Of course, not hearing the first 3 movements doesn't give me an idea of the whole work, so I am not sure how well this ties together themes and ideas from the beginning of the symphony... but I did enjoy this last movement. Sibelius does a pretty good job with the sampled instrument sounds, but it does have enough problems to be distracting sometimes. And of course, the hand-written trills sound too even and mechanical, but that is normal for a computer playing right off the score (this is what I do too.) Possibly a little more "Concert Hall" reverb would help as well, the recording was too "dry" sounding. But those are all recording issues. As far as composition, when your first theme began, I was worried that I wouldn't like this piece much, because it was too "trite" or silly sounding... it started to sound like the opening of a circus act... but then you went into much more complex depth, with very nice transitions and thoughtful development sections, sounding like Haydn and even a little Beethoven here and there. Then when the "circus theme" returned, I enjoyed it much more, it added great whimsy to the piece. Overall, this was quite satisfying, with bits of seriousness and humor... just what I like. It was also a more traditional "Classical" style, and very nicely scored and orchestrated.

I would be very interested in how long you have been working on this piece... I'm very impressed with your work!

ttfn,
Drakonis

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Hi Drakonis,
funny that you call the main theme a circus theme; my wife said exactly the same at the beginning and was even worried that I would get into copyright problems! i didn't took that theme conciously though and hear that there is something a like but at the same time they are different. About the time: I didn't work so very long on it, maybe about 3 months to write everything and another 2 months to get it into Sibelius. The other 3 parts took me much longer to write, probably because they were they first time I wrote for orchestra. I wrote them about 10 years ago or so. There are really nice harp glissandi in part 4 but Sibelius doesn't play them back, sad...



---
Better a bottle in front of me then a frontal lobotomy...

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I have to ditto pretty much everything drak said -- I was anticipating something sort of silly (not that silly is bad) with the opening theme, but it developed into something with much more depth. I would dearly love to hear this played by a real orchestra as the complexity of the composition definitely comes up against the limitations of the software instruments.

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...band played on. This does very much have a circus feel to it...and a bit of Keystone Cops...The serious sections with lower winds plucking out a nice bass sequence don't seem to sit right with all the higher imitation. That may be the problem with the samples you are using. I certainly admire you putting all of this together, though. Quite an involved job to be sure. I hope you will keep posting music such as this that shows intelligence and skill.
Peace.
Paul

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between all the instruments and the list goes on.
What a great addition to MJ your music is!

Would Love to hear this in a program like Jam pack 4 or better yet one those ultra pro sample software orchestrators. This stuff really deserves the best you can bring it to.

Way to go

Great stuff here!

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Good compositional skill shown here!

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