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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

Here's the FINAL final draft of this piece. (Let me know if this format is easier to digest than my normal MO of MP3 + PDF!)

Hi, this is a side piece that I've worked on whilst I work on the revision for the Alula Variations (I love doing reworks on a 30 mins piece's score hahaha....). I chose bassoon and flute because I kinda wanted to write a chamber piece and write for bassoon. I also like the vibe of the OST. So yeah, hope you enjoy!

Thank you very much Peter! I'm glad to hear you think I did a good job in this work, it didn't get much views on YouTube. Also yes, a friend of mine pointed out the wagnerian vibes in some moments. 🙂 You are right, thank you for reminding me. I will try to react more to the feedback comments I get. I would like to comment on other people's music too, but I am still struggling with mental illness and I can barely keep my DMs in place.

Also, the larghetto section at bar 817 is my favorite part of the whole 2 movement piece. I've relistened to it so many times, it's the perfect summation to the entire work to me.

haha! I expect you write a review in a dictionary's length haha! Thx buddy, I can never finish this without your inspiration, ideas and our numerous talks, and I can't thank you enough, but lemme leave this in the full acknowledgement section in the post for the whole Sextet. It's such a huge regard from you. Also, thx for all your effort for making the audio, I know how hard and tedious that is. Thank you for loving the piece. Thank you for kept saying that I can finish it when I kept saying I can't. Thx buddy 🙂

We've talked at length about this, and I've heard it more times than I can count lol. Well done buddy, this is a masterpiece to my ears.

Hi @UncleRed99! I love the opening mood, but I feel like the instruments can move in a less homorhythmic fashion, and the strings can move more, for example in slow tremolos or other accompaniments, instead on holding long notes.I love the mood change in 2:4 which gives a softer texture without the strings. I like the modulation to E minor as it makes the music sound more earthly. As you have noted yourself, I do think you don’t present the E minor section long enough. For me, you should stay longer in that key by moving it to E minor’s related keys, or even a small climax on E minor, before getting back to F# minor in the Poco Adagio section. Also, the returning to the adagio section can have some textural change there, most notably for me the long held notes of strings! I like the texture in the Larghetto section, and I think you finally let the strings sing there! For me where you want some winds back, at most they should only be accompaniment, not even countermelodies because they are already featured much in the music, while the strings lack it! Thx for sharing! Henry

Awesome work my friend. id love to see this fleshed out into a suite of some sort to touch on the dynamics question, the skill with delegating dynamics can be quite intimidating especially in pieces like this that demand expressiveness and have a very specific set of dynamic needs that may have to be followed strictly by an ensemble. typically what I do is I go to the voices of a given section that need to be heard over the rest of the group, or, need to stick out more than the rest of the group, and depending on the context of the section, I will never put their markings anywhere below mf. Every other voice, which would be low registers (bass, tuba, cont. bass., bass clar. Etc….) would be at a comfortable mp or p, and the 5ths and 3rds (maybe 7ths depending on your chord structure) would be at p or pp, as each degree of the chord is more than likely doubled, tripled, or quadrupled by other instruments and will naturally ring out loud enough to be heard, while also allowing the melodic line to stick out much further, as higher pitches are caught by the human ear much more clearly than lower or mid register pitches would be. however, I say all that without any contextual examples at this current moment. I’m typing this out on my phone during a little bit of my spare time so can’t get *too* in depth about it, but for a more simplistic answer, just start your playback, and allow your own expertise to tell you what instruments/tones/rhythms are the most important in each given section of the composition. For pieces of this mood, you’ll likely find yourself feeling the need to use decresc. And cresc. Markings very very frequently, and that’s okay! If a player were to read it, they’d be more than capable of performing with a ton of hairpins just fine. As a former trumpeter, I actually loved varied dynamics for more legato pieces, especially while I played as first trumpet, and there was a gorgeous, bold, ringing trumpet solo during a slow moving part of a piece where as the soloist, my part was written out to be in the spotlight. 😂 looooved those moments so much. Even had a piece that was for military remembrance that we played at my local all county clinic band concert. Suggested to the director that I felt that the piece almost NEEDED a trumpet solo in the beginning and boy oh boy, he loved that idea and so did the rest of the band. snare drum came in, playing a very simplistic but military-esc rudimentary line, then came to a halt, and in a silent auditorium, I played what almost sounded reminiscent of the “Taps” Bugle call, except it was just the main Melody of the piece heard throughout. I got a video of that somewhere… lol but there was hairpins from start to finish on that solo part we wrote out for me to play. Without any other instruments in that case, p < mf > pp on the soloist part can be heard all the way in the back of the room, with little effort. the players will know how to handle what you write. Dynamics aren’t a set dB level. They’re an “attitude” is what I like to say. Players will naturally adjust their dynamic volume according to the sound within the concert arch. In notation software they aren’t treated that way, but there are ways to manipulate the program to have playback do what you intend regardless of dynamic markings. Just gotta learn your program. EDIT: I found the recording! lol can’t add video media, so I just converted it to mp3. (Peep the little kid in the audience yelling “is that a trumpet?!” Right as soon as I got done playing 😂😂😂) also, not my best effort here, as we had been rehearsing 5 pieces of music non-stop over the course of 2 days, start to finish, just for that performance. Your boy was pretty pooped. ScreenRecording_03-21-2025 22-30-11_1.mp3

Hi @Ivan1791! I think this writing of yours, especially the 2nd Prelude is very Wagnerian. The 2nd Prelude's first phrase reminds of Wagner's first melodic phrase before the harmony comes in in the Prelude to Tristan & Isolde (at least to me). Your playing of the piano and orchestration are both very expressive and fit nicely into the neo-romantic tradition. They are in fact both very dark indeed, with some occasional parting of the clouds to let the sunlight shine through. Thanks for sharing! Also, I'm sure the reviewers of your music, as well as myself would really appreciate it if you gave them a ❤️ or a 🏆 for the reputation points that corroborate our community! I think it fosters a good and communicative little musical society that we have here. Thank you!

My experience with dynamics using Finale is that you have to be very fussy with markings to get a good performance. Musicians know how to work a passage intuitively. P, MP, F might often be more than enough indication.. But with notation, the computer does only EXACTLY what you tell it. Each dynamic makring is tied with a specific, unchanging volume level. I use ppp through ff to get a sound I like. I spend a LOT of time on this. The VST sound set has some impact as well. Baseline volume, and how volume is registered with the samples is also a factor. You would need to make a PERFORMANCE score for HUMANS if you wanted to workshop/ or get a piece performed.

Very moving and touching stuff. I like your process of orchestrating piano works of yours... has that helped reinvigorate your passion? Lovely music Not sure what you mean. Do you mean techniques for different dynamics? Having access to players might help you see your music from a different angle, as they'd probably know techniques that could be used if you described what you were looking for. Simply writing expressivo for a player with their given dynamics would go a long way too, but maybe just not for playback with synthetic sounds.

Hey Ivan @Ivan1791, This sounds so nice. I dare say it's even better than your original piano version of it. The orchestration absolutely enhance the espressive power of the original piece. The fragile flute+oboe combination and an einsam horn like Brahms or Mahler. Just hope the strings can join as well! I love this very much! One thing to note: in the original piano version it ends on a Picardy 3rd. This time is a sheer minor ending. I think it kind of reflects your present condition and I feel sad for both the piece and you. Nonetheless thx for sharing this wonderful orchestral miniature to us! Henry