Triwaltzia No. 1

The title says it all: three valses, meant to be played as separate movements.

I have quite thoughtfully polished the presentation of this one, as one might notice right after going through the entire PDF file and past the cover.

The names of the pieces mean, in due chronological order: "The dance of the mannequins" in French, the "The hilly journey of a stagecoat" in German, and "The clockwork's pendulum" in Italian.

Enjoy!

Hi again Pablo! Let's check:

• First waltz: a powerful first section; the middle one (M15-27) convinced me a bit less than the rest but nonetheless it was a very pleasant waltz. Just to be sure, is it from 2021 as the title says and unlike the other two?

• Second waltz: it starts a bit weak to my taste but it gets better and better. However, I found that M26 seems to be unplayable as it is written (14th span in the left hand).

• Third waltz: the most enjoyable and rich in terms of musicality of all three in my opinion. By the way, should the ending bar be in M18? 

You kept it arguably simple in these three pieces, yet you managed to extract a lot of meaning from them in my opinion, specially in the last one. I must say the endings didn't really convince me a lot this time, but it's just that I'm very nit-picky with endings overall.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón. 

Hi @Fugax Contrapunctus,

I have reviewed the Passacaglua so probably won't repeat here.

Personally I love the G minor waltz more than the D minor one: the G minor is more a pure waltz which is enjoyable with its light character; while for the D minor one I find the counterpoint a bit serious for the character of waltz. But these are just my personal preference and thanks for sharing!

21 hours ago, Fugax Contrapunctus said:

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the drawing on the cover is one of my self-portraits.

Btw I like your self-portrait and for an artistic idiot like me I find it very detailed portrait!

Henry

19 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Btw I like your self-portrait and for an artistic idiot like me I find it very detailed portrait!

Henry, you stand for everything that is good in the world, not an idiot. We all have our good qualities, and you're one of the most intelligent people I've ever met.

I thoroughly thank you for your compliment though. I recall you mentioned you enjoyed Philosophy. Well then, here's two of the philosophical diagrams I have created. I encourage you to base yourself on them to try to figure out the underlying principles of my philosophical system.

22 minutes ago, Fugax Contrapunctus said:

Well then, here's two of the philosophical diagrams I have created. I encourage you to base yourself on them to try to figure out the underlying principles of my philosophical system.

Well I don't know Greek Alphabet at all and I try to decipher your graph characters by characters by viewing the wikitionary and guessing. So far I only get in the second diagram it's on epistemology with perception as the central word: bottom process is the Aletheia frequently used by Heidegger, the right one Psychi. The others I cannot really discern what's the meaning so forgive me on that haha!

Henry

Hey there

I can't remember if I commented on your music before. 

It's mostly because you generally write in a style I'm not too interested in. That's not to say your music is bad... quite the contrary. I've studied Bach and counterpoint while in school, and I always thought it was elegant and pretty, but the dense counterpoint was something I respected, but didn't find that interesting. 

Most of what I've heard from you are fugues and music drenched in the Baroque style. Even if I haven't said anything, that doesn't mean I haven't heard your music. I've heard a lot of your stuff, and it's all great. I just don't respond to music that I feel like I don't have much to offer. You seem to be a wizard of counterpoint, and there's nothing I could really say to help you out. 

But the reason I'm saying all of this is because of this post. I've known plenty of composers who craft only baroque-era counterpoint, and yeah that's great, but you have more to offer. You gave us 3 waltzes, all finely crafted, when I thought that you couldn't share this side of you. These are great, and after listening to them several times, I'm happy to say that your craft is outstanding. I love everything you gave us here, and you have shown a side that I didn't know you had. 

Well done, and thanks for sharing these. Made my night. 

54 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Hey there

I can't remember if I commented on your music before. 

It's mostly because you generally write in a style I'm not too interested in. That's not to say your music is bad... quite the contrary. I've studied Bach and counterpoint while in school, and I always thought it was elegant and pretty, but the dense counterpoint was something I respected, but didn't find that interesting. 

Most of what I've heard from you are fugues and music drenched in the Baroque style. Even if I haven't said anything, that doesn't mean I haven't heard your music. I've heard a lot of your stuff, and it's all great. I just don't respond to music that I feel like I don't have much to offer. You seem to be a wizard of counterpoint, and there's nothing I could really say to help you out. 

But the reason I'm saying all of this is because of this post. I've known plenty of composers who craft only baroque-era counterpoint, and yeah that's great, but you have more to offer. You gave us 3 waltzes, all finely crafted, when I thought that you couldn't share this side of you. These are great, and after listening to them several times, I'm happy to say that your craft is outstanding. I love everything you gave us here, and you have shown a side that I didn't know you had. 

Well done, and thanks for sharing these. Made my night. 

Thank you so much for your encouragement and kind words, my good sir.

I still remember one comment from you saying something on the lines of "Okay, why do you keep doing counterpoint? Everybody knows you're good at it by now?". Fear not, I hold you no grudges. It sparked my indignation back then though, but I guess that's more than expected, especially considering the fact that I was 15~16 at the time and I used to be tremendously immature when it came to criticism just two years ago (I'm currently 17).

I'm glad you liked my waltzes! You know, I can also be original and creative. Not everything has to be Baroque in my repertoire, even if most is. So yeah, I went full eclectic for that one.

You're very kind. Have a good night, sir.

On 4/17/2023 at 9:01 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Well I don't know Greek Alphabet at all and I try to decipher your graph characters by characters by viewing the wikitionary and guessing. So far I only get in the second diagram it's on epistemology with perception as the central word: bottom process is the Aletheia frequently used by Heidegger, the right one Psychi. The others I cannot really discern what's the meaning so forgive me on that haha!

It's okay. I'll give a comprehensive yet brief explanation on the subject and then leave you with another treat 😉

The first image is what I call "the Cycle of Dychotomies." It's a collection of platonic and aristotelic terms which group radially and form opposites, just as was the way of Heraclitus. Example: episteme vs. doxa on the central axis, which are opposed levels of abstraction according to Aristotle. Episteme means "science", whereas doxa means "opinions". It works that way all around. If there's a sector somewhere, its opposite will be 180 degrees from it on the circle.

As for the 2nd image, this one truly is of my own intellectual creation. I'll explain the details:
First we have anthropos, a human being representing all of humankind. Anthropos, as a learning subject, has two sides: skepson and doxon. For now, all you need to know is that the Skepson is objective and thus connected to the mind (Nous), whereas the Doxon is subjective and is connected, thus, to the pathic soul (Psyche).

Perception, as you aptly translated is in the center, for it connects to most elements within the diagram. When the Skepson half of Anthropos acquires knowledge through perception, that kind of knowledge is undergoes particularization (kommatisis), and is thus reduced and incomplete, for it only specializes on  few perspectives of any given phenomenon at once. But, when the Doxon half learns new knowledge, it stays with Anthropos as a vital experience for the reast of their lives: it is Pankhoreton, which is a self-coined term in Ancient Greek meaning something on the line of "That which encompasses all" or "That which turns out to be holistic".

Lastly, Heidegger's term Aletheia, which refers in this context to the Greek concept of Truth (it literally means "That which is not veiled/hidden" in terms of its etymology), is the sum of Kommatisis and Pankhoreton. This diagram, in essence, represent my own version of Kant's "Copernician turn" in Epistemology, though I am certainly not that entitled to such an expression at all. It represents a returning to the Ancient Greek and Classical ideas and questions which Western Civilization has long forgotten or tried to actively detract from.

Here's my next diagram (sorry for all the graphite patches). Do your best! 😉 

1 hour ago, Fugax Contrapunctus said:

This diagram, in essence, represent my own version of Kant's "Copernician turn" in Epistemology, though I am certainly not that entitled to such an expression at all.

Now I see what you mean in the second diagram. But for my understanding of Kantian epistemology, perception only provides half of the material of the knowledge, and the another half is the knowing mechanism of human beings, and Kant represents them in a diagram of 12 categories which is crucial for our knowing process, though the diagram does not necessarily all the human categories. The perception only appears "as given" to us and to perceive them as an object there's already a secret usage of the category, for example to perceive a tree our mind has to focus on "the" tree and put it under the entity of the quantifier "one". 

The division of objective and subjective seems not too appropriate for me, It's objective since it's intersubjective: to use Kant's example: everyone's image of a triangle can be different in their head, but the SCHEMA of it is the same when schema is how the categories relate to phenomena. 

But you are right on the Aletheia as western philosophy after Socrates are periods of Aletheia when truths are disclosing, but art is to allow the truth to swing between disclosing and veiling. 

Thanks for your explanation Pabio! Your diagrams are very interesting I will reply more when I have time and hopefully this post won't turn your music away LoL.

Henry