Book of the Marvels of the World

This was one of my first orchestral pieces. It was inspired by the tales of Marco Polo’s journey to China. It’s split into 3 parts, with part 1 being the journey to the east, part 2 being life among the Mongols, and part 3 being the Khan’s court at Xanadu. 
As many historians believe that Marco Polo embellished or even completely fabricated his tales of China. I wanted the music to have a very fake Chinese music feel to it. 

The textures are certainly compelling, and lend a nice bit of atmosphere to the piece as a whole. If I were a composition teacher, I'd be pretty impressed with what you were able to come up with, given this was one of your first pieces for orchestra! It's a total shame you didn't post the sheet music for this piece, though: I can't provide much criticism about instrumentation or structure without being able to see the score, so maybe you could add it in for us? 😁

Talking about what I can hear, though: the music certainly doesn't feel Chinese-y at all (apart from maybe a pentatonic line here and there). The textures, good as they are, don't feel particularly evocative of the Far East (I suppose your description saying it was meant to be a pastiche of Chinese music helped me here a bit, but still); apart from the plucked lines on the harp (or guzheng? I can't tell) and the strikes of a gong, there is little to suggest your intentions of it being a pastiche of that type of music. If you were to use classical Chinese instruments, and possibly even resort to using Chinese musical cliches to hammer that point home to the point of excess, I think it'd actually match your intentions of the piece sounding artificially 'Chinese'. You're going to have to do some of your own research into that type of sound, however: I'm not exactly very knowledgeable when it comes to Asian music.

The piece as a whole also doesn't sound as if it's split into three movements at all: there is a lot of overlap between each part, and they are not separated enough (i.e. there aren't that many musical cues) to suggest a musical triptych to me. Maybe it was your intention to have the piece's movements played attacca subito or something like that, but I cannot pick up on those intentions (again, we need a score!).

Overall, a fun little experimental step into the world of the orchestra, though you could definitely do with a double-down on Chinese musical norms in your music. Could also use a score (alright I'll stop now lol). Good luck with your efforts!

It is an interesting and colorful piece.
To evoke that oriental-Chinese atmosphere, a good work to listen to is Turandot (Pun¡ccini), where he basks in that atmosphere using the western classical orchestra.

Hi a pleasant work ... I would put it in the genre of "New Age Music".  I wish you had a bit more development/variations in the percussion and harmonic movement.  After a while it becomes somewhat "same same".  Score?

Hello @BipolarComposer,

@Awsumerguy has provided a great review of this piece so I'm not going to repeat his points.

Nice hook used at the beginning! I love your minimalism here and it's varied with orchestral colour! The opening passage is mesmerizing. 

As a Chinese myself I don't feel like the music is Chinese or artificially Chinese. It maybe Chinese in the sense of the Chinese Dance in the Nutcracker Suite which is not Chinese at all. Chinese music is known for its heterophonic texture and the pentatonics. but for me the texture and harmony here is still Western based homophony/polyphony and functional harmony. 

Thx for sharing!

Henry