Riel Writes a Symphony

[RielCZ]

Well OK, before I get the naysayers against me I should probably start by saying it's not a symphony*; rather, it's an orchestral piece that could be considered a movement of a symphony. 

SPOILER: Click to show

A symphony is traditionally in 4 movements, with the first movement exciting and in Sonata-Allegro form; the second usually slower; the third in 3/4 (either a minuet and trio or scherzo and trio); and the fourth practically whatever, as long as it goes out in a bang, heh. 

Anyway, I've been working on the piece on and off (mostly off, heh) since before Christmas; it features a full orchestra (well, the smallest orchestral ensemble still considered an orchestra) playing 257 measures for 5 minutes and 41 seconds. It is written in rough Sonata-Allegro form.*

SPOILER: Click to show

Sonata-Allegro Form: a more advanced ternary (ABA) form.
Starts with the exposition section, in which usually two themes are stated. It is usually repeated, and ends in the fifth of the key. 
It then goes into the development section, where one (or sometimes both) theme(s) is played around with; modulated, sent through different styles or rhythms, etc.
And then the recapitulation, when the theme(s) come back! 
Some also feature a coda, which is sort of one last new passage leading to the end.

Anyway, perhaps this is where the you people can come in! I was thinking of entering this piece in a local composition contest, the deadline of which is in ten days. Eep. Anyway, perhaps you could listen to it; review it if you wanted to. What you like or don't like, so I can maybe make last-minute revisions.

So living up to my 3rd most musically inclined Superlatives win, thanks you guys! the link to the piece is found below. 
pentagonia.freeyellow.com/Rielspage/comp/Orch1.mp3

Thanks everyone!

[Yoyti]

I imagine it'll sound a lot better when played by an actual orchestra, but this sounds pretty solid.

It's hard to tell without looking at the score how much of this is a byproduct of the synthesizer, but it sounds like you've got an awful lot going on. That's not necessarily bad, but I've found that my music took an immense turn for the better when I stopped trying to give every instrument its own unique part at every point.

All that aside, I cannot envision this as part of a symphony. It sounds to me more like a movement from a dance suite. Or not even a movement of anything. Standalone pieces are good to. Really, I find it more like a Sousa march than anything else -- again, though, I imagine this is in part a byproduct of the synthesizer.

What I do appreciate particularly is that it sounds... regular. Romantic and late romantic stuff is great, and I do love Shostakovich, but so much modern music puts so much emphasis on totally free form no proper structure stuff. Basically, after Beethoven, the regular symphony form sort of fell apart. Wagner called Beethoven's ninth "the death knell of the symphony."It's refreshing to see a modern composer with some classical tendencies.

If you don't mind, I'd be interested in seeing the score. If you do mind, that's alright too.

[Pacmanite]

It's really awesome that you're working on this! It's such a great project idea, and I hope you're really enjoying seeing your work come together like this!

What I like:

I like how the first theme bounces along, with a lot of great forward momentum. It's very fun to listen to how it charges along in full flow. I also really like that you're doing this project and you're putting your music theory to work! The Classical style (by which I mean the specific period, not necessarily all of Classical music) might seem simple in sound but it is also exposed. It's difficult to keep following all the rules of harmonization, but you've made sure all the parts lead smoothly to their next notes and that they cover all the notes of the chord and don't awkwardly move in parallel 5ths or anything like that.

What I think can make for more awesomeness:

What I really like to hear in an orchestral piece is a contrast in texture. By texture I mean, how many instruments are playing at once, what groups of instruments, their articulation, and the varying density of the score. You're already doing some of this, but I think you can be more daring. Have orchestral silences, they do wonders. And try getting parts to take turns in answering each other. I guess some of those effects would be masked for now, since the synthesiser's notes all sound like the same instrument. But there are still things you can do to vary the texture more. I'd love to take Tchaikovsky's pizzicato ostinato (4th symphony, 3rd mvt) as an example.



Even when Tchaikovsky has to write within the constraints of making the string section pluck for the whole movement, he makes the texture of the strings interesting by leaving gaps in the baseline for daylight to shine through. He also sometimes transfers the melodic role down to the cellos while the violins get out of the way with an unobtrusive accompaniment part. And he sometimes lets a melodic or quasi-melodic figure play without any accompaniment behind it at all.

I think, especially since your piece has a Classical period style to it, you could definitely lighten up the baseline and the accompaniment in spots. Maybe you could let the base not play for a few beats and then rejoin, and/or let the accompaniment have some different articulation in spots, other than legato sostenuto.

I also get the feeling that your symphony doesn't have enough "bridging material" - sections that aren't complete melodies in themselves, but that set up a different mood and shift the key and possibly the tempo of the piece. When I listen all the way through your current symphony, it feels like it continually stays in the same key (even though it technically doesn't) and it seems to keep more or less the same mood. So I feel like I don't get a break from hearing the relentlessly forward-moving melodic figure. You could break this up using fragments of scales, or even just play the same two chords back and forth and then do the same thing double time and tie off with a cadence... right before a lone voice carries the music off somewhere else, perhaps.

On a similar note, I think more experimentation with keys would be awesome. My favourite part of the development section was 3:33, where I felt you had really nailed the different mood of a different key, and I was looking forward to hearing more but was sad that by 3:37 you had already switched to the dominant and then stayed with the dominant to the end. I know that it's kind of a Romantic thing to ask for more keys, but Classical symphonies often make great use of this too. My favourite part of Mozart's development section in the following clip is 3:19 where he takes a fragment of his melody and goes through the circle of fifths with it, changing key at every four-bar phrase. Then he cranks up the ante by taking an even smaller fragment of the tune and changing every two bars. Then he doubles again and takes just three notes and changes keys every bar (4:08), and then in a rush he changes several times a bar. About a whole minute was spent cycling through keys, right before the development collapses into a space-time singularity of rapid key changes just before the theme returns.



I also notice that your melodic voices are very "polite", in that they only begin their own four-bar phrases when the previous voice has finished a four-bar phrase. That's great when you're stating the theme, but it would be more fun to play around with this in the development. For example, at 3:30 in the Mozart clip, the cellos "rudely" butt in and start their own four-bar phrase in the fourth bar of the violins' figure. And again at 4:20, before the woodwinds are finished with their downward-sloping figure, the violins perk back up with the theme. How annoying! Those parts haven't finished yet! But the disconnect builds excitement. Without it, pieces risk sounding like an ice-cream truck on loop, the tune always starting again at the "right" place.

In summary: More textural contrast, more bridging sections and key experimentation in the development, and more space to breathe.

Again it's really awesome that you're doing this project! And it's great to hear how much work you've already done on it! I hope it sounds really amazing by the time you're finished!

[Killix]

...I like it.

*has zero education in music and can't give any meaningful critique*

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

May 4, 2014 19:58:42 GMT -5 Killix said:

...I like it.

*has zero education in music and can't give any meaningful critique*

Same. XD

I mean, I can play a bit of piano, and I sang in the high school choir, but... yeah. I know very little else.

It's a cool project, though! Looks like you're having fun with it.

[PFA]

I think it sounds pretty neat so far! Good luck with it!

[RielCZ]

Thanks for the comments and critiques, everyone! They were all helpful in their own ways!

For a second revision (due tomorrow, yay) I ended up lengthening the brief dip to minor in the development section and tried lightening up the bassline where I felt it necessary; this change doesn't come through the synthesizer too noticeably, however.

The product;
pentagonia.freeyellow.com/Rielspage/comp/Orch1_2.mp3

Although this copy will be what I submit tomorrow, this is sort of an ongoing project (like in the past, I'll work on it on and off) and maybe I'll get around to implementing other suggestions eventually, should I decide I'd like to.

Again, thanks so much everyone!