If you were (or are) a composer, what kind of works would you write?

Started by Symphonic Addict, August 22, 2021, 03:03:20 PM

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Iota

Awful ones. The best thing I ever wrote was a piece for me and a (very brilliant) violinist to play at my  brother's wedding. And that was awful too.

I once wrote a (non-classical) song that both my older sister and my girlfriend at the time liked, and we were all at a jazz gig one night in London, and when they stopped for an interval, unknown to me my sister, who people always said yes to alas, went up and asked if her brother could play a song. So I ended up on the stage with my girlfriend, like my sister a fearless type who assumed things would always go well, saying she wanted to sing it.
Unfortunately when we actually got to it, she'd never sung in public before and was so nervous that she started (and continued) singing out of tune. This was compounded halfway through the song, by the lower panel of the upright piano dropping on my foot, thus jamming the sustain pedal down for the rest of the song. An inauspicious, but wholly fitting start to my never-to-be song writing career! 

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: vandermolen on August 24, 2021, 12:39:37 AM
I think that I would write symphonies as these are what I listen to most.
They would probably sound like a cross between pale imitations of Vaughan Williams mixed in with rejected scores for Hollywood biblical epics.
8)
;D
Pohjolas Daughter

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Iota on August 24, 2021, 11:08:38 AM
Awful ones. The best thing I ever wrote was a piece for me and a (very brilliant) violinist to play at my  brother's wedding. And that was awful too.

I once wrote a (non-classical) song that both my older sister and my girlfriend at the time liked, and we were all at a jazz gig one night in London, and when they stopped for an interval, unknown to me my sister, who people always said yes to alas, went up and asked if her brother could play a song. So I ended up on the stage with my girlfriend, like my sister a fearless type who assumed things would always go well, saying she wanted to sing it.
Unfortunately when we actually got to it, she'd never sung in public before and was so nervous that she started (and continued) singing out of tune. This was compounded halfway through the song, by the lower panel of the upright piano dropping on my foot, thus jamming the sustain pedal down for the rest of the song. An inauspicious, but wholly fitting start to my never-to-be song writing career!
Oh, poor you [plural you]!  Truly!

I'll have to give some thought as to what I would write/style, etc....that's if I could write.

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Iota

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on August 24, 2021, 11:41:14 AM
Oh, poor you [plural you]!  Truly!

Oh thanks, PD, that's very nice of you.  :)  But actually it was hilarious, we all had a great laugh about it!  Sorry, I should have put a laugh emoji or something.

The song was awful though, and much better off for being heard through a veil of sung microtones and swimming piano!   :laugh:

vers la flamme

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on August 24, 2021, 11:41:14 AM
Oh, poor you [plural you]!  Truly!

This sadly necessary clarification makes me proud to be a southerner and purveyor of "y'all"  ;D

Uhor

I have contradictory urges, I want something as chromatic and clear as Boulez but limpid like Chin with contrasting sections of Feldmaninan darkness. I want development and non-development to coexist. I want form but also a flux of ideas.

Working on how to make a synthesis of all this.

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 24, 2021, 07:55:57 AM
You wouldn't do anything more experimental? My style would be more chameleon-like. Almost like at a crossroads between Debussy, Stravinsky, Lutosławski, K. A. Hartmann and not far removed from the lyricism found in Barber's slow movements.

A cool combination of styles.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: vandermolen on August 24, 2021, 12:39:37 AM
I think that I would write symphonies as these are what I listen to most.
They would probably sound like a cross between pale imitations of Vaughan Williams mixed in with rejected scores for Hollywood biblical epics.
8)

Another interesting combination I would like to hear.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

vandermolen

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: vers la flamme on August 24, 2021, 01:57:58 PM
This sadly necessary clarification makes me proud to be a southerner and purveyor of "y'all"  ;D
:laugh:  :)

Well, I could have gone with "youse guys"?  ;)

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Florestan

Solo piano music, chamber music and Lieder/choral music. Despite being a musical illiterate, my list of imaginary such compositions is currently at Op. 39.

My music would be the expression of my emotional states. I would have zero interest in sound for sound's sake. (Ten points for anyone who will nominate whom I just quoted).

A particular interest of mine would be music inspired by, and dedicated to, children and childhood. For instance, I'd compose several books of pieces for violin and piano collected under the title "Childish things", including such items as Cavalcade on a Wooden Horse, Garfield's Polka, Bernard-the-Bear's Ballad and Lullaby for a Toy Soldier.

Another particular interest would be what I call chamber tone poems, ie program / descriptive music for chamber ensembles. I'd mostly use the piano trio and the quintet for piano and winds formats for such an endeavour.

The Lieder / choral music would be mostly to poems by Romanian poets, especially those with an eminently musical language, first and foremost but not limited to, my avatar man, Ion Minulescu.

My musical idiom would be fully tonal, tuneful, heart-on-sleeve sentimental, simple and unpretentious: stuff that a happy family, or a merry gathering of friends, would like to play in the evening, for relaxation and fun, a glass in hand and some cakes on the table. I would aim to please and charm; the world is already an ugly and frightful place and I would hate to enhance its ugliness and frightfulness by my own music.

My credo would be the same as Carlos Guastavino's:  "I love melody, I love to sing. I refuse to compose music only intended to be discovered and understood by future generations."


Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

classicalgeek

It's really interesting reading everyone's responses! It would be fun for everyone to try their hand at writing a piece - I'd love to see the results!

As for me, well, I'm a composer. A bit out of practice - save for a couple of songs and some short piano pieces, I haven't tried to write anything in more than 20 years. Within the last year, though, I've wanted to get back into writing music - I've been entering some of my old pieces into Sibelius and really enjoying the process. But I've been hesitant to dive back in all the way, though - my recent attempts to create anything new have fizzled after a few bars, and on top of that, I don't have the time to devote to composing like I did in my college days - life has a habit of getting in the way!

As for my style? It's tonal through and through, with a healthy dose of dissonance for color and "spice". Lively and rhythmic in the fast parts, gently lyrical in the slow ones. I don't know if it "sounds like" one composer or another - perhaps Walter Piston meets Francis Poulenc, with a smattering of George Lloyd, a dash of Edmund Rubbra, and a garnish of Leonard Bernstein? Not that I'm anywhere *near* as talented as any one of those guys, but you get the idea.

I tend to write in abstract forms - I've never been one for programmatic titles that have some "deeper meaning". If it's written for string quartet, it's a String Quartet. If it's written for a solo instrument with piano, it's a Sonata. A piano solo may be a Prelude or a Nocturne or a Scherzo or what have you, depending on the character of the piece, but that's as far as I'll go. It's on my "bucket list" to write a full, multi-movement symphony - but if indeed I take the leap back into composing, I'll need to build myself back up to writing in longer forms.

I'm debating whether to share my older compositions on the "Composing and Performing" thread... I don't know if that's more geared to works in progress. We'll see.
So much great music, so little time...

Original compositions and orchestrations: https://www.youtube.com/@jmbrannigan

Karl Henning

Quote from: classicalgeek on September 24, 2021, 04:54:41 PM
It's really interesting reading everyone's responses! It would be fun for everyone to try their hand at writing a piece - I'd love to see the results!

As for me, well, I'm a composer. A bit out of practice - save for a couple of songs and some short piano pieces, I haven't tried to write anything in more than 20 years. Within the last year, though, I've wanted to get back into writing music - I've been entering some of my old pieces into Sibelius and really enjoying the process. But I've been hesitant to dive back in all the way, though - my recent attempts to create anything new have fizzled after a few bars, and on top of that, I don't have the time to devote to composing like I did in my college days - life has a habit of getting in the way!

As for my style? It's tonal through and through, with a healthy dose of dissonance for color and "spice". Lively and rhythmic in the fast parts, gently lyrical in the slow ones. I don't know if it "sounds like" one composer or another - perhaps Walter Piston meets Francis Poulenc, with a smattering of George Lloyd, a dash of Edmund Rubbra, and a garnish of Leonard Bernstein? Not that I'm anywhere *near* as talented as any one of those guys, but you get the idea.

I tend to write in abstract forms - I've never been one for programmatic titles that have some "deeper meaning". If it's written for string quartet, it's a String Quartet. If it's written for a solo instrument with piano, it's a Sonata. A piano solo may be a Prelude or a Nocturne or a Scherzo or what have you, depending on the character of the piece, but that's as far as I'll go. It's on my "bucket list" to write a full, multi-movement symphony - but if indeed I take the leap back into composing, I'll need to build myself back up to writing in longer forms.

I'm debating whether to share my older compositions on the "Composing and Performing" thread... I don't know if that's more geared to works in progress. We'll see.

Be welcome!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

I'll write perhaps ten symphonies more (I've now written two.) It will be an interesting question: how many will I actually write, if my first symphony never receives a performance?
I should like to write a clarinet quintet. Probably will not unless I come to collaborate with a string quartet, which hardly seems likely.
I have ideas for a couple of operas, but (unlike the symphonies nos. 1 & 2) I just cannot see expending that effort on a score that may just sit on the shelf.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: Florestan on August 25, 2021, 10:44:21 AM
Solo piano music, chamber music and Lieder/choral music. Despite being a musical illiterate, my list of imaginary such compositions is currently at Op. 39.

My music would be the expression of my emotional states. I would have zero interest in sound for sound's sake. (Ten points for anyone who will nominate whom I just quoted).

A particular interest of mine would be music inspired by, and dedicated to, children and childhood. For instance, I'd compose several books of pieces for violin and piano collected under the title "Childish things", including such items as Cavalcade on a Wooden Horse, Garfield's Polka, Bernard-the-Bear's Ballad and Lullaby for a Toy Soldier.

Another particular interest would be what I call chamber tone poems, ie program / descriptive music for chamber ensembles. I'd mostly use the piano trio and the quintet for piano and winds formats for such an endeavour.

The Lieder / choral music would be mostly to poems by Romanian poets, especially those with an eminently musical language, first and foremost but not limited to, my avatar man, Ion Minulescu.

My musical idiom would be fully tonal, tuneful, heart-on-sleeve sentimental, simple and unpretentious: stuff that a happy family, or a merry gathering of friends, would like to play in the evening, for relaxation and fun, a glass in hand and some cakes on the table. I would aim to please and charm; the world is already an ugly and frightful place and I would hate to enhance its ugliness and frightfulness by my own music.

My credo would be the same as Carlos Guastavino's:  "I love melody, I love to sing. I refuse to compose music only intended to be discovered and understood by future generations."

Interesting. I adhere to the positive and uplifting message of this. Very creative your names, Andrei, btw. I yet have to think about mine.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: classicalgeek on September 24, 2021, 04:54:41 PM
It's really interesting reading everyone's responses! It would be fun for everyone to try their hand at writing a piece - I'd love to see the results!

As for me, well, I'm a composer. A bit out of practice - save for a couple of songs and some short piano pieces, I haven't tried to write anything in more than 20 years. Within the last year, though, I've wanted to get back into writing music - I've been entering some of my old pieces into Sibelius and really enjoying the process. But I've been hesitant to dive back in all the way, though - my recent attempts to create anything new have fizzled after a few bars, and on top of that, I don't have the time to devote to composing like I did in my college days - life has a habit of getting in the way!

As for my style? It's tonal through and through, with a healthy dose of dissonance for color and "spice". Lively and rhythmic in the fast parts, gently lyrical in the slow ones. I don't know if it "sounds like" one composer or another - perhaps Walter Piston meets Francis Poulenc, with a smattering of George Lloyd, a dash of Edmund Rubbra, and a garnish of Leonard Bernstein? Not that I'm anywhere *near* as talented as any one of those guys, but you get the idea.

I tend to write in abstract forms - I've never been one for programmatic titles that have some "deeper meaning". If it's written for string quartet, it's a String Quartet. If it's written for a solo instrument with piano, it's a Sonata. A piano solo may be a Prelude or a Nocturne or a Scherzo or what have you, depending on the character of the piece, but that's as far as I'll go. It's on my "bucket list" to write a full, multi-movement symphony - but if indeed I take the leap back into composing, I'll need to build myself back up to writing in longer forms.

I'm debating whether to share my older compositions on the "Composing and Performing" thread... I don't know if that's more geared to works in progress. We'll see.

That combination of influences sounds very cool to me. I share some of things.

My music would have touches of Nielsen, Janacek, Respighi, Sibelius, Shostakovich, among others.

I benefit abstract forms, but it's inevitable to me to give them titles or names. My music would have a very descriptive character, actually, but not always.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

John Copeland

I would write a Symphony in E Major and be done with it!   ;D

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 24, 2021, 06:09:40 PM
I'll write perhaps ten symphonies more (I've now written two.) It will be an interesting question: how many will I actually write, if my first symphony never receives a performance?
I should like to write a clarinet quintet. Probably will not unless I come to collaborate with a string quartet, which hardly seems likely.
I have ideas for a couple of operas, but (unlike the symphonies nos. 1 & 2) I just cannot see expending that effort on a score that may just sit on the shelf.

I didn't know you have composed symphonies. Are they choral?

You'll succeed at it, Karl. I'm sure.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Symphonic Addict

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Karl Henning

Quote from: John Copeland on September 24, 2021, 09:06:44 PM
I would write a Symphony in E Major and be done with it!   ;D

"One and done" often has much to recommend it!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot