Monday, January 28, 2008

The Fall (Interlude) for orchestra

The Fall (Interlude) for orchestra

Hear It (MP3)
See It (Score)

This is my first original work for full orchestra. The majority of my output is vocal, solo, or chamber music, but hearing this selection from a chamber piece arranged for orchestra was very exciting.

The piece is an instrumental scene from my masters thesis, a one-act musical entitled The Eden Diaries. I intended a furious-paced tempo to match the scene's action (the biblical expulsion from Eden), but the work came out nicely for a reading with only one rehearsal.

Enjoy, and please comment on the orchestration (or, what you can hear of it), as that is the greatest challenge and the greatest fun when writing for a full orchestra.

(P.S. - To my subscribers, sorry for the failed post earlier with no links. I'm still new at this!)

9 comments:

  1. I really dig it. Very Hans-Zimmer-esque. What program do you use for scoring?

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  2. Thanks! I used good ol' Finale 2005 to notate it, although this started as a pencil-and-paper piano reduction.

    Then 9-member chamber ensemble (for the premiere), then full orchestra - both times using Finale. I've been thinking about Sibelius for some time, though.

    The audio here is a live recording of the CUA Orchestra, but I may post a crappy MIDI sometime to show everyone what the intended tempo is.

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  3. That it super exciting indeed! Unfortunately I don't have much to say pertaining to the technical side of things, but it reminded me of a wooly mammoth. :-)

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  4. That's actually great that it reminded you of a woolly mammoth. In fact, this scene in the musical depicts the fall from Eden, complete with wild animals being... well, wild. Thanks for the comment!!

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  5. WHOA - it's so much boomier! I like it, even though it's a lot slower that it's supposed to be.

    Oh, and you DO know someone who's won a competition - Stamos :)

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  6. Yes, I really like this sound. It's really got me intruiged (sp?) about writing for orchestra, even though I have essentially only classroom experience.

    It would be nice if the tempo was up, but the volume sound alone was a great lesson in orchestration for me!

    What has Stamos won? That's awesome!

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  7. Even though it's slower than you wanted you got great sound from the orchestra. I really like the combination of horns and strings, they work very well together, especially at the end of the piece.

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  8. Yesss... Thanks John! This was my first real orchestra arrangement of my own work, so I was happily surprised by the timbres.
    Thanks for the post!

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  9. Oh, Stamos won some contest... I don't know what it was anymore. It might have been the year before you came. He won a laptop from it though! You should ask him about it :)

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