Wed3am's Reviews

[Piano Trio in C# Minor]

I love the weighty simplicity with which the main motive is initially stated in the violin and the cello; the use of the violin's register throughout is particularly effective in terms of contrast, and I'm a fan of the "perverted/twisted" quality in the beginning and in other places throughout (someone mentioned Shostakovich...). I like that you bring that material back around 5:10 and at the end. There are plenty of effective pianistic techniques in here, too--all those extended clusters contribute to a more sophisticated harmonic language than one usually expects from a piece you might find by a budding videogame composer (is that your main interest?)--and 6:15 remainds me of a great Beethoven-esque descending octave skip type thing. Great work! In general this has an enormous variety of textures and range of techniques. My one [constructive] piece of criticism is that sometimes, as in 3:48 or so, it seems a bit too transparent. You know, just a minor chord arpeggiated in a simple pattern in 4/4 meter, or something like that. I can remember thinking the first time I listened to it that there were more places like that, but I've just re-listened to it and can't find much worthy of criticism. Even if there are a few places where the repeating texture is a bit predictable, they're few and far between, and you do a good job of integrating them with the surrounding material. Oh yeah, and out of curiosity, did you think about how idiomatic this would be for real instruments, and to what extent? Sorry for the long and rambling comment... It's just that I enjoyed this too much not to enthuse about it!