Prelude No.10 - Live Performance by Henry Ng

The finale to season one is almost here. Here's episode 10. 

Features include a fantasy/improvisational form, diminished scales, and relentless tinkering with motivic development. 

Comment my faults, plz

Hey Vince,

2 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

relentless tinkering with motivic development. 

For me this is a sophisticated display of cohering with motive here. The repeated note and the anapestic motive are everywhere but they give a very humorous effect rathet than a robotic one! It does have some improvistaory sections but all of them are linked with your motivic usage!

The beginning is really like Beethoven's Waldstein in my opinion! The imitation in b.25 is very funny. It's like you are trying to pretend to write contrapuntally but just ignore it in the middleway!

I love the passage in b.48 with the repeated motive on Gb seperated, and your voicing is great there. It looks like it's random but no since here it's for me like the melody of a Bach solo violin piece with different voices in one individual line.

That repeating Ab in b.86 lento section provides good contrast. Even though it comes from the beginning, it certainly reminds me Chopin's raindrop prelude when Ab is repeated! I feel like the tempo is a little bit slow here and maybe an Adagio is better?

Again I like those quartal chords in b.141! 

I love the way how you force that Ab major chord ending! It seems out of place in a very good way! Just like the ending of the first movement of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no.6 the A major is forced or his no.7 when the Bb major is forced! It seems very ironic to achieve a major chord ending here in my opinion which creates dramatic effect!

2 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Comment my faults, plz

Your fault is asking others to comment your faults LoL! For sure I enjoy this one and thx for sharing!

Henry

19 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

For me this is a sophisticated display of cohering with motive here. The repeated note and the anapestic motive are everywhere but they give a very humorous effect rathet than a robotic one! It does have some improvistaory sections but all of them are linked with your motivic usage!

The beginning is really like Beethoven's Waldstein in my opinion! The imitation in b.25 is very funny. It's like you are trying to pretend to write contrapuntally but just ignore it in the middleway!

I love the passage in b.48 with the repeated motive on Gb seperated, and your voicing is great there. It looks like it's random but no since here it's for me like the melody of a Bach solo violin piece with different voices in one individual line.

That repeating Ab in b.86 lento section provides good contrast. Even though it comes from the beginning, it certainly reminds me Chopin's raindrop prelude when Ab is repeated! I feel like the tempo is a little bit slow here and maybe an Adagio is better?

Again I like those quartal chords in b.141! 

I love the way how you force that Ab major chord ending! It seems out of place in a very good way! Just like the ending of the first movement of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no.6 the A major is forced or his no.7 when the Bb major is forced! It seems very ironic to achieve a major chord ending here in my opinion which creates dramatic effect!

Thanks for checking this out bro. This was a weird one to write, as I just kept writing and developing that motif until I decided to stop. I just wanted a mostly high energy piece since the last 2 will be slower. 

I think you're the only one that's commented on all of these so far, what say you about the balance and variety?

I just realized the repeating Ab IS the same as in the raindrop prelude. Nice catch. 

People keep mentioning Prokofiev in these comments. I try to listen to his music but I just can't make it through a whole piece. There's probably something wrong with my brain. Is there a piece by him that you'd recommend to get into his style?

Thanks again Henry. You're dashing

Hey Vince,

8 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

think you're the only one that's commented on all of these so far, what say you about the balance and variety?

I think in the set you start out by deliberately writing in different styles: no.1 a sad song, no.2 a nocturne, no.3 a tragic slow lament, no.4 a prelude, no.5 a funny joke and no.6 a romance. There are your features in these preludes but less apparent. Starting from the latter half I think your influence and style starting to more apparently emerge in the music with those playful harmony and American music genres. They are becoming less personal and more your extrovert self in my opinion, which is a good thing for the variety of the set. But there still 2 to go and my opinion can be invalid!

8 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

People keep mentioning Prokofiev in these comments. I try to listen to his music but I just can't make it through a whole piece. There's probably something wrong with my brain. Is there a piece by him that you'd recommend to get into his style?

I am not familiar with his music at all. I only get fairly familiar with his Piano Sonata no.6 and 7, and also his Symphony no.7 since it's in C# minor though not for long. I really get into his music by listening his 7th Piano Sonata so you can try that too!

Henry

A bit powerful introduction, though not too much of my liking. I am not sure if it's more because of the soundfont that sound a bit too much like a hammer hitting the piano but well we do what we can with what we get.

I really liked the section starting at 1:15 approx and the transition to the slow section is very masterfully driven. This piece has undoubtedly a particular charisma that would make it easy to distinguish among others.

It is well engraved, as always. There are some "mistakes" regarding silences compression but I guess that's just a particular trait or obsession I have lol.

I would say the "recapitulation" is well done, so I believe that the majority of motives lying in the "agitato" section might be the stuff that is not convincing me of this whole prelude. However, you still do a very solid work using them, and thus the piece never gets boring. The ending is quite peculiar, and the only problem I have with it is not even related to it directly: the audio goes to zero abruptly just after the last note.

I must say that the other font you used for the title of the eleventh prelude was a kind of better haha.

Kind regards!!

What I like about this piece is - it really grooves.  Everything is related to everything else in a coherent whole.  Even the contrasting slow parts.  The motives really accelerate and snowball into ever more and more intense versions of themselves.

On 5/8/2023 at 9:31 PM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Comment my faults, plz

It's perfect!  It doesn't have any!  Unless you're talking about your faults ... ???  Don't get me started on those .. 🤣

On 5/10/2023 at 5:00 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I think in the set you start out by deliberately writing in different styles: no.1 a sad song, no.2 a nocturne, no.3 a tragic slow lament, no.4 a prelude, no.5 a funny joke and no.6 a romance. There are your features in these preludes but less apparent. Starting from the latter half I think your influence and style starting to more apparently emerge in the music with those playful harmony and American music genres. They are becoming less personal and more your extrovert self in my opinion, which is a good thing for the variety of the set. But there still 2 to go and my opinion can be invalid!

Thanks Henry! That's good to know I've kept up with the variety. Interesting take on the introvert/extrovert, I think you're right!

On 5/14/2023 at 2:04 AM, Omicronrg9 said:

A bit powerful introduction, though not too much of my liking. I am not sure if it's more because of the soundfont that sound a bit too much like a hammer hitting the piano but well we do what we can with what we get.

yeah you're right, it's too heavy. I'm going to look into fixing this for the final edit.

On 5/14/2023 at 2:04 AM, Omicronrg9 said:

I really liked the section starting at 1:15 approx and the transition to the slow section is very masterfully driven. This piece has undoubtedly a particular charisma that would make it easy to distinguish among others.

It is well engraved, as always. There are some "mistakes" regarding silences compression but I guess that's just a particular trait or obsession I have lol.

I would say the "recapitulation" is well done, so I believe that the majority of motives lying in the "agitato" section might be the stuff that is not convincing me of this whole prelude. However, you still do a very solid work using them, and thus the piece never gets boring. The ending is quite peculiar, and the only problem I have with it is not even related to it directly: the audio goes to zero abruptly just after the last note.

I must say that the other font you used for the title of the eleventh prelude was a kind of better haha.

Kind regards!!

Thanks man. This and no.8 had some moments that I might change, but overall I'm satisfied with the result. The main motif wasn't my favorite, but I liked how different it was from every other piece in this set. Kind of gave me Sabre Dance vibes. 

The audio ending is a mistake, thanks for pointing that out. I'm always glad to hear your thoughts on my music 🙂

On 5/15/2023 at 11:51 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

What I like about this piece is - it really grooves.  Everything is related to everything else in a coherent whole.  Even the contrasting slow parts.  The motives really accelerate and snowball into ever more and more intense versions of themselves.

Hey Peter, thanks for sharing some thoughts. I dug the groove too. It was a goal with this one to just run with development and see where it took me. 

On 5/15/2023 at 11:51 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

It's perfect!  It doesn't have any!  Unless you're talking about your faults ... ???  Don't get me started on those .. 🤣

shhhhhh....... they mustn't know

Updated with the one and only @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu rendition of the music. ❤️ Thanks so much Henry, I've learned so much from hearing your recordings 😄

This one is for sure the hardest among the whole set. A Waldsteinian accompaniment, energy and tempo, moments of syncopation like in no.7 and 9, use of hook accompaniment as in no.9, heavy chords as in no.8, imitations, lento section reminds me of no.1 and raindrop prelude, and the longest one with page number matching the prelude number, all these make it the most difficult one of the set. Stlll I enjoy playing this very much. This one as @SergeOfArniVillage said looks like the real finale of the prelude set with the elements in previous preludes reappear (and being the longest), while no.11 is an introduction to the postlude no.12. 

On 10/15/2023 at 7:09 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I've learned so much from hearing your recordings 😄

Thx for giving me a chance to play your preludes, I really learn through each of them by playing them since I won't be able to compose any of these preludes and you teach me new things with them.

Henry

Not the sort of the thing I usually listen to at all, so I don't have any detailed comments, but it was an interesting listen and I liked it! I think it has a good sort of frantic energy.

@Thatguy v2.0 i listened and i really like the octatonic vibe and driving nature of the piece, as well as the brief but mystical middle section.  it’s one of the better piano works by current composers i’ve listened to for sure.