A Tragedy - Part V: Collapse

Written and Recorded in 1990

 

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. Along with his philosophical thoughts, I was also quite impressed by Nietzsche’s biographic profile; especially over his fanatically busy writing in his later life as a sane man that resulted in his dramatic mental collapse on January 1889. 

Part V of this composition is designed to focus on the moment of his mental breakdown. Its external bizarreness – the incident took place in the street of Turin – is depicted by rough sound of the analogue synthesizer whilst the protagonist’s inner world is assumingly reconstructed by the middle sections, which provide victorious harmonies and even an uplifting piano solo that may indicate that his external insanity might have been a joyous liberation for his inner self. The piano solo section is written in an unusual time signature of 15/16 because this kind of joy of liberation should not be treated in a usual manner.