In the spring of 2022, during my artist residence in Poschiavo, Switzerland I composed "The Spectral Waltzers 1.-3. for piano, organ or any other keyboard instrument”. Since there were witch trials in Poschiavo several hundred years ago, I called the ensemble version "The Witch Waltzers 1.-3". One of them was also performed under the title The Spectral Waltzer for ensemble (with accordion).
The word "spectral" refers to the possibilities of overtones of various keyboard instruments and also to different tunings. The tempered tuning of the grand piano, tuning & mechanism of Viennese piano action, world of organ tunings, cembalo, clavichord, harmonium, celesta or synthesizer, all this and many more options can be used. Reverberations & resonances of the instrument, the overtones that arise naturally by sounding the keyboard instruments of various types plays a big role in the final expression of the pieces.
The score is in a way open. From a compositional point of view, I also call these pieces “aleatoric waltzers”. In Waltzer no. 3 the player has to wildly change the tempo on every beat (“molto rubato”) while maintaining the fluidity and musical expression, to choose an octave position, permute the pitches in the figure or to choose the number of repetitions. It is supposed to do all this in real time as a part of musical expression. Despite the use of traditional notation and the exact form of notation, the scores of these three waltzers remain somewhat open, and the score, as a symbol structure, does not exactly reflect the sound 1:1.
I've worked with the waltz genre before. Two Mephistophelian waltzes appeared in the score of my composition "To the Xylophony of Obscene Over Consciousness in Agony" for a chamber ensemble from 2018.