A Young Composer's Music(2009-2012)

[Macea]

Some of my Music from 2009 to 2012. I began writing music in 08', but no music survived from that time in my life.

Toccata for Piano (2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQKyzt7HSek&

String No. 1 (2010-2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X2d8cx3CUI&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E32Wg8HeGw&f&

Gerontion(2012)
Poem by T.S Eliot, set to music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOaNTjPXvWg

[Rasselas]

Not the sort of music I usually listen to (or understand), but I quite enjoyed the "Pastoral of the City" movement. Are you a music student?

[Macea]

Not the sort of music I usually listen to (or understand), but I quite enjoyed the "Pastoral of the City" movement. Are you a music student?

Yep. I'm finishing my last year at the local conservatory.

[Astrolinium]

I really am not feeling very fond of this Toccata. It feels like something is randomly lashing out at me in a dark room in a rather alarming way, though there are a few brief moments (most of the them towards the end) that feel somewhat nice.

The first movement of the String Quartet No. 1 has a somewhat similar problem - it feels very unstable as a piece of music, and certain of the bits - especially the more dissonant melodies - feel like they were written for the sake of sounding different than more mainstream western classical music.
I like the second movement much better. I'm not fond of the ending - it seems to come out of the blue without giving sufficient release.
The third movement sees a return of many of the things I disliked about the first movement. Things come at me suddenly and ideas feel incomplete and disjointed. Overall, throughout the the quartet you seem to build tension without much release, and after a while one feels very desensitized towards the musical ideas.

Your setting of Gerontion immediately strikes me as sounding ugly. The music fails to evoke emotion from me, and the vocalist's melodic lines make it very difficult to understand the lyrics, which consequently lessens the potential impact of the piece significantly. Furthermore, the actually music itself does not, to me, appear to make sense when taken in the context of the words. Your music sounds, at times, like the singer is attempting to deal with the fact that they have just been lit on fire, which does not at all mesh well with the actual subject of the poem.

I apologize if my comments seem somewhat disorganized; I wrote them as I listened.
I also apologize if I come across as rather harsh, but I do not beat around the bush or sugarcoat my feelings when critiquing art - to do so would be doing a disservice to the creator of said art.

[Meryuma]

I just heard the Toccata. The parts around a minute in and 3 minutes in were great but the atonal stuff at the beginning feels really gratuitous.

[Macea]

I really am not feeling very fond of this Toccata. It feels like something is randomly lashing out at me in a dark room in a rather alarming way, though there are a few brief moments (most of the them towards the end) that feel somewhat nice.

The first movement of the String Quartet No. 1 has a somewhat similar problem - it feels very unstable as a piece of music, and certain of the bits - especially the more dissonant melodies - feel like they were written for the sake of sounding different than more mainstream western classical music.
I like the second movement much better. I'm not fond of the ending - it seems to come out of the blue without giving sufficient release.
The third movement sees a return of many of the things I disliked about the first movement. Things come at me suddenly and ideas feel incomplete and disjointed. Overall, throughout the the quartet you seem to build tension without much release, and after a while one feels very desensitized towards the musical ideas.


Your setting of Gerontion immediately strikes me as sounding ugly. The music fails to evoke emotion from me, and the vocalist's melodic lines make it very difficult to understand the lyrics, which consequently lessens the potential impact of the piece significantly. Furthermore, the actually music itself does not, to me, appear to make sense when taken in the context of the words. Your music sounds, at times, like the singer is attempting to deal with the fact that they have just been lit on fire, which does not at all mesh well with the actual subject of the poem.

I apologize if my comments seem somewhat disorganized; I wrote them as I listened.
I also apologize if I come across as rather harsh, but I do not beat around the bush or sugarcoat my feelings when critiquing art - to do so would be doing a disservice to the creator of said art.

Much thanks to your criticism.

On the toccata: I don't like it much either.

On the String Quartet: The disjointed feeling is something i receive often, especially in the the first movement. I would say the disjointed feeling is intentional in the "Scherzo 2" (Which is the final movement - I've changed that in the first post.).

[Macea]

I just heard the Toccata. The parts around a minute in and 3 minutes in were great but the atonal stuff at the beginning feels really gratuitous.

The toccata was composed over two phases.