Waltz for Strings and Harp.

Hello. 

I know this has been awhile since posted. Writing has been rather slow.   Alas, I present a new piece: a waltz for strings and harp. It is 95% done.  

Here's what I need you guys check:

1: Harmony-Please make sure there is no counter point errors and such

2.  Form: Go through this with mircosponic. i can take it

3. String writing: Check balance and such.

Your feedback will be greatly appreciate 

Hello @Kvothe

Overall I like the main theme of this piece.  The main theme was pretty good and melodically lucid and engaging.  The introduction did a good job of setting the stage for work.  And the return to the main theme before the end was a good choice formally speaking.  The harmony in the main theme was also well chosen overall, with good use of pedal tones in the bass.

I found the middle section confusing.  Sometimes, the middle section resorts to too much arpeggiation in the harp and upper strings without seemingly any melodic material to drive it forward and sustain musical interest, giving it a sense of marking time.  Harmonically, there are many places in the middle section that have wrong-sounding cross-relations.  In measure 50 you have the Harp playing an E major chord while the 1st and 2nd Violins are playing G naturals which sounds wrong.  Maybe you meant there to be a split major/minor chord there, but it doesn't come off as a deliberate harmonic gesture because there's no melodic reason for it to be there to achieve any kind of deliberate musical effect.  Then in measure 51 you also have cross-relations between D#'s and D naturals that also sound wrong.  This is also pretty confusing:

You have a Gb in the 2nd Violins followed by an F#.  Did you forget that you had F#'s in the key signature?  This as well:

 The 1st Violins have Ab's while the 2nds seem to have A naturals.  Also not sure if that was deliberate.  Overall though, I enjoyed the main theme!  Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much feedback! 

Thanks for the positive feedback about in A section. Yes, I had harmonic planned out ahead time with melodic sketch before I wrote it.  

In the B section, my melodic plan was to have the cello carry the melody and the middle and upper strings provide middle and back ground material. I was inspired by meldshson.  Oops! I just noticed about the f# now.  Silly me. 

I remember this next time. 

Hi @Kvothe,

I agree on everything Peter said. The first theme is lovely but the cross relation in the middle section is a bit not fitting to the style. Apart from all what he said, I think the retransition back to the 1st theme's c minor is a bit confusing. I think for G major to modulate back to C minor would not be really difficult since G major is itself the dominant of C minor! Maybe you just have to introduce the minor 9th chord of G major (G, B, D, F, Ab) and that's enough for the modulation! But instead you have E minor chord placed before the C minor and there's no dominant chord for the preparation of C minor, so its return is quite abrupt for me!

Thx for sharing!

Henry