Hello all,
I thought I would share the first movement of a piece I wrote for string quartet. Let me know what you think! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l64aX1BqsHQ
~Chris
A competent imitation of Bartók, which is fine, but I'm wondering if you could share a composition that is more your own.
I like your guitar performance videos, by the way.
Hi. Thanks for the comment. I certainly plan on sharing more of my music, especially the more recent compositions that will show more of what my own compositional style has become over the years. I am in the process of getting more pieces recorded. Thanks for listening to the guitar works I have chosen to play as well. All feedback is much appreciated.
Mid 1940's to early 1950's Hungarian Rave party ;-)
Very well done... I realize it is a piece of yours from 'a long time ago.' While it was long ago, and this movement very well-done (a given, and congrats), these are some things I think best to move away from or avoid.
Coupla tings:
~~~Even well-imitating a style while your piece still being original is, imo, strictly of use in school, while training, and about no where else; the point of it, whether it is modal counterpoint, 18th century counterpoint, or those model pieces along the way in each semester/era of theory, is to get inside the harmonic hierarchy of the era, and see how past composers made things work. In this movement, you did just that.
~~~The ultimate goal is to have a tool kit and a familiarity with the tools to invent and solve your own musical problems, and come up with your own particular, 'idiosyncratic' if you will, vocabulary and sound.
~~~The other ting... you did mix meters, but imo, when you have one of the more identifiable and 'catchy' odd number meters, casting too many bars of that in a row starts to sound like a kind of dance music best left to much shorter forms or durations. Bartok's six dances in Bulgarian Rhythm work, in part, because the are each relatively brief; a handful, if not the lot of them, would fit into the span of the duration of your SQ movement. (Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, for the most part relentlessly in seven, with its sub-groupings holding static throughout so much of the work (2/2/3), becomes kitchy vs. catchy after only a few measures, and more than a little ironically, a rhythm that supposedly swings, rocks, keeps the listener off-balance, instead becomes a dully predictable bar line, boxy and square.)
Best regards
The above are all fair comments. At the start it's definitely interesting, but I would also add that the prevalence of similar metrical patterns becomes fatiguing after a while. Why not interrupt the music with something far less active, long sustained notes for example. And you're giving too much activity to violin 1. Only in a few places do the lower instruments take over to provide greater contrapuntal interest. Still if it was from "a long time ago," it's pretty good.
I enjoyed it. Congratulations on a fine performance. Some feedback, I think the violin one is too prominent so it feels like a violin 1 work with accompaniment rather than a string quartet but that might have been your intent so take that feedback with a grain of salt. Also, the accompaniment rhythm in the second half needs more variation because it eventually feels too repetitive. Very nice job.