1st movement of my collab suite

If you want to see the coda of the finale of the suite: 

video for the complete first movement: 

Hope to have some opinions! It should be easier to follow than the finale movement, since the number of themes in this movement is much less than the finale...

Can you explain what you mean by "collab suite"?

unfiltered comments:
bar 44: mezzoforte and softly is contradictory
bar 64, 72: the d-natural sounds wrong even if it's intentional
given the repetitiveness of the exposition I really don't think a repeat before bar 92 is beneficial here
in general the piano deserves more performance directions, but especially the right hand from bars 112 on

The themes and ideas are really interesting! I just hope the organisation is more appealing, or maybe it's a thing with artificial playback, the whole thing does sound repetitive and monotonous, I really can't bring myself to listen to the whole 13 minutes to be honest.

17 minutes ago, PCC said:

Can you explain what you mean by "collab suite"?

unfiltered comments:
bar 44: mezzoforte and softly is contradictory
bar 64, 72: the d-natural sounds wrong even if it's intentional
given the repetitiveness of the exposition I really don't think a repeat before bar 92 is beneficial here
in general the piano deserves more performance directions, but especially the right hand from bars 112 on

The themes and ideas are really interesting! I just hope the organisation is more appealing, or maybe it's a thing with artificial playback, the whole thing does sound repetitive and monotonous, I really can't bring myself to listen to the whole 13 minutes to be honest.

 

I have to admit that my piano writing is pretty bad...

Collab suite part, what I mean is that this is the 1st movement of a suite that are collaborative works with other composers, where I compose the first movement and "last movement", and other are doing their own section...

The D-natural is intentional as you said, it's to make that sudden dark moment and for a structural detail. If I put it in D-sharp it actually becomes worse.

For the repetition, I also must admit that this is one of my big problems, since I love to saturate with the theme, and that causes issue... No intent to revise this tho, since I think actual performance would solve this problem.

Monotonous part is due to the artificial playback, cannot help.

Piano part, for this section of work I really try giving more focus on organ, so yeah my fault...

Hi @SisselOnline

I am going to be quite critical on this, sorry for this.

I have the same feeling as @PCC does. The materials themselves are beautiful, but the handling of them makes it sound repetitive and raw. You have moments when the themes and motives are combined together which is good, but it sounds like they just combine with not much development. You develop them by putting in different keys and turn them to post tonal themes, but it sounds more like repetitions in different keys rather than development.

Sometimes you say you are intentional for the tone clashes while I think it's presented more like errors of imitations! Like b.106 is quite weird for me.

For me the texture doesn't change much throughout the movement. Mostly there are static chords with some voices moving.

For the fugue around 8:10, can the fugue subject be called a subject by consisting of two notes?

I am still in doubt whether the piano can have it sound under that gigantic force of organ. I think that can be the biggest problem when played in real life.

On 6/18/2023 at 5:16 PM, SisselOnline said:

The D-natural is intentional as you said, it's to make that sudden dark moment and for a structural detail. If I put it in D-sharp it actually becomes worse.

But @PCC is talking about the clash, not whether to choose D sharp or D natural. It's great to have a minor D natural there, but not clashes of D sharp and D natural there. You should probably change the next D sharp to D natural as well.

On 6/18/2023 at 5:16 PM, SisselOnline said:

Monotonous part is due to the artificial playback, cannot help.

That's one reason, but you don't have dynamic markings in the score, that's why it's monotonous!

I really think that before you aim at something big (like this 40 minutes one), you should aim at composing something shorter! 

Also before writing dissonant counterpoint, I think you should have a firmer foot on the tonal counterpoint first since it may be easier to write with tonal progressions.

Thanks for sharing! I know I'm real nitpicky on this one but hopefully this doesn't discourage you. If you can write pieces in 40 minutes I'm sure you will write better ones in the future!

Henry

18 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hi @SisselOnline

I am going to be quite critical on this, sorry for this.

I have the same feeling as @PCC does. The materials themselves are beautiful, but the handling of them makes it sound repetitive and raw. You have moments when the themes and motives are combined together which is good, but it sounds like they just combine with not much development. You develop them by putting in different keys and turn them to post tonal themes, but it sounds more like repetitions in different keys rather than development.

Sometimes you say you are intentional for the tone clashes while I think it's presented more like errors of imitations! Like b.106 is quite weird for me.

For me the texture doesn't change much throughout the movement. Mostly there are static chords with some voices moving.

For the fugue around 8:10, can the fugue subject be called a subject by consisting of two notes?

I am still in doubt whether the piano can have it sound under that gigantic force of organ. I think that can be the biggest problem when played in real life.

But @PCC is talking about the clash, not whether to choose D sharp or D natural. It's great to have a minor D natural there, but not clashes of D sharp and D natural there. You should probably change the next D sharp to D natural as well.

That's one reason, but you don't have dynamic markings in the score, that's why it's monotonous!

I really think that before you aim at something big (like this 40 minutes one), you should aim at composing something shorter! 

Also before writing dissonant counterpoint, I think you should have a firmer foot on the tonal counterpoint first since it may be easier to write with tonal progressions.

Thanks for sharing! I know I'm real nitpicky on this one but hopefully this doesn't discourage you. If you can write pieces in 40 minutes I'm sure you will write better ones in the future!

Henry

 

The raw part, it's true, because at the time I was really bad at composing in sonata form. Before that work I usually just compose fugues that are considered "not so baroque".

(I can't say that for now I am getting better lol)

What exactly is development? I really don't understand.

Tone clashing part, it's really intentional lol

By achieving the copy-pasting(X), I did succeed on doing what I want, a bit like Soviet's offkey works, especially the one you pointed out. Here I do have my first inspiration on Khrennikov's Piano Concerto No.2 (specifically Kissin's performance)

D-sharp D-natural part, it lost the min-maj feeling if I change the next note to D-natural. Especially when you consider that D-sharp is in the important musical phrase of the B section in exposition. Also I don't hear the clash of them that hard.

Texture part, yes. I was disappointed on that as well. But I find no way to change it without destroying any details I prepared for the work after I finished this movement and working on the finale.

For the fugue in this movement, I can tell you it could be. Besides, that is a countersubject. (Even though it appears a lot outside of the subject)

I would say that this part is definitely not very good in terms of musical content, but in service to the aim of this part (and all the setting up behind this) it does its job well.

35 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

What exactly is development? I really don't understand.

I think there are a lot of thing you can do for development. My impression on this piece is that the materials are keep repeating themselves in different keys, and then there are new materials coming and treated in the same manner. For example is the opening theme B-A-G-F# important? I think it reappears in 1:30, but its initial appearance is not established at all. You can first establish the themes first to let audiences know they are important, then the later appearance will be take note by us!

Adding details especially dynamics will be really helpful in sorting out the themes as well. If you don't it will sound like a non-stop train and you never know where is important. 

Providing us the structural plan of this movement will be very helpful for us to perceive the intention of your piece. We as listeners won't know as much as you the composer and we won't know where is theme going and transforming, especially for a long movement like this, and there are a LOT of things happening here which can mix us up.

38 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

D-sharp D-natural part, it lost the min-maj feeling if I change the next note to D-natural. Especially when you consider that D-sharp is in the important musical phrase of the B section in exposition. Also I don't hear the clash of them that hard.

51 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

Tone clashing part, it's really intentional lol

It's not the clash intentional or hard or not but it's strange, since it only appears fortuitously here by appearing for just one bar twice. Either you remove the D natural to maintain the supremacy of D sharp there, or lengthen the D natural to enhance the contrast between the modes, or you can even use tone clash with D sharp and D narutal, but not only appearing for half a bar that to me is random and fortuitous. 

36 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

Texture part, yes. I was disappointed on that as well. But I find no way to change it without destroying any details I prepared for the work after I finished this movement and working on the finale.

Well I think in some parts you can change the accompaniments and move the themes to the lower register even though you want some repetition. Minimize those whole notes accompaniments on the organ will help as well as it makes the music too thick unnecessarily sometimes.

52 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

For the fugue in this movement, I can tell you it could be. Besides, that is a countersubject. (Even though it appears a lot outside of the subject)

But in b.146 and 158 you mark Subject dim, so I think that's the subject lol. If the countersubject appears alongside the subject at the beginning it is already a double fugue or something. But to use a Do-So for a subject can be really boring though, even you could use that.

56 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

I would say that this part is definitely not very good in terms of musical content, but in service to the aim of this part (and all the setting up behind this) it does its job well.

So it does its job in terms of presenting the themes to be used in latter movements? But if the first movement itself is not attractive enough then no one cares about the motivic development and cohesion! Even though the idea may be great, the sound itself does not attract audiences to listen to the relationship!

Henry

3 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I think there are a lot of thing you can do for development. My impression on this piece is that the materials are keep repeating themselves in different keys, and then there are new materials coming and treated in the same manner. For example is the opening theme B-A-G-F# important? I think it reappears in 1:30, but its initial appearance is not established at all. You can first establish the themes first to let audiences know they are important, then the later appearance will be take note by us!

Adding details especially dynamics will be really helpful in sorting out the themes as well. If you don't it will sound like a non-stop train and you never know where is important. 

Providing us the structural plan of this movement will be very helpful for us to perceive the intention of your piece. We as listeners won't know as much as you the composer and we won't know where is theme going and transforming, especially for a long movement like this, and there are a LOT of things happening here which can mix us up.

It's not the clash intentional or hard or not but it's strange, since it only appears fortuitously here by appearing for just one bar twice. Either you remove the D natural to maintain the supremacy of D sharp there, or lengthen the D natural to enhance the contrast between the modes, or you can even use tone clash with D sharp and D narutal, but not only appearing for half a bar that to me is random and fortuitous. 

Well I think in some parts you can change the accompaniments and move the themes to the lower register even though you want some repetition. Minimize those whole notes accompaniments on the organ will help as well as it makes the music too thick unnecessarily sometimes.

But in b.146 and 158 you mark Subject dim, so I think that's the subject lol. If the countersubject appears alongside the subject at the beginning it is already a double fugue or something. But to use a Do-So for a subject can be really boring though, even you could use that.

So it does its job in terms of presenting the themes to be used in latter movements? But if the first movement itself is not attractive enough then no one cares about the motivic development and cohesion! Even though the idea may be great, the sound itself does not attract audiences to listen to the relationship!

Henry

 

Mmmmm, I still personally think that I should not change that D-natural...

My mistake, that should be my first subject. It's actually already enough. It has a unique rhythm, it has a noticeable interval (fifth), and it could be well heard from the piano and organ (for organ I specifically asked DFiacco at the time) 

It could be boring if for every appearance of the subject there's nothing catching up in other voices. But I considered some examples on extremely simplistic theme, and figure that if other thematic materials are shown consecutively, then it would be fine as long as the counterpoint part is ok, which clearly I think it's ok.

For the thematic material part, I may do so later by coloring all the materials? Or any suggestions you could think to indicate?

4 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

Mmmmm, I still personally think that I should not change that D-natural...

Yeah then just go for it.

4 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

It has a unique rhythm, it has a noticeable interval (fifth), and it could be well heard from the piano and organ (for organ I specifically asked DFiacco at the time) 

Great then!

5 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

It could be boring if for every appearance of the subject there's nothing catching up in other voices. But I considered some examples on extremely simplistic theme, and figure that if other thematic materials are shown consecutively, then it would be fine as long as the counterpoint part is ok, which clearly I think it's ok.

As long as you feel like it's ok, it's ok then!

5 minutes ago, SisselOnline said:

For the thematic material part, I may do so later by coloring all the materials? Or any suggestions you could think to indicate?

I will suggest to write a structural analysis with timeline on your post though haha! Or colouring them will be great, but that will be painful for me lol.

Henry