This three-minute piece for oboe and keyboard was written to satisfy the requirement for Assignment 5 of Module 1 of the OCA Music Composition module 1.
The requirement was to use at least three times a cycle of chords involving chords I, II,IV or VI, V and then I or use of a deceptive cadence. With this quite conventional brief I have stuck to a diatonic idiom initially in ‘baroque’ style with use of a few passing chromatic notes, and then a more romantic figuration in the central section.
I have left in the score some of the harmonic workings. Essentially, the main theme, starting in Bb major, fits the required template but then modulates to the relative G minor, and then via mode mixture a perfect cadence into C major, where the main ‘rondo’ theme repeats. This modulation, upwards by a tone over ten bars, provides a key to structure: the sonatina form has a recapitulation at bar 73 which needed to start in Ab major, modulating back to Bb at the close. This means there are four statements overall of the ‘rondo’ each in a different key.
Bars 21 and 22 provide some variation of the rondo with the first explicit statement, in E major, of a theme from Wagner’s ‘Flying Dutchman’.
As this is a sonatina not a sonata allegro, the Development section is unconventional providing contrast within an overall AABBAA form. Linking exposition and recapitulation requires continuing modulation up through the cycle of keys during the development.
By bars 30/31 we are in F# major and after augmentation in bars 32-24 of part of the rondo theme, we enter a contrasting middle passage. This keeps the same tempo in terms of bar duration but introduces a gentler compound time movement, six crotchets to the bar with enharmonic change to Gb then Cb major for statements of Senta’s ‘redemption’ theme from Flying Dutchman.
I have provided my own harmonisations around this and explored the possibilities of piano figuration in the solo passage bars 52-64. Bars 65-72 mark a transition with more ominous trills and a reveille’ distant ‘posthorn’ sound from the oboe, announcing first the main Dutchman theme and then linking back to my own Rondo theme, ending confidently and then with a throw-away chromatic C sharp in the final cadence, hinting at the possibility of D minor.
This is the first time I have written for piano and the score provides some possible execution but the piece could be played in many different ways. The full range of the modern oboe is used with an optional ossia and octave down for the highest passage.
This is assignment 4 of the OCA Composing Music module 1: free counterpoint for two instruments and optional untuned percussion
I took the liberty of the untuned percussion being a single bell tuned to G
The whole piece is founded on mirrors about this note G, both strict inversion about this note and the use of scales in the octave above and below this note that are symmetrical (e.g. double harmonic minor in homage to Bartok and Hungary, but also whole tone scales a la Francais, and increasingly explicit references to Beethoven Op 133). The piece can be seen as referencing ‘continental drift’ through this fissure about G, or more sadly, the increasing fissures about and within Europe.
I used the alto flute liking its tone which I think will better balance the marimba than would a normal flute. This transposes down a perfect fourth. A pdf of a score follows and also some separate transposing parts, not at this point optimally laid out:
The Sibelius audio file is not perfect as it cannot represent the full practical range of the alto flute nor is it honouring all damping of the bell:
Some analysis:
Bars
1-3 Inversion and statement of main subject simultaneously (double harmonic minor)
4-5 Restatement in alto flute alone with added octave displacement and alternation of theme across the two pitch levels
7-9 Countersubject (whole tone scales converging on the centre of the octave above G). Marimba extracts second bar of subject in augmentation
10-12 Chromatic inversion of subject about G in flute; marimba starts free counterpoint at bar 11.
12-19 Diminution, augmentation and inversion of the motif stated in flute at bar 16 which is drawn from the inverted countersubject centre of first beat bar 11, omitting lowest note
20-21 Third statement of countersubject, this time centred on and converging on G
22-23 Start of B section introduces the ‘Grosse Fuge’ countersubject and its inversion around G
24-25 Combination of this theme with chromatic permutation of the motif from bar 12
26-32 Episode with ‘stretto’ treatment
33-36 Combination of material from this episode with permuted version of the Grosse Fugue (countersubject) theme diminished or augmented
37-38 Compressed variant of call to attention as repeat of A section, but this time inverted
39-56 Chromatic inversion of section A in the alto flute part only ; marimba part strictly repeated (bars 3-21). Since bars 7,8 and 10,11 were themselves inversions these phrases now appear in reversed order and bar 20 inverted in bar 55 converges on the same note G, decorated with a ‘flourish’ in the flute leading into section C:
57-61. A free treatment of the ‘Grosse Fugue’ motif from bar 22, with triplet accompaniment in marimba also inspired by the Beethoven but much more chromatic. The various inverted forms die away, with alto flute using flutter tonguing.
63-73 Progressive intensification of chromatic triplet material
74 Final statement of the Beethoven motif in the flute, fff
75-77 Coda, flute picking from the two mirror forms of the main subject to state a final major cadence
Two part invention after a phrase from Zemlinsky’s second string quartet
This is for the OCA course on Composing Music, module 1, part 4 as an unassessed project. A two-part invention (very short!), it works for oboe and cor anglais (shown at concert pitch). The augmentation is double with imitation at the tone, inversion between the two instruments and tonal inversion within the main theme itself
This is just part of coursework on imitation in counterpoint rather than a formal assignment.
The short piece for descant recorder, orchestral cimbalom and tubular bells experiments with both inversion of notes and is quite strictly retrograde (with the exception of some dynamics). Writing retrograde music has some ambiguities for percussion instruments – assuming a longer note tails off, and is not to be ‘acoustically’ reversed then the accents fall against different notes in other parts.
The audio file generated by Sibelius is probably easier listening than apparent from the slightly formidable-looking score:
The basic writing is founded on the note layout in the bass part of the cimbalom where two whole-tone scales are opposite each other, displaced by a semitone. This means that for easy beating of fast music, alternative notes can be chosen from each whole-tone scale. The impression is nearly but not quite twelve-tone, and I supplied some missing notes in other parts but have not gone to the extremes of avoiding any repetition before completion of the ‘series’.
To enhance further the Balkan element I have written for the recorder some quarter tones (there is a whole book written on these and published by Moeck). In a sense this ‘permits’ the recorder to play ‘out of tune’! Unlike the arabic or Turkish ‘makams’ elsewhere on this site, these notes lie centrally between the two neighbouring semitones.
OCA music composition module 1 Project 6 exercise 47D
This is, for once, programme music with homage to Berlioz following ‘Symphonie Fantastique’
The xylophone represents the farm cart (possibly a spectral and skeletal one made in bones), the oboe the keening relatives, the tenor drum the revolutionary guards and at the end, you hear the guillotine and its result.
This is a sort of counterpoint though the oboe tune tends to pick a note from the relentless xylophone toccata. This will be so fast that the ear does not easily perceive individual notes.
If even playable, this will admittedly not be easy…I fully expect a squawk from the oboe at the end and possible squeaks around the highest notes. These days xylophone players seem to use four sticks but I imagine the problem in using them at this speed, or close to it, will be achieving an equal spacing of notes.
Free 10 bar counterpoint for any combination of instruments: Project 11 example 47C
Here I intended to write for trumpet and horn in F but finding the horn part rather high, changed to trombone which seems to match better. The only real problem in this quite conventional piece is working out which key it is in! At first I scored in A flat major but after a few listenings, it seems to end on an imperfect cadence hence feels in D flat major but in the Mixolydian mode, i.e. the piece is centred (starting and finishing) on the dominant A flat but has frequent G flats; more frequently since I edited the last two to make this firmly in the Mixolydian.
The parts are marked ‘nobilmente’ even though the 3/2 time signature traditionally (in baroque times) is used to imply quite a slow tempo.
Next step is to study some modes more thoroughly, and possible quartal harmony ready to write something for xylophones (each with two mallets) in the example 47D. This may be useful preparation for the longer assignment 4 in due course.
This little example in both free counterpoint and free thythm required adding a second part. I used tuned percussion and the decay of the notes allows more dissonant voicing than would be pleasant with sustained notes. Essentially the two parts each contribute alternately to a single line in the central part of the bar where the top line is holding for more than crotchet at a time:
Here is just the audio file of a second example where I made the supplied bass line a bassoon part and added a cor anglais line. This feels a bit unimaginative so I may return to this one in due course. Arguably the challenge arises in the four-time repeated C sharps in the supplied second part: starting four bars out of a mere 8.
The task was to link three or at the most four chords to make a two-minute piece in free counterpoint for woodwind trio. My feeling was that this was going to be far too slow a harmonic rhythm. So first I wrote a chord sequence VI II V I with various passing notes and chord extensions. This needed to be in nine- or ten-part harmony to allow each part freedom within the written notes. At one point I was thinking of providing a repeating rhythmic pattern in the form of ‘minimalism’, but the eventual work only has one section, on the extended V chord, with such repeats to try and counter the static harmony.
This recording is much compressed in time relative to the two minutes as thirty seconds per chord on average is just boring.
As completed, the full expansion of each chord has its own mood, from quite jaunty in the VI II section (over four bars of 12/8), to frenzied in the V chord and then relaxing, slowing in the rate of melodic movement and finishing with a rather sparse section.
The added notes (e.g. minor 9th against major third on a rootless V7 chord) and ‘frozen’ passing notes allowed some quite jazzy melodies e.g. bar 19 where the ninth note G rather than the root F starts the tune, and D is a submediant, effectively an added sixth as the basic chord is already the tonic. The development of the initial motives (the ‘turn’ and ‘arpeggio’) does I trust come across quite clearly to the ear in the final version at the top.
Any harmonic change at intervals less than about two bars is therefore implied – and vitally necessary. This is not the introduction to Siegfried, and I do not have all the resources of an orchestra to vary tone colour against static harmony.
I felt that this exercise was poorly placed in the sequence of challenges in the course. It is in section 3 while section 4 actually teaches a limited set of counterpoint skills, and in section 4 assignment 4 the 3-minute piece for two instruments (with optional added fixed-pitch percussion) is less restrictive than a two minute work with such restricted harmonic change.
chadatom 