Written in 1990 / Recorded in 1990 and 1994
A Tragedy was an instrumental composition I wrote during the
summer of 1990. In those days, I was working hard for writing an essay about a
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, as a course work, and was obsessed with ideas and facts I
was absorbing from various books I referred for my essay writing. One of the
most impressive pieces from this research reading was a famous quote from The Joyous Science, where Nietzsche
introduced his idea called Eternal Recurrence in a form of asking readers through
the mouth of a knowledgeable demon.
Part II of this composition is allotted for inspiration I obtained from The Demon, who reveals his knowledge on
one’s whole life from its beginning to everything that happened up to the present and would happen in the
future until the death. The Demon’s entry and exeunt are described by simple
but a bit ominous organ solo played in the Phrygian mode. The contents of the
Demon’s revelation – in other words, the key contents of one’s life – are
presented by variations of key motifs from the main body of the composition, arranged for a string quartet. As I have
already mentioned, the inspirations for creating this composition all came from
books written by (and about) Friedrich Nietzsche. Therefore, the composition
assumes the person, to whom The Demon
reveals its knowledge, is Friedrich Nietzsche himself. This follows that the
contents of one’s life mentioned above are all taken from biographic
information of the German philosopher, though it would be confusing a bit.
As I said, the initial demo recording was done in the summer
of 1990. At that time, I was leading a three piece band consists of a drummer,
a bass player who was capable of playing the guitar and keyboard, and me on the
guitar and keyboard and I arranged this composition suitable for the three of
us to play as much as possible. Later, I regretted for this arrangement and
re-recorded some parts of the composition with a new arrangement. The audio
track of this video largely consists of the new arrangement I made in 1994.
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