The Tin Soldier - Suite for Orchestra

This is something I started working on yesterday. It's inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen story of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". Each movement represents a different aspect of the story. I'm planning on it having seven movements in total and will update as I go (hopefully with scores). My intention is to keep each movement around 3 minutes and each one will be written in triple time (I don't write in triple time often, so it's a good challenge).

Hi @BipolarComposer,

Very funny music here! In 1st mov. the winds pairing up the drums and celesta is nice in the middle section. Though in the ending the naivity is turned to a Stranviskian rite which scares me! i really wish the ending is less forceful here in my opinion to keep the fable beautiful(?) and naive(?). (Yea the Hans Christian Andersen stories are sometimes cruel though)

The opening pizzicato is very nice to show the lightness of the ballerina. Piccolo is great used with bassoon, and the flute and oboe combination is very bright. 0:48 is nice (with the glockenspiel?)! Personally I just don't like 1:00 since I think the low register instruments are ruining the scene. The dance becomes more agitated after that with the tremolos and nice comeback of the opening pizzicato! Humorous ending as well!

Thanks for sharing and hopefully you will finish the set quickly!

Henry

Very interesting concept. I like the disharmony and dissonance. Your orchestration is very good! This "cracked" rhythmic is very expressive.

Hi ... a very very 20th century Russian feel to the music.  I really enjoyed your orchestration with its laddered scaffolding and colorful texture.  Good job!

1st movement - I like most of it, but I feel like towards the end it becomes quite bombastic and lacks clarity.  If I could take a look at the score I could try to make suggestions about how it might be possible to remedy that.  I love your quite idiomatic writing for the snare and other percussion instruments.  Just for the sake of understanding some of your harmonies I would also love to take a look at a score.  I guess your bombastic approach is quite appropriate for the depiction of an army of tin soldiers though!

2nd movement - This one starts out very delicate and gentle although your bombastic approach to orchestration is always being foreshadowed by the percussion and timpani/bass drum.  I love your creative doubling of piccolo and tuba.  Makes it sound like the ballerina is quite a fat lady!  LoL

Thanks for sharing!

Third movement is done

I listen to this with delight!

Magnificent! (First movement)... BRAVO ! 
I think I perceive your influences.

Second mvt. very nice idea. Very pictorial. The cinema is not far away. The absolutely ideal orchestration.

You have chosen to join the more academic tonal shore around about 2.50, which is slightly offset from the previous (and subsequent) audacitys when the astinato of the strings enters. Fortunately you quickly give up the idea to come back to something more strange and that I prefer. Burton's movie climate...

3. Same vein of worrying strangeness. You like stamp games and it's a great quality. Always a few echoes of military music that adds its relentless and derisory touch. I like it a lot. It's mysterious and nocturnal. Stravinskien, Shostalovien... I love it. Yes!

Congratulations again!

Maybe a small reserve about the dynamics of your samples. I think it could be bigger, which would add contrast. Instruments in any case sound wonderful when they are in very soft shades. And send us good slaps when necessary!

At the tactus level, an interesting thing is sometimes to make it vary a little continuously, to break the too regular mechanics a little. But overall your orchestra is very convincing and I love your orchestration choices.

This is the fourth movement to my little suite, which finds the Tin Soldier separated from his ballerina, and floating down a gutter on a paper boat. 
The structure is a pretty simple ABAB, with a few changes here and there.

Well, it sure has the "pathos" - which illustrates the story ending well.  I really loved the orchestration and the slow build up of the thematic material.  Quite ethereal.  Was that an English Horn I heard or Horn around 1:00?  Lovely ...

40 minutes ago, MJFOBOE said:

Well, it sure has the "pathos" - which illustrates the story ending well.  I really loved the orchestration and the slow build up of the thematic material.  Quite ethereal.  Was that an English Horn I heard or Horn around 1:00?  Lovely ...

 

Thanks for the kind words!

It starts off with Oboe and English Horn calling back and forth, then the Bassoon takes the melody. 
When that melody comes back, it’s on the French Horn.