Hello , I'm Carlos , from Spain.

I wrote this piece for piano a few years ago, and I would like to know your opinion about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB4e2fSKdrU

Thank you.I'll try to keep writing in this fantastic forum for piano lovers!

Mmmmm crunchy! A sort of Anton Webern meets Chopin. Very nice pianistic writing and some interesting music. A lot of work went into the writing and performance of this piece. With all that it sounds academic, it sounds like something composed to fulfill a course requirement. It has appealing moments, but I personally stopped writing music like this after graduating from college. For that reason I may not be the best person to be the first to comment. It has appealing moments and moments of true beauty, but I'm not sure I want to listen again.

I don't really agree with Steve in this case, and I'd say that this is probably one of the very few times that this's happened!

In any case, I really don't think this work sounds academic at all! This is probably due to me experience in the UK, where academic music can be very very ugly (as well as very beautiful, but lets not get into that).

Carlos,

First of all welcome to the forum. I really hope that you'll stick around!

This piece is magnificent. I think that it's something that I'd like to listen to, and check the score, and learn more about it! It's got a strange appeal, while it is rather dissonant, it still holds great beauty!

The performance is also great, and the pianist (Alberto Rosado) must've spent quite a bit of time to learn this.

If you don't mind I will also PM you about something.

regards,

Nikolas

I'm impressed by this composition (as well as the performance). Hope to hear more from you.

Hello,
To me, I can hear the rhythmic motive throughout the music, which gave it the unification using rhythm. To properly classify this music into a specific category, I want to ask a couple of questions. What is the name of this piece? To classify it as incidental music, the composer had "background music" in mind. I also think it would be classified as modernistic piece where the composition was free from the constraints of some composition rules.

Hi Schubertslieder!

I'm not the person who composed, or played the piece, so my word probably doesn't mean much, but I'd like offer some extra ideas.

I find that there's no need to any kind of music to be classified into a specific category. I know that it's sometimes useful to do that, but to tag every work that reminds us of something under the same roof, seems not too useful after all.

As far as I can tell the work is titled "Aluz", but since I don't speak Spanish, I could be talking rubbish here.

But I already stated how much I enjoyed this work...

Dear Nikolas. All music falls into certain categories without your approval.

Medieval--music from 1450 to 1600
Baroque- music from 1600 to 1750
Classical- music from 1750 to 1830
Romantic - music from 1830 to 1900
1900 to present--20th century.

All world music is grouped into certain categories as well.

By all means nothing needs my approval. And certainly you don't need my approval to post anything you want. Especially given the fact that I just shared an opinion of mine on a work which is NOT mine and I have nothing to do with it.

But if you insist: This work belongs to the group you mention "1900 to present"! Happy now?

Thank you all for your answers!

At first , the work is named 'aluz'...I'll try to explain why.It's a mixture of two spanish words: ''Alud'' (Avalanche) and ''luz'' (Light).It's inspired by a poem from a spanish poet named Blas de Otero.

I think this piece could sound academic.In fact , it was my first work after writing some dodecafonic pieces.Maybe , it has some of Ravel , or Schoenberg , or Messiaen...But now I'm already trying to find my own language.
I think it is a dream pursued by every composer.

To write this work , I used some modal scales and rhythmic patterns.As Schubertlieder says , I really wanted to be free from the constraints of some composition rules.

The piece was played by a great pianist (Alberto Rosado ) , who I know he studied the piece in only two weeks.And it wasn't the most difficult piece that he played that day!

Nikolas , sorry about my poor english...¿What did you want to say with ''PM you about something''?

Thank you all again for your answers!!!

Carlos, pm stands for private message. Check your messages when you did the time... Thanks

EDIT: Wrote this from my phone.

Carlos, PM is short for Private Messages, a way to contact other members without the whole world watching. If you check above in the main menu of the forums you'll see an envelope flashing. This means you have a new message. If you've clicked on that you won't be seeing it again, but you'll have read my message!

Thanks for your post!

When does 21st Century music start?

January 1st, but was it 2000 or 2001? I understand that some like to categorize music in order to assist their understanding. It doesn't seem to work that way anymore. When you think about it it didn't work in the past. 1750 is given as the end of the Baroque period because that's the year Bach died, but decades before composers had already moved to lighter fare that would more appropriately be termed early classical. Similarly Beethoven wrote romantic music well before 1830 (he was dead by then). Mahler composed late romantic music after 1900 and Ravel and Debussy composed impressionist (20th century) music before 1900. The piece that started this was composed in the 21st century (presumably) so why would you even bother to ask the question?

I find this quite a beautiful piece, Carlos! For me, it started off in a kind of late Scriabin style, but then shifted into a Romantically-conceived digression with a surrealistic swirling overlay. I thought you made very good use of the coloristic possibilities of the modern concert grand, and the entire piece was a pleasure to follow. I would give your pianist-executor a special thanks -- he presented the piece beautifully.

Thanks for sharing this!

Actually, I was implying exactly what you wrote, but you wrote it much more eloquently.

And your Y2K/Y2.1K was the perfect example!

Lol.

Hi, Carlos:

Nice job with this. As an improviser, I sometimes find myself veering into this "atonal territory," so I can definitely appreciate what you're doing here. There is a nice organized quality to the music, and a familiar dissonance in this style that reminds me of the some of the "modern" music I studied in high school and college. I appreciate your comment about wanting to find your "own voice." More power to ya man, keep on truckin!

Thank you very much Tim.Now I'm Writing a piece for ensemble , but you are all encouraging to write another work for piano!

Thank you Chris...I'll go on!

Dear Cagarras

I am glad to hear your mentioning of the rhythmic pattern as I felt there was rhythmic motive unifying the piece. I also feel the name of the piece suits the music. I was very curious about the extreme rise and fall found in this piece. Both the dynamic contrast and the melodic contrast found in this piece properly portray the name "avalanche and light".

Exploring modality always seem interesting to many composers. Although modes are from ancient times, many composers seem eager to use them now. Dodecaphonic is found in Schoenberg's work, which in english is serialism.

If there was a movie requiring extreme contrasting sound, this could be used as an incidental, background, music.

Thanks for answering all my questions and sorry for being too curious.

Dear Cagarras

I wish to add one more comment to your 21st century music.
I hear melodic motive and sequence throughout the piece.

This is a wonderful piece and I enjoyed listening to it.

Dear Cagarras

Motivic development comes to mind when I listen to your piece.

Thanks again for your help in my desire to understand your piece better. It is a very interesting piece.

Thank you very much , Schubertslieder!