REVIEW (Dunkeld) by Brian Heim, 2010
FUN, DANCING PIECE
“You’ve really written a wonderful piece here. The orchestration definitely sounds like it’s your 201st opus – very well-planned. The harmony is good, and I especially like the way the rhythms interact. Some of the transitions are a bit abrupt, maybe you could do some things before the parts with percussion. Those parts were very amazingly dancelike and sounded brazenly Scottish. It seemed like there was a bit much of repetition at the beginning, but it fit in more later. Congrats on this great piece!“
REVIEW (Gathering of the Stars) by Samantha Hirst, June 10 2004
SO SIMPLE YET SO EFFECTIVE
“Like you said in your grading of this piece (which you said was grades 1 – 3), this piece is simple and easy to play, yet it is so effective. And i have to say, kudos to the singer; it was an amazing performance.”
REVIEW (Goodbye; Kvedja) by Jacob Andrew Girard 2010
OUTSTANDING
“This song sounds beautiful with the Scorch, so I can only imagine what it would sound like as a live performance. The piano part is so suiting and that itself is amazing. I wish I knew what the words meant, although I can almost tell just from the feel of the song. Great!“
REVIEW (Goodbye; Kvedja) by Mike Flaws 2010
BEAUTIFUL
“As the last reviewer said, this piece sounds outstanding with scorch, and I urge people to listen to the mp3, it sounds wonderful. I liked the piano accompaniment and I couldn’t hear it in the mp3, was it there? Nonetheless, this sounds brilliant as arranged in the live performance, a brilliant piece, well done!“
REVIEW (Willow) by Matthew Scott Phillips, March 7 2001
WONDERFUL MOOD … NAKED NOTES
“The overall emotional feel to this work is fantastic. The composer has a real knack for rhythmic themes, and the meter changes serve to keep the piece interesting throughout. It’s a bit reminscent of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata to me, but nonetheless a work to be proud of.
The only thing that bothered me was the amount of what an old Composition Professor of mine once called ‘naked notes’. There are no dynamics to the piece, no slurs to mark phrasing, and no expressive test such as ‘dolce’ or ‘rubato’ (‘rubato’ being one I think would work well here). The notes and the tempo are there, but to a performer that’s not alot to go on. I also heard the main theme of this piece in a tempo a bit slower than 100. I think and Andante or even an Adagio tempo would serve the overall idea very well. In all however, it’s a great piece. There is alot more right to it than wrong!“
“This has now ben corrected. Thanks, Matt.” Snorri (Note: Willow was a stand-alone piano piece at the time)
