2023 Beethoven Challenge Website Evaluations K 

Good to see a new set of evaluations! Thomas, let's hope your health keeps improving. It's a pity there likely won't be a challenge this year, but it's totally understandable. Take care. 61. Alex McAuley Characteristic clarinet opening. Good choice of oboe in the main theme. I like the triplet run in octaves. Maybe don’t always separate cellos and basses, in Beethoven’s time they mostly play together in octaves. 62. Danjal Eysturstein Beautiful flute melody, but no need to drop an octave. I like the contrabassoon, very Beethovenesque. Beethoven would’ve used only 3 trombones (watch out: you even write 5 trombone voices in bar 12). Nice ideas, great effort. 63. Timothy Needham Nice woodwind chorale. Horn joining the oboe in the theme is very good. 64. Miguel García I like your tutti approach. Fairly good balance overall, and nice exchange of colours. 65. Rex Alphonse Reventar I’m also not on board with the harmonic changes, but your textures are pretty good and well-balanced. 66. Kristof Bastia I like the pastoral atmosphere with horns and clarinet. The rich string sound of the main theme really reminds me of Beethoven’s 6th.

Hi Thomas, thanks a lot for your feedback! I did put it in the DAW first, and only then wrote the score. However I do work out the details at the piano first. The sample library I use is the "eastwest orchestra", which I find quite good, but it does have some flaws. The mixing problems are likely mine though... I don't like having an automatic transcription of the score, because it sounds too mechanical to my ears. I also rushed out the score, because I wanted to finish the whole movement, but it was a bit sloppy, so thanks for pointing out the mistakes. I definitely intended to have a crescendo with piano subito, since that is what Beethoven wrote. I might even go to forte... I do like the idea of reinforcing the syncopes, perhaps I could change the horns rithm rather than adding another instrument. So thank you for making it to my little transcription, through the sheer amount of contributions! Next time I'll make a proper patreon contribution, but I was strapped by cash due some circumstances.

Alex McAuley: I like your use of winds, and of pizzicato strings. Danjal Eysturstein: You have a good sense of orchestral colour. Well done. Timothy Needham: I like the way you slurred the winds in the second part. Nicely written. Miguel García: I like how you decided to have an oboe solo at the start of the main section. It works really well. Rex Alphonse Reventar: Very creative use of shifting tone colours! Kristof Bastiaensen: I like the way you’ve written for strings.

WELCOME BACK, THOMAS! ♥♥♥♥

Thanks again for running this challenge Thomas! And thanks to everyone leaving feedback. Some comments on other folks' entries: Danjal - I love the opening flutes against the rich string sounds beneath it. Timothy - I enjoyed the 8th note cello pattern starting in the 6th measure. It was a nice subtle texture. Miguel - Nice and full beginning, and I liked the horns transitioning into the final 5 measures. Rex - I liked the horns and bassoons in the intro. They sounded subtle but added a nice texture. Kristof - The pizz. bass was a cool texture I don't recall hearing in many other entries but I thought it sounded good.

Danjal: You have a nice feel for the Classical idiom. The textures and colours are beautifully presented and contrasted.

Alex: I love the clever handovers in bars 10-11. The viola pizzicato (bars 6-9) is a nice touch, but I think asking the performers to play divisi, bouncing alternating quavers between two groups, is unnecessary, and makes the passage just a little more difficult to play (as Thomas suggests). It would sound and work better with the whole section playing the ‘bouncing quavers’ together. It’s not difficult to play, and would be rather fun for the violists. (I think Thomas, our resident violist, might agree.) As for Thomas’s suggestion of pizzicato and arco together, I might keep the violas bouncing pizzicato octaves, and double the higher part with arco second violins. Tchaikovsky famously ‘bounced’ phrases between first and second violins, who often sit on opposite sides of the stage, so that the phrase literally ‘bounces’ from one side of the stage to the other. He invented stereophonic effects long before stereo recording was invented. (It might be argued that stereo recording was invented so the listener could hear Tchaikovsky’s clever string writing just as a live audience heard it.) It looks like you might be new to this orchestration thing. nicely done. Keep up the inventive work!

Hello! I'm Rex- thanks a ton for the advice! I'll try to apply it over the next few works, yes. Regarding the mysterious harmonies and ill-marked parts, while I was listening to a lot of impressionist music back then, I think it was probably the result of too fast part-writing and too little review- I'll try to pay more attention to that next time. Thank you very much again!

Nice score, Alex! Good idea with the Violas pizz. during the 4 measures following the Common Time, though it does not need the be div. (see the 3rd Mvt. of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony for fast Pizz.). Beware of putting harmonic filler (especially in the Bassoon) too low, as you get a "clustered" sound. I'm also not sure if you could have done anything about this, but some of the stem directions are incorrect.

Delighting score, Timothy! I especially liked m. 12-13. Wish I could have heard the rest.

Good entry, Danyal! Just pay attention to the technical details as well; e. g. you have your "arco" sign over a rest rather than the actual note in the 6th measure from the end. You also don't need to use two-voice writing in you Wind and Brass parts if the two instruments play in the same rhythm.

Fantastic entry, Kristof! I especially liked what you did in the Violas in m. 9-10. You might want to slur the violas for consistency in m. 14 as portato (as you shouldn't just slur repeated notes). It would have been nice to see and hear the rest, although I spotted potentially tricky rhythms in the Oboes (as they could have entered on the downbeat for more precise rhythm from real players, especially semi-pro) in the last measure (m. 18).

Wonderful entry, Miguel! Generally, you should avoid having both second- and first-voice rests on the same beat, as this occurs multiple times. Also, in the 2nd measure after the start of the 4/4 time, I would recommend you start the Cello's div. on beat 4, rather than beat 1 as the rest in first-voice implies.

Fabulous score, Rex! I think that honestly the Flutes and Oboes could be omitted from m. 3-4, as they distract from the melody. Beware of the trap in the pickup bar immediately after, as the Flute has a whole rest that must be a quarter rest to not mess up the players' counting. Otherwise, heed Thomas's suggestions and you should have an even more polished work.