2 duos for piano and clarinet

Hello everyone,

here is 2 little duos i composed the last few days for piano and clarinette for christmas. It is supposed to reflect the early romantic-style and was composed in honour of my favourite composer: Mendelssohn. Indeed, the lenght, form and general spirit is heavily inspired of the famous lieder ohne worte. Writing in Mendelssohn style was a good and fun exercise. Any remark/review is welcomed. 🙂

18 minutes ago, Camfrtt said:

here is 2 little duos i composed the last few days for piano and clarinette for christmas

Oh you barely miss the Christmas Event this year!

Duo 1 : A very warm and lovely piece, very attractive! I love how you transit in 0:56 with the light hearted staccato. 

Duo 2: Flowing and moving in the mood, I love this too and provide a good contrast to no.1. 

Overall two lovely little pieces! I love no.1 more since it is warmer for me! Good job @Camfrtt!

Henry

• First duo: I am no expert in any style and I just have Mendelssohn's piano sonata in G minor in mind but I would dare to say it has some stains of him (0:55). The work is very nicely crafted and engraved, easy to follow and most importantly, the melody flows effortlessly between the piano and clarinet and it is very clear. The ending did not convince me too much but it's just me being too nit-picky. Overall, a solid and beautifully crafted work.

• Second duo: The clarinet sounds very good. I sometimes even listen to the keys being pressed and the air flux, is everything recorded? As I normally listen to digital recordings I just assumed it was one but the clarinet sounds very, very clean and "human" to me. On a first listen, those chords in block near 1:45 were not really convincing me but after a second listen I changed my opinion. Again a very nice work, though I like the first one a bit more. Thank you for sharing both here and enriching this forum with more musical treasures!

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

22 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Overall two lovely little pieces! I love no.1 more since it is warmer for me! Good job @Camfrtt!

Thanks for your message and review, Henry 🙂

25 minutes ago, Omicronrg9 said:

• First duo: I am no expert in any style and I just have Mendelssohn's piano sonata in G minor in mind but I would dare to say it has some stains of him (0:55). The work is very nicely crafted and engraved, easy to follow and most importantly, the melody flows effortlessly between the piano and clarinet and it is very clear. The ending did not convince me too much but it's just me being too nit-picky. Overall, a solid and beautifully crafted work.

• Second duo: The clarinet sounds very good. I sometimes even listen to the keys being pressed and the air flux, is everything recorded? As I normally listen to digital recordings I just assumed it was one but the clarinet sounds very, very clean and "human" to me. On a first listen, those chords in block near 1:45 were not really convincing me but after a second listen I changed my opinion. Again a very nice work, though I like the first one a bit more. Thank you for sharing both here and enriching this forum with more musical treasures!

About the first duo, I completely agree with you and I am kind of dissatisfied with the current ending, I find it to "rythmic" for a piece that is mainly lyric. I will probably change it. About the clarinet sound, I was, just like you, astonished by the realism of Musescore 4 (it is the clarinet Musesound soundfont), there are some imperfections that sounds like a real human is playing the piece! The texture/figure of the chords around 1:45 are typically mendelssohnian and pretty common in many lieder ohne worte 🙂. Thanks for your review Daniel!

I think both of these are quite charming. My only caveat would be that they don't have much contrasting material. I think a little variety would suit these two pieces well.

7 hours ago, Camfrtt said:

Musescore 4 (it is the clarinet Musesound soundfont), there are some imperfections that sounds like a real human is playing the piece!

So It's Muse sounds! impressive, though I still prefer the piano I have in MS3... But literally every other instrument became 1000 times more realistic, wow.

Please don't hesitate to ping me in this post if you decide to finally change the ending, I would want to listen the new version.

Thank you in advance and kind regards!!

Great job!

I think in the first duo, when the piano has the melody alone, the melody and accompaniment are at the same dynamic level.  I don't know what program you're using but it should be possible to change the velocities on just the right hand material to really bring it out more in high relief.  I also really enjoy the clarinets more virtuosically elaborated figurations such as this:    and I wish that you had included more showy variations for the clarinet instead of just sticking with the standard and already familiar melody.  Altogether a very enjoyable piece!  I used to be a clarinettist - I don't know if I remember my clarinet repertoire but this does sound very familiar stylistically!

I love the simple melody of the second due as well.  But the following passage doesn't sound harmonically convincing to me:  

I think there might be too many chromatic notes and/or chord extensions for it to sound well-conceived.  But when it arrives at the destination of D7sus4 it sounds fine.  Also, I think the way you've notated this is kind of ugly:    I think the same effect could have been achieved with a staccato marking on the C#.  But, I do think that the phrase sounds kind of cut off or clipped with a short note at that point.  If it were my piece I would consider using a tenuto marking over a staccato, or using a slur over a staccato (portato).  Also, now that I listen closely I think I can recognize that your clarinet is from Musesounds, which would mean that you're using Musescore 4 to produce these.  Unfortunately, you can't yet at the moment change the individual velocities of piano notes and hear a noticeable change in dynamics with the Musesounds patches.  But if you switch your piano to the MS Basic soundfont and use some reverb it would still sound pretty good and you'd be able to bring out the melody!  Thanks for sharing these gems!

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoserthanks for taking the time to review my work !

1 hour ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I think in the first duo, when the piano has the melody alone, the melody and accompaniment are at the same dynamic level.  I don't know what program you're using but it should be possible to change the velocities on just the right hand material to really bring it out more in high relief.

You are completely right. I usually take the time to modify these kind of settings before uploading a playback, but as Musescore 4 is pretty new to me I still have not figured out how to do it!

1 hour ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I also really enjoy the clarinets more virtuosically elaborated figurations such as this:    and I wish that you had included more showy variations for the clarinet instead of just sticking with the standard and already familiar melody.

I'm glad you liked this passage. Just to set the context, I composed these 2 little duos for my uncle who his a clarinet teacher and who wanted me to write something that some students who learn clarinet for 4/5 years could learn not too with too much difficulty. That is why, in these duos, the clarinet is not really showy and extravagant (but trust me, I wanted it to be more of that!). 

1 hour ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Also, I think the way you've notated this is kind of ugly:    I think the same effect could have been achieved with a staccato marking on the C#.  But, I do think that the phrase sounds kind of cut off or clipped with a short note at that point.  If it were my piece I would consider using a tenuto marking over a staccato, or using a slur over a staccato (portato). 

That is very relevant and I think I will change the notation for what you pointed out.