The music had both a meaningful sense of here and now, and a direction, always. For me that is a good sign.Īll the movements also had a focus in them. Your harmonies, melodies and rhythms have a coherence to them. The orchestration is very good, sounds great and everything works. I do not burden myself with trying to figure out all the compositional finesse that has been put to the work.įirst of all, very well crafted music overall. Please bear in mind that I often allow myself consciously to focus on the level of first impressions when hearing a piece of music the first time. Now I have listened to your symphony once and should be able to give my first impressions. I hope you enjoy, and I am incredibly grateful for all who listen, respond, and take something away from this. While I do have the “rough” score of this and each instrument’s part, it is exactly that-rough- and while I trust my orchestration in terms of tone and texture, I wouldn’t want to risk this sounding unbalanced and incoherent in person due to all the nuances I know must go into a score to bring a work to its full potential for live performance (details such as how many of each instrument are required, the dynamics of each instrument so as to not overshadow in certain sections, bowing techniques, phrasing, tonguing, instrument specific articulations, which key certain instruments are built in that suites the music best, and so forth) There may be only one shot and I’d want a safety net. ![]() If there ever were interest in playing this, I’d likely hire a professional orchestrator with more experience than myself in terms of preparing orchestral notation for a concert setting (though I have some limited experience). I’m sure like most others who have wrote symphonies, I hold aspirations of having this played live someday it would be a dream come true. I’ve decided not to include the score for multiple reasons- primarily, my hope is for focus to be on how the orchestration and music sounds, rather than the picking apart of notational nuances (Not to indicate that is not important- more on that in a bit). I suppose it will depend on what I intend to say or accomplish in the given work. In future large scale works like this, I do intend to become more experimental and daring in my approach to harmony in all aspects. Additionally, to create a cinematic sense and memorable, “catchy” themes, I felt abiding to a traditional tonal language was the best approach. I did not want the piece to be ambiguous, and I felt this approach was best so the largest audience possible could interpret the work successfully. It is tonal in nature, utilizing very recognized harmony. In terms of self-growth and reflection, most important to me in this work was having a handle on orchestration technique and creating memorable themes- If I were to criticize my largest reservation of this work (while I did the best I could), I admit the piece is not incredibly diverse, innovative, or complex harmonically speaking. Three heavily contrasting thematic ideas are heard in this movement, all derived from the 3 prior movements, and all competing against one another whilst simultaneously trying to co-exist. The structural traditions are largely abandoned after this point, boiling down to the last movement which results in a dysfunctional “Scherzo-Rondo-Funeral March” of sorts. ![]() In regards to the story arc of the symphony, halfway through the 3rd movement, the piece noticeably “Awakens,” and the tone intentionally remains changed throughout. While the title of the work, the "cover art," and the names of individual movements shed some light to the story that lies behind the music, my hope is others will form their own interpretations, stories, and relations. If you don't jive with the first two movements, I do ask you consider the 3rd and 4th, as they more lean towards a modern cinematic style and are the closest reflection of my own personal style. All this is attempted to be done whilst telling a story and developing the primary 2 themes heard from the very opening of the piece- they are the catalyst of all to come and appear everywhere in the work in many ways. ![]() My ambition for this work was to create a symphony that begins rooted in traditional structural forms, but as it progresses, begins to depart from those traditions and evolves into a more modern cinematic style.
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