Symphonic work in progress.

Tim, thanks so much for taking the time and thanks for the nice compliments.
Re the alto fl, the scoring will work without it, but it does add something to the timbre I feel. It could realistically come up another  2dB in the mix to make its presence felt a bit more.
The divisi is easy enough to follow once you get used to it and I find it better than putting double slashes on an empty divisi stave to denote that they play tutti/unison. To avoid any confusion I deemed it necessary to explain the layout in the conductor's notes.

Re the bowing at the end of IV, the midi doesn't play the gesture of the line properly and is on my revision list to sort out. The bowing best reflects the gesture if you imagine the g sharps shortened along with a slowing down in tempo. There are other ways to bow this, but this way feels musically appropriate to me and the last note is bowed down to facilitate a smooth and long diminuendo. If nothing else, the effect of the marked bowing will be apparent and that is all one needs to do to get the right interpretation across to the conductor and players.

Yes, that damned VC instrument name, I have tried everything to correct it, to no avail. If I don't shorten the name and use the full name for every page, it's ok. Perhaps Bob P  will come up with a solution.
Thanks again Tim.

Your way too kind Dave, but I'll certainly take it and I'm delighted it spoke to you.
It's interesting how you discern influences from film composers, for me, I hear concert music composers' influences in there, people like Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky et al and some JW amongst others. What I did decide to do was make it appealing, hence my re-visiting tonality. I found it a pleasant change to the heavy duty stuff I've written latterly and might even soften my atonality/dissonance a little for the next piece.
I can't help the dissonances though, they are just there and much needed for me. They sometimes come about via contrapuntal means and at other times are deliberate harmonic choices. Either way, I feel they help progress the emotional arcs and narratives of the lines.
It's taken about 6 months to write and is actually finished but the last 3 mins needs scoring out as it only exists in a short score at present. All the animals are/where real. The cats where ours as where the horses (rescue ponies, both deceased now). The birds, ducks, pheasants, moorhens etc. hassle us everyday. The fox and the beaver use the same animal tracks and the squirrels jump up on window feeders everyday, totally ignoring us.

Now get off your arse and write music.

Mike,
Very nice, of course.
I can't follow the score because my monitor is way too small. But, no matter. I prefer to just listen, anyway. Seems to me that if I hear something I might not like, the score won't help me like it. Or help me like something better that I already like. I'm not anti-score. It's just that good music, like yours, is for listening to, not watching.

I am curious about what, in your mind, ties all these vignettes together, musically.

On one hand I hear the influences of the composers you mention. But on the other, I am just slightly bothered by comparisons of that nature. Here you've done all this work and someone says "Hey that sounds sort of like So n so". I know it's supposed to be a compliment, but I suspect you did't mean it to sound like whoever "so n so" is. You meant it to sound like "Mike".

As to dissonance. I heard some but only because I was listening for it. Otherwise I might not have taken any particular note. It was appropriate, well done, and didn't distract in any way. I sometime feel that composers use it because they can, because they think they have to, or just to be different. Whether or not it's musical doesn't always seem to be a consideration. I posted a piece here that had a horn rip that ended a half step below the note one might expect. It was a climactic beat and I wanted some tension. What I got was some grief for it. To me it worked and I'm not interested in changing it.

Unless you prepared this score in Sibelius, I have no idea how to correct the instrument name on subsequent pages of a score. I know you can, because sometimes things go wonky(legitimate musical term, I looked it up). Although I don't have really colorful expressions like Dave does.

Anyway I don't really have much to say about this piece. But very nice, anyway.

thanks guys for taking the time and commenting, it is really helpful and much appreciated.

Dave,
The divisi you mention is pretty standard. Interlocking the parts is also a standard way to do things for the strings. interlocking is a useful way of creating interest in the individual parts because often it will involve higher positions for each line and get them away from their stock in trade registers. one can also exploit timbre at this stage, by utilising higher string tone and sul techniques. In the example you refer to, the sound is quite homogenous and is a nice foil for the tune to play out against. If you look at the other sections, you will see interlocking everywhere and I'd say the technique is especially important in divergent timbres like the wind if some sort of unity in the sound is required. (btw the time stamp is correct as the crotales are like a clarion call to meditation).
It's not likely it'll get a performance and so I'm expending a lot of effort on the mixing (nearly there), if anything sounds out of place, let me know - the better the mix, the more impact it'll have if Simon Rattle and the LSO have a listen. Yeah, the change of instruments directions are just good form and habit.

Bob,

Thanks for the compliments and for listening. Nothing actually ties the movements musically -although the last mvt when finished, brings all the themes back and puts them together in counterpoint - a bit like all the animals playing with each other. The opening theme is then reprised before a rollicking coda and finish - but there is an emotional flow to them being played together and as suggested in the score, there is an extra-musical narrative that runs throughout. They are called symphonic scenes because each movement develops its material with motivic variation.
 I am using Sibelius (v8) and have tried everything I can think of, including digging into the engraving rules. If I change to full name on every page, it's fine. Reverting back to short names after page 1 brings the problem back...any ideas?

Greg,

V grateful that you gave up some time, thank you. You've probably mentioned all the influences I recognised too, except Delius who is not in my top 10 to say the least...way too greasy for me! I always think about Ravel and Tchaikovsky's scoring and Britten's economy of means when scoring and often look to push beyond an obvious way to do things, but with this piece I decided to be more direct and obvious in the scoring and not complicate too much. Stravinsky and Shostakovich certainly loom large in places too, but hopefully all influences have been refracted through my musical prism.
I'd say your adjectives are spot on and intention wise, that is what I tried to achieve when creating the overall journey....

Mike, the piece is great. As always, the details are impeccable.

I'm going to throw in one more composer: Barber, specifically Knoxville, Summer of 1915. I take it that the inspiration is Holmside (homeside?) in its current state, but there is a certain generosity in your animal depictions that made me think of childhood--the way small moments seem more significant and mysterious. Like you said, though, this isn't a piece *for* children; it's more akin to how we adults remember it (or can feel it again if we allow ourselves).

My favorite movement is the fourth ("Twilight, Moonlight and Stars"). I consider it the real *heart* of the piece and was quite moved throughout (Rehearsal 19, in particular, is marvelous). If I have a constructive suggestion, it's that this movement occurs too early. I kept anticipating one of the later movements to plumb the same depths, but they never did. That's fine, of course, but it left me feeling less emotionally engaged in the large-form structure than I think I would have been otherwise. In contrast, the second-to-last movement ("The Plake") felt more like it was setting a scene, and therefore could have occurred much earlier. My first thought was to try switching these two movements? I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but at the very least, I would suggest playing around with the movement structure at the highest level.

That'll be really cool and instructive, I hope you get to do it, we'd all learn from that I'm sure.
re interlocking, have you ever tried using your samples to practice and get a feel for it, especially for wind? You know this, but remember to factor in instruments registral characteristics, especially their strengths in differing dynamics as that plays a pivotal role when wanting to achieve an even sounding balance in the real world - one can lose that perspective with samples.  Samples can give a good approximation of how chords in wide and tighter spacing can sound using interlocking, enclosure and juxtaposition....experiment with a simple chord (same for brass too). It's pretty good ear training in the absence of the real thing.