Hi. I hope you enjoy this piece I have written for, and which is being performed here, by Helen Lin. The score is above the video link. Enjoy. http://www.jeremiahbornfield.com/?p=49
I would love your feedback
Jeremiah Bornfield

Hello Jeremiah,
I have listened your ballad. First I'd like to congratulate the pianist, who has a beautiful sound and romantic pianism, quite suitable I think for your piece. For the latter I am not a composition teacher, so that I can only give you my impression as a listener. Of course, the style is rather out-of-date. However, nowadays there is no more main stream in classical music compostion, but rather a myriad of different approaches, some of them taking their roots in the past centuries (excluding the XXth...). I would say that it could be a very brillant and nice improvisation in the late romantic style. Anyway the listening was pleasant. It could have been even more if the recording had been of better quality. Thanks for this post.

By the way, if you want to have more echoes from Piano Society, you should stick to the rules: to introduce yourself, to provide mp3 recordings and to ask to become a member, if it is your will.

Welcome !

Thanks Francois!

She is quite a gifted pianist! I wrote the piece at her request, which was for a ballade in this style. I think you are right about compositional approaches rapidly shifting. It's hard to say exactly what a contemporary sound is. There are a lot of new composers that are taking twentieth century style, but mostly pop and rock.

I will get a better recording of this eventually. For now I'm just happy to have it out in the world. It would probably take a very great master to improvise the detail of this piece, because it has a some strophic elements, but not impossible.

As for my bio - I have composed work and performed or organized concerts at many venues for many groups in New York City, where I live and also earned my masters degree in composition. I'm currently working with Music as a Natural Resource, developing new dialogues on the subject of music in collaboration with the United Nations. Very exciting. Also writing 2 requested pieces and a commission, including a new solo piano work, which will also have a guided interest in historical style.

What are you up to?

Jeremiah

Hi Jeremiah,
I believe you have posted here before, right? Regarding this work, I would say that for me, compositionally, it is not fulfilling. If I remember your other posts, then I believe I have already found some of your works to be of excellent quality. This Ballade (I emphasize again: for ME) doesn't have enough "stuff" to it. I find it to be a Ballade in search of a Toccata. All you have to do is look at the 6/8 time signature it begins with and the emphasized directive "1/8th-note=1/8th-note ALWAYS!", and it sets up expectations of driving rhythms with alternating and shifting meters that do not materialize. Except for the limited outer sections, the LH part is of no pianistic interest, providing as it does just a [very] low note here and there, while the RH attempts to say something, but not of any significant depth. I can't find an objective to be scaled and reached in this work (that is a climax). If this is to be a Ballade, you need to tell a story, or make us think that it does. If it's really supposed to be a Toccata, then it needs a lot more fire and ice. Not knowing what your exposure and background is, this may be very pointless and I hope you don't find it condescending, but I would have you listen to and analyze (or just absorb) the following piano works and then see what might spring from within you:

Stravinsky: Sonatina (especially the fast movements)
Debussy: Ballade, L'Isle joyeuse
Bartok: Allegro Barbaro, Toccata, Piano Sonata No 1 (all), The Chase from Out of Doors suite
Scriabin: Piano Sonata No.5
Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No.7, 1st and last movements
Barber: Piano Sonata, Op.26, 1st and 4th movements
Ginastera: Piano Sonata, Op.22, 1st, 2nd and 4th movements
G. Crumb: Macrokosmos, Bk.1: No 2 (Proteus) and No 3 (Pastoral)

while your at it, also try the following string quartet literature:

Berg: Lyric Suite, iii (Allegro misterioso)
Bartok: String Quartet No.4, ii (Prestissimo con sordino)

This will give you a tremendous exposure to 20th century idioms that can work their way into and through you in a Bornfield kind of way. Sorry I couldn't be more flattering on this one.

Best wishes,
Eddy

Hi Eddy!

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate your playlist.
I can also appreciate having a clear sense of what moves performers, generally.

In this case I would have to say that a large bit of the work has been overlooked.
It's totally understandable to have a difficult time understanding a score which has barely been approached.
I could not expect you to study this, unless you were really going to criticize it in some formal and convincing way.

I have been lucky in that I have known many first hand accounts of the men on your playlist, and even had a memorable lesson with Crumb himself.
Wrote a work for Gregg Smith, who wrote Stravinsky's funeral music, and studied with Mahoney, a pupil of Sam Adler/Bartok, etc.
It doesn't make the work more viable, but the audience I intend to write for is more important than the very specific sense of drama many musicians seem to hold above all the reality of our complex and shrinking world.

Judging by your list, I would say you should start listening to Messiaen and Stockhausen for forward thinking, and although perhaps not chronological, Mahler for supportive thinking. It's all very beautiful.

Cheers,
JB

Thanks for your interest regarding my musical life Well, I have a specially busy end of Spring, with three concerts in jazz solo piano, one with my Jazz quintet (after the recording of a CD scheduled for next month) and a chamber music concert with my wife who is a very good amateur singer (mezzo-soprano). We will give the whole Winterreise for some 30 friends. Then we will move in another city !
As for you, I see you're not exactly a teenager making his first trial in composition...
Regards,

That sounds great Francois!
A musical family is the best.
I hope everything goes well in performance, and congrats on the recording!
iTune-it!

Thanks Jeremiah ! You're right when you talk about family, since among our four kids, three of them took lessons in music. However, only one is still practicing her instrument Hopefully, the others will eventually come back to music when they have the opportunity. Regards,

You should try making arrangements with them of the music that they love to listen to. Even if you think the music is dull, it would be an awesome exercise, and fun!!