Orchestral Study #3 (adagio with melisma)

This got away from me.

My intent going in was to write an adagio in simple ABA with more tonal harmonies. Maybe like a Brahms slow movement or more one from a Walter Piston symphony. I’ve been brushing up on Piston symphonies during commutes and am enjoying getting reacquainted. My goals (chosen after I finished the last study) were tone color and dynamics. With this study, I feel like I’m writing better across the orchestra but am still floundering with combining instruments.

I wanted the first section to be tonal and melodic, but I worry that it has too much of a “pops” orchestral feel. That’s the risk I had worried about starting these studies: moving from tonality in rock music to orchestral risks sounding unchallenging.

As I was working through that languid opening, I switched gears to the second section: a major key chant/melisma interrupted with expansive declarations.

While fitting the first two sections together, I made notes on what became the third section, which was intended as a perversion of the themes that came before. This was written more fully on the piano during improvisation and though the polytonality worked very well on the keyboard it was a crazy mess trying to get it to work with orchestra. At one point I was going to leave it out because the tone felt wrong. I went through two earlier attempts before coming up with the final arrangement. The first had a very strict rhythm and mostly for winds, but it didn’t have the “edge” that I felt at the keyboard. The next attempt used written rubato and exaggerated cross rhythms (with almost no meter), but it just created too much chaos along with the polytonal dissonances. The final product ended up with a balance of chaos and structure, edging towards chaos. I think most of my time was spent just on this section.

The piece has an ABCBA structure. Languid and melodic, melisma, perversion of themes, abbreviated melisma, triste languid coda.

I still need to attempt an actual, beautiful adagio. Next goals: vivace and maybe try for a more organic structure without abrupt changes.

orchestral-study-3