# Desolation: fugue D minor for violin, cello, clarinet, flute (live recording)



## lachlan1415 (Jul 30, 2018)

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to participate at a summer camp at the Purcell school of music. We were tasked to compose a piece within a week and got them recorded and performed live by professional musicians. My recording was finally sent to me and this is the result. They sight-read this so ignore the mistakes here and there.

The piece starts off with a dark introduction that brings us to the fugue. The fugue itself was an experiment in chromaticism, surprise and tension, and contrapuntal writing.

If you could comment on the piece and give some feedback, that would be great.

Performers:
Violin - Tom Kemp
Cello - Richard Harwood
Flute - Hannah Grayson
Clarinet - Anna Hashimoto


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## Swosh (Feb 25, 2018)

Your instrumentation and voicing is great, it all blends nicely together. It's such a pleasure hearing this in so many ways, very inspiring. I bet you they really enjoyed your piece. Your intro to set up the fugue is very nice. There is nothing bad I can say about any of this!! But the B section does seem like it suddenly went to a different planet, but that's probably what you wanted (the b section almost resembles a desolate landscape?). If it was me, just for fun I would keep the fugue sections, and expand that B section into a fantasy for it (Like Bach's chromatic fantasy and fugue). Might be a fun little experiment xD


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Sounds great to me. Being in D minor, I believe you need the Bb in the key signature. And the weird thing is the first section is in concert pitch, while the "fugue" part is not. I don't think it can be called a fugue at all actually, and the subject is almost like a motif. It does sound fugal in parts.


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## lachlan1415 (Jul 30, 2018)

Hey, thanks for the feedback and the compliments. I think it would be a good idea to extend the B section, however, it’s already been recorded and I won’t be able to change it again and have real musicians play the piece. I also want to be cautious of too much repetition, as the b section is pretty chordal.


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## lachlan1415 (Jul 30, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> Sounds great to me. Being in D minor, I believe you need the Bb in the key signature. And the weird thing is the first section is in concert pitch, while the "fugue" part is not. I don't think it can be called a fugue at all actually, and the subject is almost like a motif. It does sound fugal in parts.


Thanks for the feedback. I did not assign a key signature to the piece due to practicality. The performers had to read this at first sight and key signatures are a sight reader's worst enemy.

I'm not sure of the technical accuracies but the main goal of the piece was to explore contrapuntal writing, like a fugue. I may have to relabel the piece some time in the future.


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## lachlan1415 (Jul 30, 2018)

Swosh said:


> Your instrumentation and voicing is great, it all blends nicely together. It's such a pleasure hearing this in so many ways, very inspiring. I bet you they really enjoyed your piece. Your intro to set up the fugue is very nice. There is nothing bad I can say about any of this!! But the B section does seem like it suddenly went to a different planet, but that's probably what you wanted (the b section almost resembles a desolate landscape?). If it was me, just for fun I would keep the fugue sections, and expand that B section into a fantasy for it (Like Bach's chromatic fantasy and fugue). Might be a fun little experiment xD


Hey, thanks for the feedback and the compliments. I think it would be a good idea to extend the B section, however, it's already been recorded and I won't be able to change it again and have real musicians play the piece. I also want to be cautious of too much repetition, as the b section is pretty chordal.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I love it, very fun and joyous melody!


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