UNLEASHED 7

Here's my first impression / how I perceived your piece:

0:10 nice melody
0:19 why continue the melodic line? Let it rest
0:29 don't know what it is but this counter line does not work for me. But I can't really hear it (listening on the phone right now).
0:35 I wanted the melody to go even higher and build more. Was a bit frustrating to hear it to go down again
0:43 maybe add a 2 note pickup to the melody so it is not so empty? Kinda expected it here
0:46 I really want to hear that build but it keeps disappointing me.
0:49 Feels a bit lost until the next section
1:10 that's nice
1:16 get rid of the extra note and resolve the melody right away. Was frustrating for me.
1:25 sounds like a note is missing or at least I expected it here
1:31 again missing a note. I don't know I really want to hear it
1:34 sounds like a weird transition to me

Overall it sounds really nice! I love the melody, but I felt often frustrated when you didn't go where I wanted the piece to go.
Of course this is just my subjective opinion as a listener.

Hope it helps a bit!

 

Let me start by saying I like the melody. Arguably that's the most important part to get right, so you have that foundation to build from. What follows is of course strictly my opinion and should not be taken as professional advice.

There's something unfocused about this piece. Sometimes it's the harmony, sometimes it's the orchestration, but mostly it's the structure. Don't get me wrong here, for the most part at least two of those elements are fine at any given point in time, but then one is off. For example, in the first ten seconds I can hear the harp doing an arpeggio which is fine, but at the eleventh second something is clashing harmonically between the harp, the piano chord and the sustained strings. I'm not at a keyboard so I can't really figure out the exact chords here, but something is wrong there. I picked out this little part because it exemplifies the point where two out of three things are right but one element is off (in this case the structure and orchestration is fine, but the harmony is off).

I like the build at 0:20 but I would lose the mallets or have them only hit the most important notes of the underlying arpeggio. Right now it (almost) exactly follows the harp and I feel it's taking (stealing!) attention away from your melody. What I think you're trying to do is to have a kind of forward motion underneath the melody that pushes the melody forward and adds to the build. I think the harp with soft mallet accents on the downbeats is probably all you need to achieve that. Think of it this way: the glock (I think that's what it is? or do you have some other mallet layered on top too?) is functioning to accent notes, but since it's almost exactly tracking the harp you're kind of accenting every note, thus defeating the purpose. Even though your melody is clearly louder, orchestrationally you've almost given the same weight/importance to the melody and the arpeggio by having (almost) all the notes in the arp emphasized. That's why I'm suggesting you drop the mallets or have them only hit a few notes.

You could embellish the harp part a bit more by having it break from the arpeggio and doing a gliss to give more of a build. If you really want to emphasize the build you have a couple more options you could consider: a gentle woodwind run underneath, sustained cymbal, timpani roll, mark tree gliss, etc. Mark tree might be an interesting option to explore since I get the impression you want to have that kind of tinkly top/shimmer.

At ~0:40 pretty much everything is doing the melody, I'm kind of missing harmonic support here. You've taken the violins out of their harmonic support role from before, but since they're now doubling the flute and nothing has taken their place for harmonic support, it feels kind of bare/empty. I think you need to decide if you want this section to be soloistic (in which case I'd just have the flute doing the melody) or full (in which case I'd add harmonic support, maybe some low woodwind chords?). Right now you're kind of in an uneasy middle between soloistic and full, at least to my ears.

The more I listen to this, the more I think the fundamental issue is still structural. You're probably going to hate me for saying this, but I'd take this back to the two-handed piano version. I don't mean go back to your old version, but rather to take your current version and translate it back down to piano. It will help reveal some of the issues you have in transitioning between sections.

All that said, I would stay on this piece. It's clear to me there is a nice piece in there but it's not quite coming to the fore in your current rendition. One thing that has helped me a lot in the past is to actually step away from the piece for a while, don't listen to it for about a week or so, then get back to it. It will help you listen to your own piece from the perspective of someone who hasn't heard it before and that will make the things Michael and I are pointing out more obvious to you.