Concertino No. 1 for violin and orchestra

[crusoe]

Hello, dear forum members,

my "new" old piece is available here:

[url=https://soundcloud.com/crusoe/concertino-no-1-for-violin-and-orchestra]Concertino No. 1 for violin and orchestra[/url]

Some technical details:

It uses Synchron BSS, VCS, VNS I and II, and just a bit of VLS. Most of the time the violas are from Dimension Strings. Somehow I couldn't tame the staccatos of SY library, although they do work very well with all the other strings. The piano is SY Yamaha CFX, and the other instruments are from the "golden" age of VI (hehe). The mix was done by a professional mix engineer, and though I guess it's not 100% what I wanted it to be, it's still much better than anything I could do myself.

I wrote this piece several years ago, you might find the orchestration to be very simple, if not primitive, but despite this I still value this piece as my first effort that actually worked out in some satisfactory manner. It's obviously influenced by Mozart and in parts by Bach, but I still would like to think it's original enough. By the time I realized I'm copying Mozart, half of the piece was already written, so I thought - well, at least, I'm copying the great ones :).

Anyway, enough reflection, I hope you enjoy the piece!

[Acclarion]

EDIT:  My first comments were accidentally deleted (ahhhh!!!!) so rather than ramble a second time, I'll keep it shorter this time...

After seeing you share so many comments on the music of other forum members, it was a pleasant surprise to see you share your own music, Crusoe.  Congratulations on a fun, spirited piece of music that indeed seemed to have the Mozart/Bach influence, alongside some pop-ballady progressions and romantic schmaltziness :)  

Congrats on the fine first offering, and best wishes for continued success!

Cheers,

Dave

[fahl5]

I like the warm hearted very harmonic overall flavour of your composition. Sometimes I wish it's Idea would perhaps free itself a bit more from the strong harmonic progression to develop a bit more ear-catching melodies, which in other parts are more obvious.

I also like the gentle vivid figuration indeed reminding a bit on Bachs ortchestral style.

There is in other moments is a beautiful romantic sentiment, which is kept always so tasteful, that imho it is more simply true sentiment, than anything we would in germany associate with the Word "Schmaltz".

Technically it is very interesting to hear so much of the new libraries in action. Personally I feel sometimes you might consider to raise the releasetime of the strings and the solo-Violin to achieve a smother continous flow of the whole, but that is just my personal suggestion.

In respect to the title I often thought, that I would called perhaps more a chamber concerto, than a violinconcertino, since meanwhile the violin has its solopart, there are enough other parts of the ensemble which are in certain moments nearly likewise in the foreground, giving the whole often enough kind of a chambermusical character.

All in all, pleasant to listen. I am curious for your next productions.

[crusoe]

Thanks to everyone for listening, and thank you, Dave and Steffen, for very accurate comments! Simply reading them, aside from the purely informational side of things, was enjoable. Feedback I usually get is from casual listeners, therefore your opinion is fresh and, in fact, enlightening.

Steffen, thanks for the advice. I think you are definitely correct about the title - maybe I should come up with something vague and schmaltzy - as Dave explained earlier, boring titles attract less listeners, aparently :)

All the best,

Crusoe.

[Jos Wylin]

Hi Crusoe,

With great interest I have listened to your 'Violin Concerto'. As a whole, I like it a lot, but I wouldn't call it a concerto. You bring a lot of instruments to the foreground so that it is rather a chamber concert piece with esy listening music. Nothing wrong with that, quite at the contrary, it will reach a broad audience. But it doesn't offer enough violinistic bravoure. You are continuously in search of nice harmonies and broken chords that you sometimes lose the focus on the violin. Every single phrase is nice, well sounding, well orchestrated, but the story that a single solo instrument has to tell gets lost in all this wealth and abundance.

A beatiful piece, terrific combinations of libraries, a good mix, a studio-like performance... So in short: well done.

Keep up the good efforts!

Jos

[crusoe]

Hi Jos,

thanks for listening and commenting! Again, enlightening observations, to which I'm not responding in more detail simply because I have to ponder upon their meaning even if they might be simple in the end.

Best regards,

Crusoe.

[Paul McGraw]

It's a nice piece, I like it. The VSL instruments each sound great independently. The programming and expression are attractive to my ears. 

I am not so convinced of the soundstage and the work of your mixing engineer. It comes across as only two dimensional to me, no depth. But I am certainly no expert. 

If this was the first thing you ever composed you should be proud. An excellent effort.

[crusoe]

Hi Paul,

Many thanks for taking time to comment! This piece was in the first ten I wrote, me thinks. So it almost deserves quite a high estimation you gave it, which I value a lot.

As for the mix depth, this was my own oversight, I think, because I didn't mention it to the mix engineer, and he was more converned with brining all those ambiences together (silent stage VI + silent stage DS + SY strings). An experience to learn from - don't assume anything, communicate instead.

Cheers,

Crusoe.

[Gustar]

I am still a beginner when it comes to composition, so I feel I am not yet qualified to comment on your composition technique. That being said, I have been listening to your piece all evening and the part from 1:33 to 2:09 keeps making me smile. 😊

From a mixing engineer's view, I think I can see what the intent was: The mix seems to put less emphasis on creating a very realistic space/room tone with proper depth, but gives priority to moving the important musical elements in the foreground, so they can be heard very clearly. 
Obviously, an experienced listener might notice a certain lack of depth (as has already been mentioned in this thread) and consider this mix as missing a bit of realism. However, I think a point could be made that this mixing style does appeal more to the casual listener and could work well in the context of - let's say - a TV commercial, where the main goal might be to bring a theme quickly to the listener's attention instead of creating a perfect illusion of the Vienna Konzerthaus space.

Of course, it depends on what you agreed on. From my experience, the more clearly and detailed you state your wishes before the mixing process starts, the more satisfying the result will be.
I can also imagine that combining these libraries with different amounts of reverb to create a single realistic homogenous space is no easy task, especially if the engineer did not have access to the Synchron Stage roompack and MIR Pro.

[crusoe]

Hi Gustar!

@Another User said:

I have been listening to your piece all evening and the part from 1:33 to 2:09 keeps making me smile. 

This was intended! Glad you wrote about this, and this reminds me of a quite similar situation. I asked one of my friends to listen, and her husband heard this very part that you mentioned from another room, so he came in and said - "what is this? I like it!" He didn't like everything else, though 😊. 

Thanks for the detailed comment, I really appreciate it. You are right about the mix emphasis, I was the one who specifically described it in terms of instrument balance. All the stems were dry (no extra reverb), and when I heard an intermediate version, it was so clear compared to what I've done in my own bedroom studio, that I've just locked on that and didn't care about the rest. Not that I'm unhappy with the result, on contrary, just saying.

Cheers,

Crusoe.