String quintet no. 1

lunar22 · June 24, 2023, 06:55:30 AM

I tend to shy away from linking all that often to my compositions on forums for various reasons-- the main one being that they are nearly all relatively long and so people simply don't have time to listen. Another is the intimate and personal nature of most of them. But I must say I've enjoyed the short time I've been on this forum so far, finding it more informative, friendly and lacking the usual hotheads that can spoil other ones. So I will venture to see if anyone does have sometime to spare to at least dip into -- unfortunately it's one of the longest -- what is probably the favourite of my chamber works written a couple of years ago.

My String Quintet (no.1 as I subsequently wrote another) was inspired by Schubert's immortal work for the same combination -- one which some regard as the greatest chamber music ever written. So no pressure, then! In fact this is not particularly similar -- my tendency is more to the late romantic harmonically at any rate (Janacek, Faure and Schmidt are among the main influences in general terms) and the initial theme owes more to Rosamunde than the Quintet.

There is a single link to all my selected chamber works on Reelcrafter here
https://play.reelcrafter.com/dko22/chamberworks
Clicking on the sheet of paper gives a brief introduction to the work and the movement timings. This work was rendered using the VSL solo strings -- probably the most generally useful in this difficult area to mock-up, though I use others elsewhere according to the nature of the piece.

I'm not looking for an in-depth critique but anyone who manages to get anything out of the piece is very welcome to comment on any particularly strong or less impressive sections.

relm1 · July 02, 2023, 04:53:03 PM

I listened to several works and enjoyed what I heard. I liked the impression nocturne left me feeling.

lunar22 · July 03, 2023, 11:58:07 AM

thanks for having a listen, relm1. Are you referring to the Nocturne, the earliest and shortest work here? Curiously a few people, (including a highly accomplished composer who, on the basis of the strong influence of Janacek on this piece wanted to get to know his work better!) seem to have taken to this composition that I don't even remember having written. All goes to show....

relm1 · July 03, 2023, 05:15:34 PM

Quote from: lunar22 on July 03, 2023, 11:58:07 AMthanks for having a listen, relm1. Are you referring to the Nocturne, the earliest and shortest work here? Curiously a few people, (including a highly accomplished composer who, on the basis of the strong influence of Janacek on this piece wanted to get to know his work better!) seem to have taken to this composition that I don't even remember having written. All goes to show....

Yes. I actually liked it more than the String quintet. It was tighter. A good aria doesn't make an opera great, right? This is nothing to feel bad about. Tautness is one of the great challenges for even the best composers...saying what you mean with the least words (notes). I'm for sure guilty of this.

lunar22 · July 03, 2023, 11:06:56 PM

The string quintet was supposed to emulate Schubert's "heavenly length". Of course those who don't respond to the work could find it interminable and the style is totally different from the Nocturne.

vandermolen · July 04, 2023, 02:11:28 AM

I liked the opening of both the String Quintet and the Piano Quintet and hope to listen to more when I can - both were immediately engaging.

lunar22 · July 04, 2023, 07:36:40 AM

Thanks for your interest. The piano quintet is a very different kind of work -- here the impetus was the Schnittke work for this combination. For those who know him, Steve Elcock thinks it's the best of my chamber works.

lunar22 · May 04, 2024, 02:33:14 AM

just a quick heads-up that for anyone who enjoyed this first time round or may be interested and missed it --I have updated this file on Reelcrafter with some improvements to playback and a couple of changes to the score.

relm1 · May 04, 2024, 05:47:17 AM

I like the mockup. You might want to put in slight rubato in the tempo to make it feel more like a performance, but the sound quality is nice.

lunar22 · May 04, 2024, 07:19:31 AM

thanks! Dorico doesn't have any feature for "humanizing" rubato and when I used to use Sibelius, I generally switched it off as it was more trouble than it was worth. I tend to dislike arbitrary messing around with tempi anyway. Still, if Cubase had such an AI feature (not to my knowledge but I'm no expert in Cubase), I'd give it a try. And if there are particular passages where you think more rubato would be useful, by all means point them out -- it's not difficult to add in tempi curves in Dorico.