The Melding Of Middle Earth (reworked for chamber orchestra)

Hi to my fellow composers!

Here's a piece I've posted before; but it's been heavily modified to suit a chamber orchestra.

Had to cut it down to 5 minutes to fit the required time constraint.

Hopefully there are no problems with my score?
I've already sent it off to the orchestra; but if they choose not to perform it, I have another option to use it next year.

Definitely let me know if you spot any issues!

Hi Alex,

You have some really lovely thematic material in this composition.  I would suggest looking at the orchestration to see if you can enhance the tonal fabric - maybe with more ensemble playing in the wood winds and brass. I think the material(s) can be developed further with more variations both rhythmically and harmonically too.  A bit of contrary motion would also add to the texture.

Mark

I agree that there is very good material here. Sometimes it sounds modal to me, sometimes like quartal harmonies.
But in general terms as far as the orchestra is concerned I agree as well.
What there is is a very large predominance of the string sections. I think you can try to pass the baton to the winds, even brass. These are left for very punctuated moments.
On the other hand, and this is an observation for myself, also, when a mockup is made with a virtual orchestra, the instruments in which a2 is indicated, are really sounding one. I think that is, together with the fact that the virtual sound is much more unstable than the real one, it makes the timbres very unbalanced. What I do when a pair of instruments go a2 is to write both (one with stems up and one down). It is true that a2 does not sound twice as loud as 1 solo, but it changes the timbre.
 

22 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

Hi Alex,

You have some really lovely thematic material in this composition.  I would suggest looking at the orchestration to see if you can enhance the tonal fabric - maybe with more ensemble playing in the wood winds and brass. I think the material(s) can be developed further with more variations both rhythmically and harmonically too.  A bit of contrary motion would also add to the texture.

Mark

 

Hi Mark,

Many thanks for your review.

The original version of this piece (posted here a few months ago) actually did have more ensemble playing in the woodwinds; but I had to cut that section. This chamber orchestra project had a 5 minute time limit for all submissions.

The original idea behind this piece was that it should be a medley of different themes, each one designed to represent a particular race of creatures from the world of Tolkien (elves, hobbits, dwarves, etc...).

I was toying with the idea of expanding each section later on, to produce a series of longer standalone works, where I explore the themes more thoroughly.

Hopefully I'll get round to that eventually.

Alex

7 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I agree that there is very good material here. Sometimes it sounds modal to me, sometimes like quartal harmonies.
But in general terms as far as the orchestra is concerned I agree as well.
What there is is a very large predominance of the string sections. I think you can try to pass the baton to the winds, even brass. These are left for very punctuated moments.
On the other hand, and this is an observation for myself, also, when a mockup is made with a virtual orchestra, the instruments in which a2 is indicated, are really sounding one. I think that is, together with the fact that the virtual sound is much more unstable than the real one, it makes the timbres very unbalanced. What I do when a pair of instruments go a2 is to write both (one with stems up and one down). It is true that a2 does not sound twice as loud as 1 solo, but it changes the timbre.
 

 

Hi Luis,

Thanks very much for your review.

I had to prepare this score in just 2 days, as the deadline was very tight. So I didn't really have time to play around with my orchestration.

The earlier version (from a few months back) had more orchestral colours, as it featured a vibraphone, harp and alto flute.

These instruments were not available in the chamber orchestra: so I had to move those parts elsewhere.

I nearly always produce my mock-up first with Music Studio for iPad, then use MuseScore to produce my manuscript from the midi data. So having double stems wouldn't make any difference to my rendition.
Unless I used MuseScore itself to produce the mock-up; but I'm never very happy with the way it sounds.

Alex

Hi @Alex Weidmann,

I agree with Mark @MJFOBOE with the orchestration, but I also know this is your style to go for sparse orchestration/instrumentation instead of thick texture, so it's up to you to decide your style here. Indeed the woodwind is featured much less frequent in your other previous works or versions of this work. At least has some sections featuring only woodwinds will be great though, as Mark is an oboist so he cares more for the woodwind section!

Thx for sharing!

Henry

5 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

At least has some sections featuring only woodwinds will be great though, as Mark is an oboist so he cares more for the woodwind section!

Many thanks for taking a listen Henry.

My last piece "The Forest Of Dreams" featured lots of woodwind; but with this one, I decided to cut the passages where the woodwind were dominant. I think it was the weakest section of the piece, and something had to go, to fit the time requirement.

Hopefully my scoring is improving at least? I tried hard to make it look professional here, since it was going to a professional orchestra! 

Hi @Alex Weidmann, I agree with others that there is some good thematic material here. I think the orchestration is a bit stale and you could use a bit more variety of textures. It feels like for most of the piece there are sustained notes in the strings, which gets a little tiring after a while. Maybe try to vary this a bit. An idea I had is to maybe change the sustained notes (half notes) starting around m.50 to quarter notes and rests. This way you would be accenting the quarter note/16th note melody in the violins on the beat, instead of with just sustained chords. Just a thought, hope that helps.

Thanks for sharing!

On 9/11/2023 at 9:51 PM, gmm said:

Hi @Alex Weidmann, I agree with others that there is some good thematic material here. I think the orchestration is a bit stale and you could use a bit more variety of textures.

Thanks for listening!

I'm a big fan of your works: so I'm flattered you like my melodic content.

Would be interested to know whether you prefer my original orchestration of this piece, which can be found here (version #13 towards the bottom of the thread):

It has a much wider variety of orchestral colour, and an extra section in the middle, where the harp and woodwind carry the melody. (I cut that section in the new version, because I felt it was circling back to the tonic too much. Like the music was treading water.)

There's also a contrast between the rustic sound of the nyckelharpa, and the more conventional strings.

I only had a couple of days to adapt the original version for chamber orchestra, due to a tight submission deadline. So there are quite a few aspects I would have done differently, had more time been available.

Hi @Alex Weidmann, I listened to the other version you posted above. I do indeed enjoy the more varied orchestra color and the more apparent contrast between sections. You are able to keep the listeners interest even with only a couple of instruments playing. Well done!