Adagio Lamentoso in G Minor for Piano

Hello everyone! 

I just finished composing an Adagio for piano. It turned out to be quite a melancholic piece so it reminded me of a lament, that is why I named it "Adagio Lamentoso". 

It is a rounded binary form [:A:][:BA':] with a coda at the end. m.40 is the measure I am less confident about. I always have troubles going from one motivic idea to another one. In m.40 I transition to the main motive of the A section but I am not sure if it is smooth. Also, the piece stays mostly in the tonic Key, which can be a negative thing, specially since it is 4 minutes long. I tried to counter that lack of key changes with an interesting melody and varied chords voicings but I am not sure if it worked.

Any feedback is welcome and hope you like it! 

PD: I composed it at the piano but I did not manage playing it as well I wanted to so, for now, I used the midi sound :S.

I like it! I have a soft spot for pieces like this, that are easy to just sit down and play.

You mention insecurity with ms. 40, but I heard nothing that seemed "un-smooth" about it. If you find yourself unconvinced by a phrase in your composition, try experimenting with it. Take the phrase, and try looking at it from different harmonic angles. You may or may not be satisfied with the results, and it might be frustrating. But, you're likely to learn something valuable from the experience!

I think my biggest criticism of the piece is when you just stop the block chords at the end of each part, at mss. 24 & 56. Don't get me wrong, you definitely have the right idea for the music to come to a rest, but this way of doing it isn't working for me. I think it's because the piece isn't meaty enough for that *long* of a pause. Instead, perhaps a fermata or two at moments you consider "key" would work better, (for example, the 3rd beat of ms. 40?) providing space, without sounding clunky or detached.

I really enjoyed listening to this! Thank you for sharing 🙂

7 hours ago, SergeOfArniVillage said:

I like it! I have a soft spot for pieces like this, that are easy to just sit down and play.

You mention insecurity with ms. 40, but I heard nothing that seemed "un-smooth" about it. If you find yourself unconvinced by a phrase in your composition, try experimenting with it. Take the phrase, and try looking at it from different harmonic angles. You may or may not be satisfied with the results, and it might be frustrating. But, you're likely to learn something valuable from the experience!

I think my biggest criticism of the piece is when you just stop the block chords at the end of each part, at mss. 24 & 56. Don't get me wrong, you definitely have the right idea for the music to come to a rest, but this way of doing it isn't working for me. I think it's because the piece isn't meaty enough for that *long* of a pause. Instead, perhaps a fermata or two at moments you consider "key" would work better, (for example, the 3rd beat of ms. 40?) providing space, without sounding clunky or detached.

I really enjoyed listening to this! Thank you for sharing 🙂

Thank you so much for your comment @SergeOfArniVillage! I am glad you enjoyed the piece! 🙂

I though about your criticism and I totally agree with it. I guess I was not really listening and just stopped the accompaniment in those parts because it was the end of a section and did not give it a second though. When practicing at the piano it did flow much more natural to keep on playing the chords non-stop. I fixed it!

I also considered your comment about a fermata here and there to let the music breath. While playing it myself I felt I did not want a fermata but, rather, just a little bit of natural rubato here and there that the player would know how to apply to let the music less "robotic". I changed the piece to Adagio since I felt this implied better my intended interpretation and tempo for the piece. However, I did  added a ritardando right before the final dominant chord that I think makes a much better ending. It is a pity that, of course, I did not manage to make the ritardando sound as I wanted to with Musescore hahaha. 

Thank you so much, your feedback was really useful! 

It is a very nice and well done work.
I have one comment or suggestion: I think, given, the length of the piece, it seems to me that it would benefit from a contrasting part in terms of left hand rhythm or pattern. The same for the harmony. At some point it's nice to have a less expected chord, a broken cadence, or whatever.
 

Hey @JorgeDavid!

I like the mood of the piece but I agree with Luis that a contrasting section with a different accompaniment or a modulation to another key would be very welcome.  It seems like you are kinda using Chopin's famous Prelude in E minor as the model for this piece, no?  I think the reason why the same accompaniment pattern works in that case for such a long time is the liberal use of chromaticism and a slow constant modulation.  Thanks for sharing!

Man, this has some very flavorful chord voicings. The Major 7ths, Augments, Minor 7ths, and Dominant 7th chords really make this a Lamenting piece. 

I agree with how others have already explained that this piece would be so much more engaging and powerful if there were a sort of "bridge" section that built up to the outro or the last verse/chorus then to outro with contrasting statements such as maybe arpeggiating the chords for the Left hand (bass clef) rather than the monotonous quarter note chord rhythms used throughout the progression, and worked up to a Forte or Fortissimo dynamic level at the peak of it to really drive the lament home. 

I've got a Lamentoso piece named "Lamentation" floating around on this forum that you might be interested in viewing as an example of what I mean. You can check it out right here to see what I'm talkin' about :)

On 2/14/2025 at 4:25 AM, Luis Hernández said:

It is a very nice and well done work.
I have one comment or suggestion: I think, given, the length of the piece, it seems to me that it would benefit from a contrasting part in terms of left hand rhythm or pattern. The same for the harmony. At some point it's nice to have a less expected chord, a broken cadence, or whatever.

Thank you so much Luis! I agree with you and everyone seems to be commenting the same. This is a strange composition for me because while I love the melodic contour that I composed I somehow did not manage to vary the harmonic content as much as I normally like to. I am trying to reharmonize some sections but it is not being easy. I changed few things here and there in the B section but I did not manage to make any substantial change yet :S. 

Thanks for listening and commenting!

On 2/14/2025 at 12:58 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hey @JorgeDavid!

I like the mood of the piece but I agree with Luis that a contrasting section with a different accompaniment or a modulation to another key would be very welcome.  It seems like you are kinda using Chopin's famous Prelude in E minor as the model for this piece, no?  I think the reason why the same accompaniment pattern works in that case for such a long time is the liberal use of chromaticism and a slow constant modulation.  Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for commenting @PeterthePapercomPoser! 

I did not know the prelude by Chopin. I think it is famous as somehow I think I heard it before, but I was not aware of its existence (really nice prelude, though!). The model was a really really simple Czerny beginner piano piece, a waltz, really simple. I used it as a model for the harmony and chords inversions of the first section, and that is the end of the commonalities. I guess my mistake was using as model for a slow piece a fast piece, since slow pieces need to be treated much different to a fast one. 

After composing it a similar piece came to my mind: Bach Adagio for Piano BW974. It is actually a Alessandro Marcello that Bach transcribed for the piano. Incredibly beautiful. The whole piece, with the exception of the coda and a single bar, has a constant accompaniment. However, there the accompaniment is less heavy since most chords are quite high (on the contrary to my piece or Chopin's prelude). 

For now, I deleted the repetition of the A section after B section since I felt that was the weakest part of the piece and also created a new Coda for relaxing the ear after such a constant stream of chordal accompaniment. I also tried to fix volume issues (with this accompaniment, making the volume correct between melody and accompaniment is so important) and modified the B part so it gets less "bass heavy" at times. No substantial change but I am happy it improved a little bit at least.

Thank you so much for listening and commenting!! 

On 2/14/2025 at 11:44 PM, UncleRed99 said:

Man, this has some very flavorful chord voicings. The Major 7ths, Augments, Minor 7ths, and Dominant 7th chords really make this a Lamenting piece. 

I agree with how others have already explained that this piece would be so much more engaging and powerful if there were a sort of "bridge" section that built up to the outro or the last verse/chorus then to outro with contrasting statements such as maybe arpeggiating the chords for the Left hand (bass clef) rather than the monotonous quarter note chord rhythms used throughout the progression, and worked up to a Forte or Fortissimo dynamic level at the peak of it to really drive the lament home. 

I've got a Lamentoso piece named "Lamentation" floating around on this forum that you might be interested in viewing as an example of what I mean. You can check it out right here to see what I'm talkin' about :)

Thanks for listening and commenting @UncleRed99!

Yes, since the piece happened to stay exclusively in the tonic key at least I tried to add some varied voicings to add some spice 😆

After all of you commented about the piece I listened to it carefully and that last section really made the piece drag a lot and made it feel even longer than it was. So I deleted that last section, made a new coda, and modified a few things here and there to try to make the piece a little bit less "bass heavy". It still drags.... but less haha. I still would like to add the initial section at the end but, for now, I deleted it and added a coda (I still do not like the last cadence of section B so I might have to modify that too to make the ending before the coda more conclusive). I might still consider adding a bridge in the future if I find some solution!

I listened to the piece and it was really god! You are so good with the orchestral instruments too! It would still be quite hard for me to compose something like that but I guess everything times makes perfect! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you!

@JorgeDavid, Don't sell yourself short! You won't know til' ya try! Practice makes perfect. I wasn't ever really privy to writing symphony orchestral music at all, until recently, having been a lowly trumpeter during my music career. I do it for fun now, and I don't play anything, except the Piano, and albeit not very well, well enough to use for composing. 

It's all about knowing what instrument does what best. Then taking advantage of it. I'm not a master composer by any stretch of the imagination. I sort of just put lipstick on my pigs with Spitfire LABS VST3 playback and Musesounds playback, with some panning, gain +/-, and audio effects plugins with MuseScore 4. Makes the music sound better than it looks, I suppose 🤣

I'm willing to bet you won't disappoint yourself if you were to take a crack at it. It may be daunting, but I'll tell you what I do to start with a piece; 

Write an outline using only the piano grand staff. Make labels for the instruments that should voice the notes in your outline. Take advantage of the "Voices" function in MS4 to write more than 1 part in a measure

On 2/16/2025 at 4:37 AM, UncleRed99 said:

@JorgeDavid, Don't sell yourself short! You won't know til' ya try! Practice makes perfect. I wasn't ever really privy to writing symphony orchestral music at all, until recently, having been a lowly trumpeter during my music career. I do it for fun now, and I don't play anything, except the Piano, and albeit not very well, well enough to use for composing. 

Thank you so much for the encouragement, @UncleRed99, I really appreciate it! In my case I always wanted to compose orchestral music and that is still one of the goals in the long term. My problem is always time. Mostly because of my piano skills. Practicing piano takes 70% of my time, which is only a couple hours a day, and I still do not learn as fast as I wanted to. But I invest on it because I feel it will help me compose much faster in the future. 

I did try orchestrating before. I have several orchestral books but I have no time to study them in an orderly fashion so basically I decided I wanted to orchestrate some of my pieces and read enough of those books for applying it to my pieces. 6 months ago I did my favorite one but it is actually more of a piano concerto than a symphonic orchestra. You can see it here from when I posted it in the forum! 

My problem is also that I do not compose that often. And I need pieces for trying to orchestrate them but I ran out of pieces hahaha. I pretty much posted here 90% of what I composed so I do not have many stuff and I rarely throw any ideas. Normally if I start something I finish composing something with it and post it. So for being able to orchestrate again I will need to compose some new things 😥. Now I actually have a piece I want to orchestrate, the "Bagatelle No.2" but I really like that piece so I put it aside to do it in the future when I have better skills. 

On 2/16/2025 at 4:37 AM, UncleRed99 said:

It's all about knowing what instrument does what best. Then taking advantage of it. I'm not a master composer by any stretch of the imagination. I sort of just put lipstick on my pigs with Spitfire LABS VST3 playback and Musesounds playback, with some panning, gain +/-, and audio effects plugins with MuseScore 4. Makes the music sound better than it looks, I suppose 🤣

I'm willing to bet you won't disappoint yourself if you were to take a crack at it. It may be daunting, but I'll tell you what I do to start with a piece; 

Write an outline using only the piano grand staff. Make labels for the instruments that should voice the notes in your outline. Take advantage of the "Voices" function in MS4 to write more than 1 part in a measure

I heard nice things about the Spitfire LABS VST before! Do you use them in a DAW or it can be integrated with musescore and you use both sounds (Spitfire and MuseSounds) at the same time? Also, what audio plugins you use in musescore? What I do is using the reverb for all instruments as a group (instead of one reverb for each instrument) and also the ProEQ plugin, basically just setting each instrument to its family (for example, I set all strings instruments to "strings" option in the ProEQ). I feel the ProEQ plugin really make things sound so much more real. 

Thank you for the advice about labeling the piano grandstaff! I heard that is the best way to practice at first. Just composing at the piano and thinking about the sounds you want to writing it down roughly by main instruments and family, without going straight to notating everything in the orchestral score. Actually, recently I found a transcription of the whole "Lord of the Rings" OST that a fan made, exactly like that, with the piano and the outlines of the instruments and families and I am using it for listening to the score and seeing if I slowly learn something. I will need to try to compose for orchestra in that way myself too! 

5 hours ago, JorgeDavid said:

I heard nice things about the Spitfire LABS VST before! Do you use them in a DAW or it can be integrated with musescore and you use both sounds (Spitfire and MuseSounds) at the same time? Also, what audio plugins you use in musescore? What I do is using the reverb for all instruments as a group (instead of one reverb for each instrument) and also the ProEQ plugin, basically just setting each instrument to its family (for example, I set all strings instruments to "strings" option in the ProEQ). I feel the ProEQ plugin really make things sound so much more real. 

Thank you for the advice about labeling the piano grandstaff! I heard that is the best way to practice at first. Just composing at the piano and thinking about the sounds you want to writing it down roughly by main instruments and family, without going straight to notating everything in the orchestral score. Actually, recently I found a transcription of the whole "Lord of the Rings" OST that a fan made, exactly like that, with the piano and the outlines of the instruments and families and I am using it for listening to the score and seeing if I slowly learn something. I will need to try to compose for orchestra in that way myself too! 

I can understand the stressful nature of your dilemma with having to practice piano skills on top of doing arrangements and composition. Personally, before I began to orchestrate full compositions,  started with using MuseScore user's compositions and arranging ones that I felt were done poorly or could use improvement or that I noticed places where this or that would've been a better choice to happen in a given section. This jump started a lot of lost knowledge from the time I studied music theory and got the ball rolling for me to actually compose something (whch I'd never done before. This was the results of that (My Musescore Profile. See the Spotlights) - Especially the long arctic midnight. It's a bit long but it's the first full symphony orchestral piece I created. 2 movements in 11/8 time, modulating between 6/8, 12/8 and 4/4 as well. Took me 6 months to do that one. 

And as far as the use of Spitfire, you can use them in MuseScore's mixer. Musescore will automatically detect usable VST plugins on your device. Nothing to do further at all. And via MuseHub, you can install MuseFX which comes with a good range of audio effects plugins that are integral to the program itself. 

Just don't waste your money on the MuseHub sound packages.. they're mediocre at best in my opinion. MuseSounds out-performs them in terms of their interactions with the sheet music during playback. The sounds themselves are A+. Their ability to react to dynamics and stay in tune however, not even close to an F rating in my opinion... Trumpet sounds are pitchy, and other brass sounds don't follow dynamics like they're supposed to. Strings are also pitchy and cannot perform any sound flags like they're supposed to, the rhythms aren't ever played back correctly etc.... way too many bugs imo. Spitfire, some of their sounds are better than others. Especially if you're using LABS free edition. I pay for LABS+ and I gotta say, it's an improvement. However, some of the MuseSounds are still top tier compared to anything from LABS. So I just use them in tandem for anything I create now. Mostly I use LABS+ for the Piano playback sounds they offer. Much more realistic sounding. Their Choir sounds are awesome as well, and their Intimate Brass is useful for Trombone and French Horn playback which MuseSounds lack quality in those areas. There isn't much in the way of woodwinds, and the ones they do have don't sound nearly as polished as Muse does, so I don't even bother with them. 

Basically, nowadays and VST3 playback options out there are currently lacking in their ability to interact well with notation software, on the general level. I don't use DAWs so I can't really say much to their quality in that aspect, however, I have seen some works out there using LogicPRO, FLStudio, and other DAWs using these VSTs and they come out absolutely awesome. I'm just not privy to that software. I'm much more accustomed to reading and notating sheet music since it's something I've known from a time before I knew anything about DAWs or even Notation software. 

On 2/18/2025 at 8:35 AM, UncleRed99 said:

I can understand the stressful nature of your dilemma with having to practice piano skills on top of doing arrangements and composition. Personally, before I began to orchestrate full compositions,  started with using MuseScore user's compositions and arranging ones that I felt were done poorly or could use improvement or that I noticed places where this or that would've been a better choice to happen in a given section. This jump started a lot of lost knowledge from the time I studied music theory and got the ball rolling for me to actually compose something (whch I'd never done before. This was the results of that (My Musescore Profile. See the Spotlights) - Especially the long arctic midnight. It's a bit long but it's the first full symphony orchestral piece I created. 2 movements in 11/8 time, modulating between 6/8, 12/8 and 4/4 as well. Took me 6 months to do that one.

And as far as the use of Spitfire, you can use them in MuseScore's mixer. Musescore will automatically detect usable VST plugins on your device. Nothing to do further at all. And via MuseHub, you can install MuseFX which comes with a good range of audio effects plugins that are integral to the program itself. 

Yes, mixing the study of an instrument with composition is not as easy is I though mostly because, at least in my case, if I do not focus full time to the learning of the instrument I feel like I do not progress at all. It is like if I learn only 30 minutes a day I cannot improve my piano skills and need to spend at least 1~2 hours on it everyday for seeing results. 

I also though about arranging other pieces for practicing, and it is a really good idea but, to be honest, I feel like arranging my own pieces give me that motivational boost that I need for taking real effort on studying orchestration. But I guess I should start considering arranging existing pieces even if it is just for practicing different orchestral techniques in a more mechanical way. 

I listened to the 'long artic midnight suite' and I really liked it! Specially the first movement. Even though the time signatures were unusual the whole movement felt so smooth! And the orchestration was great too. I did not expect the Spitfire instruments to blend so nicely with the MuseSound ones! Really nice piece! If I have to nitpick the couple of piano parts that started a couple of sections were a little bit to "new age" for my taste, but that is just a matter of taste, and it is not like they were not enjoyable. Thanks for sharing the piece!

On 2/18/2025 at 8:35 AM, UncleRed99 said:

Just don't waste your money on the MuseHub sound packages.. they're mediocre at best in my opinion. MuseSounds out-performs them in terms of their interactions with the sheet music during playback. The sounds themselves are A+. Their ability to react to dynamics and stay in tune however, not even close to an F rating in my opinion... Trumpet sounds are pitchy, and other brass sounds don't follow dynamics like they're supposed to. Strings are also pitchy and cannot perform any sound flags like they're supposed to, the rhythms aren't ever played back correctly etc.... way too many bugs imo. Spitfire, some of their sounds are better than others. Especially if you're using LABS free edition. I pay for LABS+ and I gotta say, it's an improvement. However, some of the MuseSounds are still top tier compared to anything from LABS. So I just use them in tandem for anything I create now. Mostly I use LABS+ for the Piano playback sounds they offer. Much more realistic sounding. Their Choir sounds are awesome as well, and their Intimate Brass is useful for Trombone and French Horn playback which MuseSounds lack quality in those areas. There isn't much in the way of woodwinds, and the ones they do have don't sound nearly as polished as Muse does, so I don't even bother with them. 

I agree. I actually bought in the past a few Berlin instruments for Musescore. And at first I thought "these sound amazing!" but as soon as I started composing with dynamics and expression markings they became quite unusable. Even the piano, where the change from mp to mf is like the change from p to ff in a normal piano. So, in the end, I ended up using only the MusesSounds. As you say, some brass are bad. I only like the Saxophones, that is why I used Saxophones for that Soli of the Jazz piece that I am still working on.

I think it is not a bad idea mixing some instruments from Labs with the MusesSound! I think LABS work with subscription plan, right? I might consider trying it out in the future. Thanks for the explanation, @UncleRed99! 

21 hours ago, JorgeDavid said:

I agree. I actually bought in the past a few Berlin instruments for Musescore. And at first I thought "these sound amazing!" but as soon as I started composing with dynamics and expression markings they became quite unusable. Even the piano, where the change from mp to mf is like the change from p to ff in a normal piano. So, in the end, I ended up using only the MusesSounds. As you say, some brass are bad. I only like the Saxophones, that is why I used Saxophones for that Soli of the Jazz piece that I am still working on.

I think it is not a bad idea mixing some instruments from Labs with the MusesSound! I think LABS work with subscription plan, right? I might consider trying it out in the future. Thanks for the explanation

It works with or without a subscription. You have to have internet connection to use the playback however. But if you have internet connection before launching the LABS plugin thru the mixer, it will work fine the rest of the time from what I’ve experienced with it so far. 
 

also Thank you for taking time to hear my piece. I know the engraving and grammar is a bit weird. That’s only because with a piece that size, my laptop kept freezing while doing anything by after a certain point so I just didn’t even bother going back to add in slurs, clean up staff text markings and other small things. If I were to receive a request to perform the piece, I’d probably go ahead and grit my teeth and get that over with but for now it’s just gonna have to stay that way 😅😅

@JorgeDavid 

also to touch on arrangement, you don’t have to arrange a piece to be 100% like the original. And you don’t even have to publish it! 
 

but I’ll give you another example of something I arranged recently. I’m sure you know about the Halo Game franchise. I took the Halo 3 OST track “Never Forget” and completely overhauled it using the same instrumentation and same intervals of key changes using a different starting pitch, and added in my own styling, as well as combining elements from the Halo 3 version written by Martin O’Donnell and the Halo 4 version written by Kazuma Jinnouchi 

heres the Musescore Link to that one

just to give you an idea about what I mean by arrangement. The possibilities are endless with things like that! You can MAKE it your own! Doesn’t have to be someone else’s from start to finish. One big aspect of music is the theft of ideas. It’s one of the fundamental parts of composition. Composers steal ideas and expand upon them all the time. 

What a lovely piece! You nailed it with the title - although there were some slightly brighter moments, the piece has an overall lamenting tone. I've heard a LOT of compositions where just because the piece was in minor, the composer expected a "sorrowful" or "somber" tone, yes the overall sonority of minor keys tends to be more somber, I believe, if arranged correctly, even major keys can have a melancholic tone to them - BUT, that's a discussion for another day. 

One thing I enjoyed about this piece is that it sounds more modern without sounding too modern. I'm not sure if that makes any sense lol. 

Your phrasing is another one of the things you've done so well with this piece. I don't always hear NT and PT and stepwise, scalar motion being used in such a sophisticated way. I like the leaps, they added brightness, while maintaining the shape of the melody. 

Your harmony is simple, but I'm a sucker for i-iv-V7-i in minor 😂. Overall this price is very strong - I don't have much more to add that hasn't already been said. I know you have more material in you, I can hear it 👀 As a pianist-composer myself I understand the struggle to balance composition with practice and such - BUT, I would love to hear this piece orchestrated. Nothing too elaborate - maybe a wind quintet with a flute on the melody, just a thought - a bass clarinet on the "tenor" and bass voices 😮‍💨👌🏾