Ouch... fishmeal... sheesh... as bad as some of my
wordplay! So this was Frazetta's teacher? :-)

I listened attentively to your composition, mouth agape.
Very nice orchestral composition. Original, fairly
evocative of your subject. My only critiques are that some
of the instruments need some tweaking to sound less
MIDI-esque, specifically the oboe and bassoon... For the
oboe, maybe some more note-by-note variation in attack
and volume to sound more realistic, it is too even. And
the bassoon has a very electronic sound, and doesn't
sound like a bassoon at all, more like a plain traingle-
wave synth. I assume that's a result of Sibelius's choice of
instruments. The strings sounded so-so. Many of the
other instruments (especially the harp) sound quite good.
Your writing for each instrument struck me as very good,
spatial separation was nice. And although this was more
lyrical and impressionistic than the kind of classical music
I prefer, I enjoyed it and was definitely impressed by your
composition abilities, very well done!
ttfn,
Drakonis

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I would like to have heard that sermon, too. This piece has
a very uplifting, aquatic feel. There is also a lovely
precision to the middle section, sounds like the inner
workings of a clock repair shop. Perhaps St. Francis had a
part-time job. No, wait, he walked around naked,
begging. Terribly disappointed his father. But, oh, that
prayer attributed to him! Worth repeating here:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Hard to beat that for praying.

Keith, this is a well-conceived and orchestrated piece. As
Drakonis said, some of the instruments sound synthetic,
but then again, they are. I struggle with this same
dilemma. Maybe someday our pieces will be played by real
flesh-and-blood musicians?

The fish are applauding!

10-10-10-10

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Thanx to all for your kind and generous comments. When I finished this piece, I had grave doubts about it and wasn't going to post it anywhere, but a friend of mine encouraged me to do so, and now I'm glad I did.

What's wrong with the piece is that it's too easy. Melody in the treble over chords in the bass -- that's what people do when they're first learning how to make music (hence all the young guitar bands simply strumming chords). In a good piece of music, the bass line should attract the ear as much as the melody. This doesn't have it.

Another problem is that I seem to be using the same form over and over -- slow opening, fast part in triple meter, reprise of slow opening. I did the exact same thing in my heavy metal version of Der Doppelgänger by Schubert and also in other pieces I don't have posted here. I guess that when the going gets rough, you stick with what you know.

The only positive thing that I can say about the music is that I accomplished what I set out to do -- to have an atmospheric piece that depicted the painting by Bocklin (which I still haven't seen). I only hope that people who like this music will listen to my better pieces, those that have counterpoint (more than one melody simultaneously). My paso doble has three different melodies playing at once.

Tom Atwood, I especially want to thank you for that prayer by St. Francis. I had never seen it before, and I was very moved by it. If modern religions expressed sentiments like those (instead of being political organizations), I'd be among the faithful.

MacJams is definitely the best place to get your music listened to. 67 plays of this piece here vs. 15 plays at www.MacIdol.com vs. 22 hits at http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/invictus
The advantage of this last site is that you can watch the music go by as you play the file. If you have a Mac, it'll sound identical to what's posted here. Hopefully, someone will like it enough to purchase the sheet music -- why not you?

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Not even start criticizing the final result of the midi rendering of this piece...making it sound perfect would be impossible...and would require an enormous amount of work.

Restraining to the written music, I like very much the themes and orchestral variations under the form of different orchestrations of them.

I love the bass clarinet-piccolo variation of the descending (and then ascending) little theme-phrase. These details, along with the instrumentation and the use of some precious altered chords give the piece a vague late-romantic atmosphere (Grieg, or even Sibelius :)), even if it's impossible not to recognize it as written by a modern composer.

Only bad notes in my opinion are the old graveyard bell strokes...too cheap an affect, aren't they? :) and I don't like the short esatonal episode, I thing it's off-style and not necessary.

Overall, be it a descriptive piece or a symphonic movement, I think it's good.

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