In the spring of 2022 I composed "The Spectral Waltzers 1.-3. for piano, organ or any other keyboard instrument” in the Swiss Alps. The word "spectral" refers to the possibilities of overtones and sonoristic qualities of sound in this case of a string quartet. I created this version for string quartet in 2024.
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 playert have to wildly change the tempo on every beat (“molto molto rubato”) while maintaining the fluidity and musical expression. Or to choose an octave position ad libitum. Or to permute the pitches in the figure or to choose the number of repetitions of the figure. It is supposed to do all this in real time as a part of musical expression. I also call these aleatoric micro-tempi manipulations in tutti poly-rubato. Despite the use of traditional notation and the exact form of notation, the scores of these three waltzers remain somewhat open, and thus the score, as a symbol structure, does not exactly reflect the sound 1:1. Which is hard to realize, especially for the conductors.
Since there were witch trials in Poschiavo several hundred years ago, I called the version for rochestra, which was premiered in New York in 2023, "The Witch Waltzers 1.-3". One of them was also performed by Klangforum Wien under the title of The Spectral Waltzer for ensemble (in slightly different orchestration with accordion) at Prague Spring 2023.
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.
The keyboard version was recorded in 2024 on an almost hour-long album called The Spectral Waltzers 1.-3. Each waltzer appears on this album in a version for grand piano, Janáček's piano and a broken piano performed by Miroslav Beinhauer.