I'm putting together two pieces represeting the mood of the sun in the heat of summer and the moon at a similar time. This is the first one. Probably best described as symbolist / fairly tonal; through composed based on a couple of motifs that recur here and there.
Quite a big orchestra so balance took some trouble. I've given it a couple of months to make final checks.
Any comment on the structure, scoring, evolving mood - good or bad - would be much appreciated and thank you if you can give it a listen.
Music for Orch nIII Sun 281223.pdf
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To comment on the evolving mood, it would be interesting to hear if there is a programme behind this. To me, the mood seems fairly static after a couple of hearings, despite the variation in the musical treatment in what to me is an atmospheric and nicely realised work. However, in a piece of this length, we don't necessarily need a "story". I'll let the experts comment on the niceties of scoring -- to me it sounds well realised.
Hello, David,
Many thanks for your kind comment.
It's more of a scene/ atmosphere than a programme and inclines to be fairly static in which variations in the density may suggest ephemeral shifts in the mood.
If anything it could do with pruning back about a minute or so.
The cover picture is
and it's an annoyance of Dorico that I can't paste it wall to wall on a supplementary page. Never mind.
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Hi, Ivor - on structure, pace, scoring: excellent and engaging. On mood: I connected to it early on but I wasn't aware of shift nor evolution, and I was perfectly content with that due to its rather calming nature. The piece eminated a consistent calming state and held me in it.
My first listen was on headphones, and something told me the next listen should be on the floor standing hi-fi speakers. I'm so glad I did that becasue the scale of this work really came to life then. And despite that you never let the piece get dense, you incorporate lots of solo passages, openess, silence, presented in short-lived episodes.... this piece has bigness. And I can't reason how you accomplished this. What comes across is a well mic'd hall sound. I could see the orchestra (I had to remind myself... an mp3?) and everything felt placed realistically. I say this becasue you suggested that quite a lot of work went into balancing this..... so that effort comes across big.... well done!!
I'll keep an eye here for the moon piece. I enjoyed my time with this today. --Ray