String Quartet in D minor, second movement

I have struggled with the middle section a lot. I wanted contrast with the opening section, triplets, more of a dialogue between the instruments, and interesting harmonic things happening. I think the contrast is there, but the triplets are too many, the dialogue is minimal and rigid, and the interesting harmonic things never materialized 🙂 Help!quartetto2 - Full Score.pdf

Hi @Giacomo925,

I love how you feature the cello in the opening section! Cello is utterly beautiful especially in its high register and I think you successful use that! Great job!

10 hours ago, Giacomo925 said:

I have struggled with the middle section a lot. I wanted contrast with the opening section, triplets, more of a dialogue between the instruments, and interesting harmonic things happening. I think the contrast is there, but the triplets are too many, the dialogue is minimal and rigid, and the interesting harmonic things never materialized 🙂 Help!

For me, first you have to add a transition between the two sections, even if the transition is brief. This helps change the mood and tonality of the piece!

For me I think you can start with the melody played by viola (yes that poor viola!) to have it feature the middle register. I won't invite the voice change right at the beginning of the contrasting section when audiences are not familiar with the contrasting material itself. 

The dialogue is rigid probably because the phrase always stop with a crotchet stop. Having at least one instrument moving each time (probably with triplets by other voices) will for sure help the flow there!

Also make sure to delete the redundant "arco"s!

The ending is great with those voice exchanges and crescendo!

Thanks for sharing and hope to see your update!

Henry

I won't repeat Henry's advice though I would encourage you to consider it seriously.

• The pizz. sections were my favourite, but I would say this movement was a level or two above the first one you presented as a whole.

• I would discourage you into forcing "interesting harmonic things" because yes. At the end of the day, it's your work and you decide, but in my opinion, this movement doesn't seem to be demanding it and you still have more movements to show stuff you surely have in your bag of tricks.

• If you finally decide to extend this movement in order to allow such stuff to happen, make sure you do it in a way it not mess up what you have already done and thus the new material not feel like an isolated part in the middle of a movement that in principle may have nothing to do with the twists you introduced.

That said, this movement is truly beautiful. Congrats, Giacomo.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

18 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

I won't repeat Henry's advice though I would encourage you to consider it seriously.

I am already! Giving the phrase entirely to the viola at the beginning of the B section makes it much easier on the listener (I think), and letting the phrase flow by adding movement in the last beat (I mainly did it with the cello) also works very well. Also, because I feel it helps cohesiveness, I changed the viola triplets at the beginning of B to pizzicato. I think what I still need to do before showing the result is a (brief) transition from A to B, and fix the inganno cadence in the middle of B which sounds very weak right now.

18 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

• I would discourage you into forcing "interesting harmonic things" because yes. At the end of the day, it's your work and you decide, but in my opinion, this movement doesn't seem to be demanding it and you still have more movements to show stuff you surely have in your bag of tricks.

I wish I had a bag of tricks! But I really have a lot of fun composing, so I'm toying with the idea of getting lessons, so I can build my bag of tricks 🙂

18 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

• The pizz. sections were my favourite, but I would say this movement was a level or two above the first one you presented as a whole.

[...]

That said, this movement is truly beautiful. Congrats, Giacomo.

OMG this really made my day! Thank you, Daniel!

I'm working on your suggestions (see post above), it already sounds MUCH better - thank you!!

28 minutes ago, Giacomo925 said:

I wish I had a bag of tricks! But I really have a lot of fun composing, so I'm toying with the idea of getting lessons, so I can build my bag of tricks 🙂

Your bag of tricks will grow bigger with time I'm sure! Getting lessons, if possible, as well as reading some books about the matter is something I would definitely encourage no matter how advanced the composer be.

Glad to see our feedback is of use!

Soooo... I have added a much needed transition to the midsection. Then I reduced the interchange between voices at the beginning of the middle section but, to make the section more homogeneous, rather than having the viola sing in midregister as you were suggesting, I had it do a pizzicato. For a similar reason, I changed b.33 giving to the viola the phrasing that was of the secondo violino in b.29. That magically kind of fixed the following bar where the viola followed on its phrase and I only had to adjust the inganno cadence a little bit. I think it works now, but I'm trepidant to hear what you think!

Another thing... reviewing the whole piece I noticed direct 5ths between first violin and cello in b.1 and b.44, so I changed the cello F3 to F2. Makes sense? Or am I worrying too much? Similarly, there's direct 8ths in bars 17 and 59 between first violin and cello, but the cello is descending from F to E so perhaps not as bad?

Hi @Giacomo925 

I certainly like this more! I enjoy the viola pizz. and the cello providing the flow in the middlr section! I still think for my personal taste the viola can play the melody a bit longer for later voice exchange, but it's better now!

I notice in the first section you ends on a half cadence then moves on directly to the middle section. Will you first end the first section in PAC then add a transition to the middle section?

3 hours ago, Giacomo925 said:

Another thing... reviewing the whole piece I noticed direct 5ths between first violin and cello in b.1 and b.44, so I changed the cello F3 to F2. Makes sense? Or am I worrying too much? Similarly, there's direct 8ths in bars 17 and 59 between first violin and cello, but the cello is descending from F to E so perhaps not as bad?

Ofc it's better for them to be in contrary motion in b.1 and b.44 and I don't think it's any problem there in the original version. In the case of b.17 it's also the same. You prevent those parallels skilfully there and I don't find with problems with that at all!

Thanks for your update!

Henry

Added PAC and changed the transition a bit and went back to the viola playing the little phrase instead of plucking at the beginning of the middle section... Thank you!