A Tragedy - Part VI: Eternal Reccurence / Theme

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. One of the ideas that impressed me the most from this research reading was Nietzsche’s famous theory called Eternal Recurrence and it didn’t take long for me to write this composition by combining the theory with other elements taken from Nietzsche’s biographic information. Actually, I was so inspired that I could write this musical work long before completing the course work.  

Part VI of this composition has a function of conclusion in essay writing, therefore, for those who are familiarised with academic writing skills it would be obvious though, nothing new to the composition is introduced in this Part, but it is consists of replays of themes or motifs already appeared in previous Parts. In the previous Part, our protagonist – Friedrich Nietzsche himself – loses his sanity. Therefore, this entire Part VI is assigned for Nietzsche’s reflection of his own past life, on his bed in Weimar being cared by his sister Elizabeth. Following the previous Part, which depicts his mental collapse, this Part starts with the protagonist’s calm self-reflection represented by the piano. Then, the Demon, represented by the ominous organ, comes back to remind him  of its knowledge over eternal recurrence. The Demon plays a role of curator to guide through the protagonist’s past memories in his own recollection, in which he remembers insulting words thrown at him from the society surrounded him. Now his Love Theme is accompanied with ridiculous marching drum – it turns out that what he thought Love was nothing but a laughable comedy. Then the composition returns to the main Theme, which signifies a new beginning of another round of the protagonist’s whole life.

Although the music ends with this reprise of the main theme, the protagonist’s life would never cease to repeat itself exactly in the same structure infinitely. If the contents one’s life were not worth to live it all through once again, that life set to the Demon’s revelation – eternal recurrence – could be described as nothing but a tragedy.