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So calm and serene...

(Sorry for the viola clef mistake...) Hello again. After 2-3 months with a considerable mental block I managed to start doing some progress and last night I composed a piece with this newly found creativity. This piece is a reflection of some of the feelings I haven't been unable to express in the past weeks. I wasn't expecting to create it, I just sat down and started playing with some harmonies. But luckily it turned out to be one of my most expressive pieces in my opinion, even if it is just a miniature. I hope you enjoy it!

So this is the final draft of the entire 2nd movement of my String Sextet. I can confidently say this is my best movement of music ever written up to date. The movement is divided into three parts: Lamentoso, Fugue a6 and the Return. The first two parts of the movements have been posted before in below links: Lamentoso: Fugue a6: If you want to skip to the newest content I compose, you may skip to 20:16. The musical analysis of the Lamentoso and Fugue have already been done in the link posted above so I won’t repeat it here. Here is the YT link and score of the movement: (Final Draft) String Sextet 2nd mov with last page.pdf Here is the YC post to the first mov of the same Sextet: Here is the structure of the movement: 00:00 Lamentoso The Eden in the 1st mov is great but man, come on and live in the real world. All sorts of tragedies happening and what ground do you have to claim the transcendence? I especially love the outburst in 4:59 and the passage starts from 8:53. 11:47 Fugue a6. This part is totally inspired by Vince’s @Thatguy v2.0 comment on my first movement “to write a dense fugue”, also to further explore the fugato in the 1st mov. Like @Giacomo925 said, this part summarises the sadness of the first 20 minutes of the movement. It always leaves me in awe that my favorite C minor passage, the absolute climax of the whole piece, lies in minute 30 exactly. The fugue aims to end on desperate terms but I won’t allow it. I try to give it a fight by recalling the pentatonic ideal even though in the wrong key of the tritone C major as hinted in the pentatonic section of the fugue, but the power is diminished. I need some purification for the paradise regained. Thx to @Luis Hernándezfor introducing me to tritone substitution in this part. The chant (22:01) begins with self murmuring of viola, occasionally inviting mysticism recalling 7:55 in Lamentoso and sadness of the 1st subject of the fugue. Two violas play together with the texture of a parallel organum. After a sad cry some more primitive power comes in to recall the passion and good of human beings, the theme is from b.27 of 1st mov. It gets agitated and experiences an epiphany in the form of Bartok Pizz. Both the chant and the folk melody is built around the 025 set! And the 025 set is the essence of the pentatonic scale! Furthermore a quartal chord is the further essence of 025 set, and hence the core of the whole pentatonic scale! Discovering this, the fury cannot be stopped. It leaves me in wonder how on earth can I write this thing out. After returning to the tonic key in 27:00, I decided to conceive it as a one off climax with build up. The idea is inspired by my playing of Beethoven’s op.110 when he did the same thing in the last movement as well. There is no “development” but only realisation of Tao in this imperfect world. There are appetizers to the ultra climax, first introducing the two most important themes sparingly, then in 27:16 theme in b.35 of 1st mov which is in fact inspired by my own Clarinet Quintet in C minor, and then an appetizer fugato responding to the lament in b.148 of the Lamentoso which is based on the opening theme. The entrée of Ultra Climax appears in 28:38, first is the first theme in tonic by first violin, viola, and cello, then second theme in C major by second violin, viola and cello. The playing of tritone is to prove Tao‘s omnipotence, also respond to the first mov and the fugue with the F# and C minor relationship. Using all 3 instruments for me is the resonance of Heaven, Earth and Human when they finally sing together the Tao they shared. I think I really feel the Chinese philosopher Tang Chun-i’s Realm of Heavenly Morality here. The modulation to Ab major, responding to b. 294 and 644 of 1st mov, complete what’s left undone there and finally Gb major is in triumph. A pedal point on a tritone is funny for me. The cello overlapping the violin is signifying earth and heaven interaction which is considered auspicious in Chinese classics I-ching. I am always in awe of the power exhibited here and wonder who’s actually the composer of this passage. The next passage in 30:07 is the heterophonic version of the 1st theme, which is where I was inspired miraculously by a Chinese music group. Next is the in extremis passage in 30:57. It’s the immanent version of the 1st theme. I was imagining what my friend’s thinking on his last day of life. The texture is probably inspired by the film music in Kurosawa’s Ikiru when the main character was swinging on the park’s swing to await his death. I quote Bach’s St. John Passion here for my friend’s name, and I find out that the lyrics fit too. I wish him to rest in peace and return to Tao. The final ending is probably inspired by the ending of Chopin’s Fantasie in F minor. I can never believe I would end the whole thing this positive in an absolute way. The whole passage always leaves me in tears. After writing the Lamentoso in May 2024 I had no power and inspiration at all to write anything in the Sextet since I was suffering in my full time job. I started picking up by working on the C# minor Piano Sonata first. After finishing that in Jan 2025 I felt like my negative power was expressed out, leaving the goods for this Sextet. I then went for a walk on 10 Feb 2025 and had a miracle, inspired by a Chinese music group, which turned on my creative power and I fervently completed the entire thing in just 18 days, when I had zero notes written in the past 9 months. It’s such a miracle I could have finished this piece this quick and good. My dedicatee Mr. Johnson Ho had already passed away last year. It's a shame that this piece couldn’t be completed when he’s alive, but I would be forever thankful for his inspiration. Special thanks must have been granted to my great friend Mr. Vince Meyer @Thatguy v2.0 for making this perfect audio and many ideas, and being a great friend, but I will leave it to the final version of the whole Sextet. Also a very special thanks must be given to my ex-boss. Thanks to her mistreatment, I have the pain to reflect on my own, the drive to finish the whole Sextet in a fury and the time to complete it when I was forced to resign for my own mental health. Foremost of course I must thank my dearest mum. But lol, the whole acknowledgement will be left to the post of the final version of the whole Sextet, including the first movement and this movement. This is a very long movement and commentary and I don’t expect anyone to listen and read till the end. But if you do so, here is my deepest gratitude to you. Feel free to comment as well, I would be very thankful to have received them. Thank you!!!!! Henry

Hey @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! I'll review the whole movement as a unit even though I think I already reviewed the beginning of it once - I don't even remember what I said. The beginning is quite foreboding and starts with quite a bleak theme! And there is some very logical and crunchy dissonant chromaticism in it which quite naturally leads to some distant key modulations in a short time. In the beginning, the whole is very contrapuntal and the themes are very lucid and lead the movement towards the logical fugue where the piece becomes hyper-motivic. After that it sort of transcends its own themes/motifs. The Tranquillo in measure 123 kind of foreshadows the later religioso. The Mesto section in measure 148 gives a sense of lightness still tainted by the chromaticism of the lamentoso and its mourning. The fugues subject sounds even darker with the seemingly constant dissonances between the natural and sharp 4th degrees which the subject necessitates. Writing a 6-voice fugue must really have been a mind warping experience. Perhaps you wrote it in a trance much like Wagner claimed to have been in while writing the Prelude to Tristan & Isolde? LoL It's very good and never dull or overbearing in its contrapuntal complexity. There is plenty of space and harmonic variety to keep musical interest. I like how the end of the fugue gradually introduces the relatively happy sounding pentatonic figures. There's also a subtle metric modulation that brings you from the fugue to the Misterioso in measure 439. The Chant - Adagio Religioso section very naturally emerges out of all the previous material like the Tranquillo in measure 123. There is a real sense of piety or worship and spirituality and respect for your friends passing in this part. In measure 565 I perceive the on-beats and off-beats to switch places. For some reason I naturally hear the lower notes as being the strong beat in an oom-pah pattern. The pizzicato glissando from the major 6th degree to the tonic further foreshadow the transcendence you achieve later with the pentatonic figures. Measure 601 almost sounds like the beginning of a Western! LoL .. or should I say "Eastern"? This part is so ebullient and overflowing with positive energy and celebration! The very last section is especially transcendent where the celebration of his life is mixed with a bittersweet reflection. The pizzicato glissando at the end really sounds very Eastern and rounds out the movement quite nicely! Very well done, Henry. I 2nd that this is thus far your biggest masterpiece. Question is, where will you go from here? Thanks for sharing and I'm looking forward to your next piece!

Thanks so much for the feedback! Always looking to improve.

@UncleRed99 Thank you so much for your detailed feedback on the dynamic and sound balance, you give some very interesting points I will reflect on! I might do some small experiments related to the relative volume of each degree of a chord. Also I appreciate you sharing your personal experience. 🙂 Nice playing in the solo. 😁 I only played in a band once, but I never rehearsed that much, it must be exhausting oof.

Your music is always so unique and complicated, a collage of wonderous sounds. I listened without analyzing, just wanted to say I enjoyed the ride you put me on with this. Well done 🙂