Orchestral Study #7 (dialogue) – An Echo That's Reversing

This started late in the month because of an extended stay in Curacao, but the structure came to me almost immediately. I’ve been wanting to try to bring solo instruments in more prominently. The last study at various points gave the melody to solo violin and viola; here I’ve used the violin throughout as a proper soloist. The intent was to have the contrasting sections be a dialog between soloist and orchestra (like so many concertos), but to think of them not as separate entities but the same. An internal dialogue. It’s more conceptual than actually achieved.

Melancholy statement (soloist)
Chorale (orchestra)
Minimalist perpetuum mobile (soloist)
Prelude and fugue book-ended with reference to chorale (orchestra)
Closing lyric statement (soloist)

For the soloist sections, I would create a general sketch of the melody then insert measures as I orchestrated to either extend a phrase or add a new idea for variety. It’s very much like painting, where rough ideas become more precise as you progress. The orchestration, at least for the soloist sections, has much more color that the previous studies. I’m getting confident with a wider range of instrument combinations. That being said, for the soloist I did not verify that the double- and triple-stops were actually playable or at least comfortably playable. That skill is definitely a work in progress.

I’m continuing to run against limitations in playback, mostly crescendos and decrescendos, so I end up adding over-detailed dynamic markings. And I heard pizzicato and harmonics in certain areas but those are almost completely unavailable with Musescore. I had to settle for staccato and ppp respectively.

(Realization: I remember at the beginning of the year, I was concerned that I would over-rely on explicit repeats and not be able to create sections that are written variations as repeats. I happily have not fallen into that type of laziness.)

Next up is a toccata with percussion added.

orchestral-study-7