, I'd really appreciate it.  While I'd love to go back to school and take formal theory/composition classes, the fact is I'm old and busy...

It's not a rule about dominants in particular, per se. It's just that a root position dominant chord and a corresponding Sol -> Do bass motion usually sounds the most convincing and most natural in most contexts -- there are of course times when you can break this norm intentionally for effect. The problem comes when we see barely any Sol -> Do motion at all; our ears are conditioned to expect it at some point, so after an extended period without one, we start wondering where it is. In any event, the convention about not doubling thirds too much is ubiquitous across all chords.

I unfortunately cannot recommend a textbook; while I am sure they do exist, I never really relied on any textbook to learn the voice leading rules, even when a textbook was being used in a class. You can just look up a list of them online for reference if you like and that will be mostly sufficient. The rules may appear complicated at first, but there's a trick to it: just looking at it through the lens of the harmonic series. The harmonic series sort of physically justifies and explains a lot of the conventions that may otherwise seem mysterious. If you don't already have the first sixteen partials (four octaves' worth) memorized, I recommend doing so; it's an invaluable tool to just have at the back of your head available for reference. Plus it helps with intuitively grasping brass writing.

Sean thanks for the info.

  The general rule I use for bass writing are favor the root and 3rd, as the 5th is an unstable scale tone  (mainly because it is shared in the tonic /dominant) .     The exception is where the bass is performing some melodic/countermelody function.

         Time for a review...