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Hi Mark,

The first thing to keep in mind is that everyone, whether professor or composition teacher or internet forum stranger, has an agenda. In other words we all have our point of view and our personal tastes. Your mission as composer is not to please us, but to please your own ear. However, an experienced composer can assist in making your music more effective. Everyone on this thread has contributed positively in their own way. It seems you've impressed us, that's a good thing.

I listened to your piece once and enjoyed what I heard. My impression is that this would require a very good pianist to perform it. As a composer of piano music who has some challenges when it comes to technique and has tried (with modest success) to interest pianists in playing his music I can tell you the harder the music, the fewer will play it. So there's a balancing act between making the music interesting and making it playable.

Regarding the music itself, while it was an enjoyable listening experience I didn't find the themes especially memorable so I wasn't identifying their returns and variations. Your harmonic ideas are very interesting, but I would seek ways to to make the initial theme more memorable. The suggestion to change up the rhythm is especially salient. It's very square at the beginning. Find a way to build up more tension within the theme by perhaps holding some notes longer. For example in bar 2, if the G# (really Ab) was a dotted quarter and the Bb, C, and D were sixteenths it becomes much more memorable. Just a bit of that goes a long way to breaking up the quarter/eighth note clompy rhythm which quickly becomes tedious. That may not fit with your conception of the piece in which case find some other way to change things up. Ironically, changing the rhythms makes the theme sound more fluid. Bringing those changes through the rest of the piece will make the themes more identifiable as the piece progresses. Hope that helps.

Hope that's helpful.

I took another look at the piece, hoping to provide a little more insight.

The confusion about the form is that you are treating the theme in the middle section as a "development", in that you are altering and modulating it frequently.

Check out this piece by Frederic Rzewski called "The People United Will Never Be Defeated". It is a stunning theme and variations and is stunningly performed by Marc-Andre Hamelin. It is about an hour long and I suggest listening to all of it. This piece uses much of the virtuosity that you have in your piece and I expect you could learn much from studying it if you haven't already.

There is a recording online that is split up between several youtube videos. I've posted the first link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsfJIJ7ZQ2c

Side note: I don't think you need to study with a composer who is a pianist. If they are an experienced composer they should know how to write for the piano.

Mark,

I'm glad to see you were able to puzzle through things on your own. I have mixed feelings about whether to hone this one or move on. Both ideas have merit (how's that for not making up your mind for you after you've already made it up?). I believe there's merit in exploring these issues. I agree with much of what Charles says, but I also know that I've gone back to pieces after a few weeks (or years) and the interim allowed a degree of perspective that was valuable. I hope you do go back to this piece at some point, there are a lot of good ideas there.

OTOH, something new will present a new set of problems and perhaps it's time to seek a new challenge.

BTW, I listened to your recording and of course the human aspect made a significant difference, there were a few rhythmic things you did that helped it that perhaps were not as evident in the Sibelius rendition. Overall, I still think it could use a bit more and one or two dotted rhythms could add a degree of propulsion that would help.

The most important skill a composer can develop is a critical ear. It's very easy to fall in love with an idea. If your first thought is that it's perfect let that be a red flag, no idea is perfect. In my composing every moment of a piece of music is honed. That's what makes the process so arduous. That's probably not the way every composer works, but I've heard far too many pieces where a young composer put a lot of effort into not so great themes. Your piece had some great ideas, but they could be made better. Whether you explore that in a new work or in revising this one is up to you, either way will be a learning experience. That's what you need most is simply experience. It's like the old joke, How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice man, practice!