Symphony no 1 (?) - work in progress

Now that I have finished my recent project, I want to share what I am working on next. This started as some orchestral practice, but has evolved into something more solid. So far I have the outline of a slow adagio followed by an upbeat allegro that is reminiscent of Haydn's style.

Hope to progress with this over the coming months. 

https://musescore.com/user/69480886/scores/14324641 

This is a promising classical symphonic movement!  There are many places that sound quite empty and not filled out orchestrally which I'm just assuming is because you're not finished with it.  Also - you don't specify that the Clarinet should be in A.

I do have some suggestions for you as you embark upon the composition of a classical symphony - please include a movement from a Baroque dance suite that isn't a minuet!  I think when Prokofiev wrote a Gavotte in his Symphony No.1 it worked really well in my opinion, and the Symphony itself is partly evolved from the Baroque dance suite anyway so using a different dance as a movement within it would be really interesting!  (And for some reason that is rare - somehow the minuet and trio had become the default dance within the symphony.)  Thanks for sharing this great idea!

Peter

9 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

This is a promising classical symphonic movement!  There are many places that sound quite empty and not filled out orchestrally which I'm just assuming is because you're not finished with it.  Also - you don't specify that the Clarinet should be in A.

I do have some suggestions for you as you embark upon the composition of a classical symphony - please include a movement from a Baroque dance suite that isn't a minuet!  I think when Prokofiev wrote a Gavotte in his Symphony No.1 it worked really well in my opinion, and the Symphony itself is partly evolved from the Baroque dance suite anyway so using a different dance as a movement within it would be really interesting!  (And for some reason that is rare - somehow the minuet and trio had become the default dance within the symphony.)  Thanks for sharing this great idea!

Peter

 

Yes, it’s an outline at this stage. I tend to add the other complimenting parts there once the melodic direction and bass have been well defined. That will be the challenge for me here, due to my lacking experience in orchestration. 
 

And I note your suggestion for an alternative dance form… I’ll have a think about that. 

Certainly classical symphonic material. I tend to go along with Peter's comment about the need to fill it out. As you said, it's a sketch at the moment but the proportions are fine. As I understand, Bruckner composed like this in his later work at least. No doubt he wasn't alone.

So it really is just filling it out - the lightest pizz accompaniment in the opening section (up to bar 36, maybe some contrapuntal lines.  I notice your omission of Double Bass....fine but as development builds up to climaxes having a deep bass to double the cellos may help. The few bars of the Allegro are light and energetic.

Interesting about a dance movement. This seems to have become a scherzo in some classical works. Just a thought.

Look forward to hearing more. 

Hey @Markus Boyd,

First I really love the imitations at the beginning, you always do that greatly. The transition from the slow introduction to allegro is somewhat abrupt since the harmonic progression there for me is unclear. You have a V/V there in b.33 and I may use a F sharp for the F in b.34. Then in b.37 the bassoon is in V but the strings enter in I. I think you can at least have a perfect cadence before the first theme and then the I chord can enter more smoothly! The first theme is still in progress so looking forward to its progress!

Henry