@Max Hamburg said:
Hi Jerry,
This is an amazing piece full of surprises. The synth fits again perfectly in the ensemble. I too like the adagio passage, but also the agitato finale passage near the end, which calms down again in the low woods (cor anglais?). Fantastic and so brilliantly orchestrated with a great variety in harmonies and sound colours.
It was a real joy to listen to. Many thanks!
Max
I appreciate that listeners enjoy my work Max and Anand.
I have found in the 34 years I've worked with MIDI and audio technology, that the more complex a piece is and the longer in length it is, the more difficult, and in some ways the more futile, to sound exactly like a recording of a real orchestra. It's also, in my opinion, stylistically conservative, as it fails to take into account what digital instruments can do that no acoustic instrument can and also presumes that "sounding like an orchestra" is some kind of monolithic idea, as though all orchestras sound the same, when that is far from the truth.
When a composer presents a new work and calls it a symphony, he's already asking for trouble. Not only is the sound being compared to an acoustic orchestra, but he must contend with assumptions and conclusions about what a symphony is, when in fact it is only a person's idea of what a symphony really is.
In the barest definition, a symphony is a multi-timbral, medium- to long-form work usually in several movements. If you compare an early symphony of Haydn, say, to one of Mahler or Nielsen, there are important differences in length, number of musicians playing and which instruments are employed, harmonic language, approach to rhythm and meter and tempo, orchestration differences, textural differences, differences in phrasing and how cadences are constructed.
Many believe, as I do, that the symphony is a work of the composer's emotional, intellectual and spiritual life, history and destiny. In other words, personal expression and subjectivity are present, yet so is, at least in the composer's vision, a craft to balance and give order to the musical impulse. If you have ever had a sense that nature and cosmos are inherently vibrating harmoniously under laws which govern all of reality, you know what I mean. Music is vibration. Pre-language, trans-language and post-language charateristics explain why sometimes "it", whatever it is, can only be expressed in music.
The above piece was produced in 2000, around the time when sample libraries of decent quality were starting to become available. If I had the time to re-do it using current technology I would, but I am busy working on my 10th symphony.