Composition III

This is where you stop writing miniatures and start thinking like a composer with an ensemble in front of you — the whole course turns on the problems of form and texture once you have three or more players, and how to write idiomatically for instruments like violin, horn, piano, and clarinet when each one is doing real soloistic work. You'll build a dossier of contrasting chamber pieces totaling at least seven minutes, analyzing repertoire that parallels what you're writing, then defend the result at a final jury on grounds of technique, orchestration, form, and intellectual approach. It sits in the Composition sequence as the step where your craft has to survive contact with actual chamber idioms and post-1945 reference points, which is why the workload is mostly the project itself rather than exams.