Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Vestiges is finished!

My string quartet, Vestiges, is finished! Cool! I completed the final (fourth) movement last week, and just finished revising the piece as a whole. Awesome! The score is ready to be printed and bound, and I should also consider submitting it for inclusion at a new music festival this year so it can be performed. The trouble sometimes is that to submit materials for such festivals, a recording is usually required and MIDI realizations don't really capture the piece. Too bad I don't have my own personal string quartet at my disposal for recording a reading of the piece! Whatever!

At any rate, this week I will share a MIDI realization of the second movement with you. This particular MIDI rendition sounds quite synthesized. Real string instruments would sound a lot different, but the track gives you a basic idea of what I have written. Here is a description of the movement:

The primary material for this movement is a driving sixteenth-note theme, first introduced simultaneously by all four instruments played in octaves. This theme appears throughout the movement in many forms—inverted, played backwards, and in canon at various intervals between the instruments. Its form is in two large parts; the second section begins with an imitative treatment of the main theme in retrograde (played backwards).

Here it is:


2 comments:

  1. Okay, explain what the first one is - is that the first part and this one is the second part or does the first one just have one instrument in it, while the second one has all four? I'm so non-musical when it comes to that kind of stuff... and all the "technical" aspects like you talked about - "a driving sixteen note theme..." what the heck? To me you're like another Mozart or Bach or one of those other masters! Keep it up.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry for the confusion! The piece as a whole is in four big parts (or movements, you can call them). All four parts/movements use all four instruments (two violins, viola, and cello). I guess this piece as a whole is all about FOURS.

      This post is the second of the four parts/movements. I still need to post the audio for other two movements!

      Sorry about all the technical language. I'll try to avoid it in the future!!!

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