# Symphony No. 5 in C minor "Soliloquy" (Complete)



## E Cristobal Poveda

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LMMVwr6jbTDc95Yo9VEN4vxwN5VbsucP/view?usp=sharing

All 4 movements, one audio file.
I finally finished it!


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## E Cristobal Poveda

I was hoping to get some feedback...


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## Swosh

I will have to take time to listen to the whole thing when I have spare time haha. Going through it in pieces, are there movements? The dissonance throughout is very beautiful.


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## Paul T McGraw

As a fellow composer, I know how important it is to get feedback. Sometimes even bad feedback is better than no feedback at all. 

I am listening as I type. I am past 2 minutes and have yet to hear a strong theme or motive. Perhaps it is buried in the orchestration. You do have some very striking TEXTURES that would seem to be well done. As a sort of sound painter, you would be well served by purchasing NotePerformer. It now works with all of the major notation programs and will get you closer to a true orchestral sound.

Some nice dramatic gestures around 4:30, but still no theme or motif. Perhaps that is your style so I will stop listening for themes and motifs. Well, I just arrived at 6:00 and now there is a prominent motif. I was almost able to relate to the section from 6 to 9 minutes and liked it. Nice harp part in the second movement.

How would you describe your style of composing? Would you describe yourself as a minimalist?

In any event, my listening preferences and my own compositions are very different from yours so my feedback is probably of little use to you.


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## E Cristobal Poveda

Paul T McGraw said:


> As a fellow composer, I know how important it is to get feedback. Sometimes even bad feedback is better than no feedback at all.
> 
> I am listening as I type. I am past 2 minutes and have yet to hear a strong theme or motive. Perhaps it is buried in the orchestration. You do have some very striking TEXTURES that would seem to be well done. As a sort of sound painter, you would be well served by purchasing NotePerformer. It now works with all of the major notation programs and will get you closer to a true orchestral sound.
> 
> Some nice dramatic gestures around 4:30, but still no theme or motif. Perhaps that is your style so I will stop listening for themes and motifs. Well, I just arrived at 6:00 and now there is a prominent motif. I was almost able to relate to the section from 6 to 9 minutes and liked it. Nice harp part in the second movement.
> 
> How would you describe your style of composing? Would you describe yourself as a minimalist?
> 
> In any event, my listening preferences and my own compositions are very different from yours so my feedback is probably of little use to you.


I've moved towards more subtle implementations of my motifs, so most of the time it travels around the orchestration save for a few moments where it is boomed by the low brass in the first movement. The remainder of the movements continue to extrapolate on the themes introduced in the first and second movement.

I'm not really a minimalist, more of a romanticist or expressionist, since I focus more on conveying themes/emotions than structure per se.


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## E Cristobal Poveda

Swosh said:


> I will have to take time to listen to the whole thing when I have spare time haha. Going through it in pieces, are there movements? The dissonance throughout is very beautiful.


There are 4 movements:
Molto Allegro
Adagio
Vivace Malvagio
Allegretto Poco Presto


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## MarkMcD

I'm having trouble getting the file to play, it's a very big file lol.


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## E Cristobal Poveda

You could try downloading it if you haven't already.


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## Captainnumber36

I'm about three minutes in and am loving it! Very pleasurable to listen to, good work. I'll let you know if I enjoyed the entire thing once I finish it.


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## Captainnumber36

It reminds me of Beethoven, with all the drama. That's a good thing in my book!


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## Captainnumber36

There is a theme in the second movement that sounds really familiar, I think from a film, but I can't place it.


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## Captainnumber36

I just finished the whole thing and found it incredible, it sounds like you put in a lot of effort to create such an epic work. Congratulations!


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## MarkMcD

This is a really great piece, I like it a lot. I could well imagine it being a film score, it is very cinematic. The ostinato in the violins for the first part of the movement is a little over used in my humble opinion, not bad, but just a bit too much, it might be better to vary the arpegio a little to break up that monotony. The theme that comes in around 6 mins is a lovely moment, emerging out of the storm clouds like a ray of light in the dark. You have some really nice textures too but up until this point, no real motifs. I think you said that they are mostly passed around the orchestra to begin with, but the sound set I think is prohibiting the different sections from being heard. I really would echo a point made earlier about looking into NotePerformer. It really would add sooooooooo much to your work and it is relatively cheap considering how much of difference it makes. At the moment it costs around 100 pounds, but they are doing a 30 day free trail, I really would love to hear this with a superior sound set.

https://www.noteperformer.com/

See what you think, it really is great and you get a free lifetime update link too, I bought it when it was v1.5 and now they're at v3.2. They just send you a link each time they improve it. (They are not paying me to say that by the way LOL.)

Anyway, back to the music.
I'm hearing Rach II around 7 to 9 mins but then it moves off into the storm again and the ostinato. Very odd noise at 12 mins, not sure what that is.
Another little observation, it all seems very centred around C minor is it? It doesn't tend to wander much, at least in the later half. I like the new movement/section around 22 mins, it brings some new energy to the piece, but again were almost always in C min, it needs to breath a bit more I think.

All in all I like it, but it feels a little restricted. 44 mins is a long time to stay so close to the home key all the time. I don't think you need to change anything other than maybe modulate to some other exotic key for a while here and there.

Really well done, kind regards
Mark


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## E Cristobal Poveda

MarkMcD said:


> This is a really great piece, I like it a lot. I could well imagine it being a film score, it is very cinematic. The ostinato in the violins for the first part of the movement is a little over used in my humble opinion, not bad, but just a bit too much, it might be better to vary the arpegio a little to break up that monotony. The theme that comes in around 6 mins is a lovely moment, emerging out of the storm clouds like a ray of light in the dark. You have some really nice textures too but up until this point, no real motifs. I think you said that they are mostly passed around the orchestra to begin with, but the sound set I think is prohibiting the different sections from being heard. I really would echo a point made earlier about looking into NotePerformer. It really would add sooooooooo much to your work and it is relatively cheap considering how much of difference it makes. At the moment it costs around 100 pounds, but they are doing a 30 day free trail, I really would love to hear this with a superior sound set.
> 
> https://www.noteperformer.com/
> 
> See what you think, it really is great and you get a free lifetime update link too, I bought it when it was v1.5 and now they're at v3.2. They just send you a link each time they improve it. (They are not paying me to say that by the way LOL.)
> 
> Anyway, back to the music.
> I'm hearing Rach II around 7 to 9 mins but then it moves off into the storm again and the ostinato. Very odd noise at 12 mins, not sure what that is.
> Another little observation, it all seems very centred around C minor is it? It doesn't tend to wander much, at least in the later half. I like the new movement/section around 22 mins, it brings some new energy to the piece, but again were almost always in C min, it needs to breath a bit more I think.
> 
> All in all I like it, but it feels a little restricted. 44 mins is a long time to stay so close to the home key all the time. I don't think you need to change anything other than maybe modulate to some other exotic key for a while here and there.
> 
> Really well done, kind regards
> Mark


The second movement is the only movement that remains in C minor througout.
The first movement modulates to B minor shortly after the main theme is introduced, then modulates back to C minor, then into Eb Major.

The third movement modulates from C minor to Db minor.
The final movement modulates from C minor to Eb and Bb major many times.

I think a lot of the modulations flew past your ear since they aren't very grandiose.


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