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Fourth piece from this collection, halfway there to the end.
I don't know this cathedral, but I think this composition isn't your strongest piece in the collection. The intro reminded me of an overture for a variety show. Perhaps you got inspired by a bunch of happy tourists near the cathedral. Or the bishop is a jolly good fellow. It certainly has a sunny ring to it.
I liked your fourth piece, but I wonder if it wouldn't be more appropriate to name it just "La Cathédrale". The statue "La Gelle Fra" is a war memorial at Place de la Constitution, at some distance from the cathedral, and the Pont Adolphe is even further away and is "just" a huge stone bridge over the "river" Pétrusse (yes, one can see the cathedral from there). It is not clear to me which of these buildings, rather different from one another, you are describing in your piece.
ahah, I see it's a tough crowd! I can definitely say that the piece wasn't inspired by the happy tourists or the happy bishop, and also that the Cathedral was not the main inspiration compared to the other two structures mentioned. In fact I would have even also mentioned the tower of the Spuerkeess, a nice building from the beginning of the 1900s, erected at the very start of the bridge. But somehow I really didn't feel like putting a bank in the title of my piece
These buildings possibly might not seem to be all that much for a tourist used to Paris or Rome, but they make up a very nice landscape which is often the very first sight of the city center for visitors of the city, or at least for those coming from the central station.
The Pont Adolphe is basically the entrance to the city, and it looks over the verdant Petrusse valley. While crossing it, one can easily see the place de la Constitution, where the statue of the Gelle Fra is erected, war memorial and important symbol of the city, if not of the whole country. A bit further away, the Cathedral.
Going from the beginning of the bridge to the Cathedral takes basically five minutes by walk, and at any point of the walk each of these buildings stay within eyesight.
So for me this was about describing not a single building but the whole view of the three together (or, alternatively, of the first two while walking over the bridge), and the beginning of the piece is meant - and possibly doesn't actually manage - to be a majestic description of this landscape, a triumphant entry in the city.
The intro then fades into something more romantic and calm, a depiction of the Petrusse valley down below, which I've seen uncountable times in these years while crossing the bridge, looking just below the Cathedral and the Gelle Fra: green and illuminated in the summer, dark in the night, white with snow in winter and grey under the clouds and the rain.
And it's a big mix of feelings and memories connected to this landscape, a mix of feelings and memories inevitably linked, in my mind, to the bridge, the Cathedral and the Gelle Fra.
Well, that took longer than expected I hope I managed to give some insight into what my intentions were with this compositional effort.
Next piece hopefully coming this week or the next one!
Perhaps you should call this composition "Une promenade vers la cathédrale ...". If I understand you correctly the Cathedral isn't that important, but the walk is. Then again, a different title would mess up the sequence
And well, looks like I managed to finish it today "Dans les rues du centre", fifth piece out of eight, three more to go.
Yet another one in your typical Luxembourg style. You have me worried a bit though. You managed to finish the composition today and you're already sharing it. I suppose I don't have to tell you that it is wise to let a composition ripe for a while, at least a week, just to make sure there's nothing you would like to change? Or do you like to make all eight compositions first and then reexamine them?
I think "une promenade vers la cathedrale" would shift the focus towards the cathedral mainly, which is not at all the intention of my piece. If anything I would make a title more descriptive of the bridge crossing, but for some reason I don't even know I prefer to include the three buildings, although I admit it makes for a rather long and complicated title :-/
I'm not even sure what you mean by my typical Luxembourg style but I like the expression :)) all of these compositions are born from improvisations that I recorded last year and only now decided to arrange, transcribe and play in their final form. When I said "I managed to finish it today" I meant the recording, not the composition itself. But then again I might indeed be feeling like changing something tomorrow or even a month or a year from now
sixth piece. This time I tried letting my computer play the whole thing in Musescore plus GarageBand, so no actual keyboard playing by me whatsoever. I intend to do this much more often in the future as it's so much faster. I hope there isn't much noticeable difference in the audio quality!
Here's "Kirchberg", the seventh piece, where I experimented with quartal harmony and rhythmic displacement.
And here's "Le soir tombe sur le parc de Cessange", the eighth and final piece.
This finally concludes this collection. I'll probably post two more videos in this thread by the end of April / beginning of May: one presenting a selection of these pieces played (still by GarageBand) with a Rhodes keyboard, which I thought really suits some of this music, and one simply playing the full suite while showing videos of the Luxembourgish landscapes corresponding to each piece.
And here's "Le soir tombe sur le parc de Cessange", the eighth and final piece.
And what a ride, or should I say walk, it was.
I am so used to composers who are still studying (not learning, we keep doing that until the day we die), that I forget that there is an end to the process. One day you are no longer an amateur, or a composer in training, but a professional composer. Then I would like to ask you, and now what?
Once you have achieved a goal, you no longer have a goal. You can and probably will try to get even better at it, but is that enough? I asked myself the same question one day. I think you have the same problem I have or had. Writing music is too easy for you. You sit down and start writing, that's it. Inspiration is for amateurs, right? Sometimes it feels like work. It could become work.
Maybe it's better to have less talent and less knowledge, so you need a whole life to get to where you want to be. Unless of course you are doing it for the money and you are aiming for a steady income, maybe even becoming famous.
Beautiful pieces! I like the first one the most. I can't find a word for it, fragile maybe, in a good way. I would love to play it, but I'm not going to do that because I don't want to ruin your piece
And here's "Le soir tombe sur le parc de Cessange", the eighth and final piece.
And what a ride, or should I say walk, it was.
I am so used to composers who are still studying (not learning, we keep doing that until the day we die), that I forget that there is an end to the process. One day you are no longer an amateur, or a composer in training, but a professional composer. Then I would like to ask you, and now what?
Once you have achieved a goal, you no longer have a goal. You can and probably will try to get even better at it, but is that enough? I asked myself the same question one day. I think you have the same problem I have or had. Writing music is too easy for you. You sit down and start writing, that's it. Inspiration is for amateurs, right? Sometimes it feels like work. It could become work.
Maybe it's better to have less talent and less knowledge, so you need a whole life to get to where you want to be. Unless of course you are doing it for the money and you are aiming for a steady income, maybe even becoming famous.
Thank you Rowy for your kind words. I wouldn't really say that writing music is too easy for me. These pieces were born as improvs after long walks around my city, so I do need inspiration, and lots of it. But I like it like that I still have so many other recordings of old improvs in my hard drive that I need to turn into proper full pieces. For these, I think the hardest part of the compositional effort, the actual creation of new music, has been done already. So I can just focus on correcting the mistakes, connecting the various sections and transcribing the whole thing. But I gotta say, I'd love for all of this to become my actual work. I hardly see that happening though :))
Originally Posted by Josephine83
Beautiful pieces! I like the first one the most. I can't find a word for it, fragile maybe, in a good way. I would love to play it, but I'm not going to do that because I don't want to ruin your piece
Thank you Josephine, number 1 is also one of my favorites, together with the last three, probably. If you change your mind and eventually end up playing it, I'd definitely love to listen to your performance.
I don't think the pieces as they are now would sound that great with a strings effect, but you definitely gave me an interesting idea for an extended version of some of this suite's themes in an orchestral setting, so thank you Rowy, I'll definitely have to work on this in the future!
I'm also curious about that. The first piece that I like so much has that film music feel. It would fit a Scandinavian thriller or detective series or film. I think a cello would sound nice for a melody line. Maybe the start should be just the piano.
