Recompilation Attempt No. 17 Op. 23 in E-Flat Major
i didn't understand recomp 17 at all
I. Allegretto non troppo (You Must Sing)
You must have a motif.
Trace impressions.
If you do not designate yourself, if your entire movement is endraped in the sensation of ending, in the sense of funerary dragging on to no point but a rounded, palatably dismissible one, then you are naught but a trace impression.
This scherzo sounds as that. Perhaps the percussion, the battery, is missing. It employs the same rhythm; we are all shared traits.
A cosmic scherzo.
Of pizzicato: kiss it, gentleness and also power, conveyances toward accompaniment that cannot be conveyed via accompaniment of the string with the bow.
And take your bow; embody your acknowledgement; you are here, you are here, you are here-
-and the audience must not only be captive. The audience must also be captivated.
Do you see, Alvis?
But this is a song we're singing together. In counterpoint, a duet. Much too fancy, this antecedent, for me; I am your consequent, or are you mine?
It's not me talking. Instruments sound like their players, but the notes have been sung before. But do you see?
Parallel octaves, dominant fifths alike, are the most unstable, the most empty. Consonance thrives on subtle discontent, disconcertion.
It thrives, Alvis. It thrives.
You are alive, Alvis. From the bloom of one chord into another, whether surging major or minor
(the choir rises)
you have fashioned the inexplicable.
We are all sense, but we are not only senses. Not only sensations. See again.
It's not a lecture. No more than any performance is a lecture. We're simply trying our best, and hope to inspire- not the same. Not ever only the same.
You are not ever only the same.
Adoration, Alvis. Not that conferred from viewer to subject, unwillingly or unknowingly, or even those. That of the heart. Of the tangile observation, what it is to have the weight of memory and life.
(You have held, but you have not been held.)
Dripping in hands, silken shimmering spiderlike blood.
(You have been held, but you have not surrendered.)
Trick the Antols. Set them spinning. As Dunban would say: oh, what a tangled web we weave.
When first we practice.
Do you know the second bit?
Have you practiced it?
There's only the two of us here. We can't very well rehearse.
We have to see you.
(They have to see us.)
It is important. It is unavoidable, and it should not be attempted, avoidance.
Performance is part of the art. Reception, too. But...well, you must understand, by now?
We've been sharing this transfer of information long enough.
We're breathing in time. I'm watching you. You're watching me.
Your eyes tic, tick.
My heel thumps, tock.
Your instrument's never been played before. Booting you from the orchestra, this family of things, so we could hire on all the others who play instruments that've already been heard...
It's business sense, isn't it? And beyond that, those musicians are people, creatures. We can't even just slough all the violins first, necessarily. But I'll be the first fool, to make sure you're not just playing for free.
Some horn, like a Gabriel. Sounding, and sonorous. Bringing the sun up into the sky; casting into vibration all smallest microbeprocess that lingers, nocturn. I speak for poetry, and for soundedness. I speak because Shulk can say all this when he's not stumbling over his bony knees.
I speak because Alvis can. I speak because we all can, form and reform ourselves; face formation and reformation. Change is vital, the essential process of all existence. First exposition, then development. But first exposition. And always, for interest and health, spirit and flavour, always development.
That's life. That is life, made up in myriad constituent parts. The symphony's shaky, though, if the soloist starts it alone.
II. Andante grave (Penprommene)
Let me help.
While I think.
Let me...
Every permutation.
Gratitude is tears, when we're saying goodbye. It's the stretch and rend of a gap gaping open. A mouth, the better to consume human kindness, to imbibe human fire, to choke upon the enormity of what it is you have done.
What you have done, together.
Walk with me?
While I think.
Let me help.
Let us...
A strong chord. A surprise.
A jolt. We are walking.
We are thinking. Walking.
We are living. Thinking.
We are living. Walking.
We are walking. Living.
With you?
With anyone.
Certainly, you've permission to come with me.
I think.
Who gives...that permission...?
I think you do.
I think we do.
I think...
I think I am making a decision.
Are you? That's wonderful!
And I don't mean to be condescending.
It is...alright. I am grateful for confirmation.
Emotional security?
Now you are teasing.
But not condescending?
Never. Unless you did not understand. Which...
Impossible, right?
Mm. Very.
You make me sound so talented!
Aren't we supposed to be music?
I think we are.
Are what, Shulk?
Oh, well...both, I suppose. We're doing what we ought. What I mean to say is, this feels right.
Consonant?
And very strong. But not like that chord from earlier.
A shock?
Mm. Yeah. But I'm alright now.
We can't play together forever, you know.
Why not?
Because...all things end.
That's silly, Alvis! I don't mean living forever.
Are you quite sure?
Yes. Very.
III. Scherzo jubilante (Truth!)
Kino!
Nene!
Friends!
Yes, Nopon call everyone friend, but they don't do it for someone who isn't anyone.
And who are you?
Melia!
Tyrea!
Countrymen!
Yes, High Entia are the closest of your kinship, but that requires that you choose to be kinfolk first of all.
And what are you?
What have you chosen?
Are you more than your choices?
(You are! You are!)
Are you less than your effects?
(You are! You are!)
Less than your choices. More than your effects.
(Your affects? Your efforts?)
You must not be measured as flat-rate-sold treasure.
Inspect yourself. Respect yourself. It must go on - it CAN go on - until, at last, you die.
You have no wings. This simple fact.
But do you think twice, before you act?
The truth! The truth is...it's hard to tell the truth.
It's hard to face facts, no matter how simple, and you find it is human to embellish; to lie, and lay about, and do nothing, and it's fine if you do nothing, that's the truth. You don't have to be anything. You don't always ( always ) have to choose something. Not anything very large, anyway.
It is overjoyed.
An error?
A choice.
You won't always have such consequences, but you'll learn, I think, to work with less nuance; it's funny, isn't it? If you're a computer, you don't need nuance. If you're not, it becomes harder to discern.
The calculus of dynamics instructs that the volume measured from piano to forte continously over eons is...quite small, indeed. No matter, variation in upper or lower bound.
(Re)compilation time, then (time to death, time to life)? Quite short, indeed!
IV. Finale - Allegro appassionato (You Have To Sing)
Life! It belongs to us all.
It's not about people, though. It's about every person.
Quite a broad distinction. Do you see?
You have to sing! You have that gift, just as we do, and whether you fashioned it for yourself or somehow always just had it, it can be no less special.
You have only to sing; you do not need to be helpful, nor useful, nor restart the world any more times than it needs.
You see, of course, that you must remain in it. You have to sing.
Consider, would you: if Shulk were removed? You would think him just as crucial. You would cry, instead of sing, and you would be yet justified.
It is not just that you are purpose. It is not just that you are word. It is not just that you were one of three, and are not now, and never will be again-- Unless, of course, some convergence occurs.
But it is not your task. It is not your faith. You are here; you must sing. Not because the three were chorus. Not because the two were bickered. Because, perhaps, you are alone, of them.
Because new triads form, and you welcome them. Because a dyad is an unordered pair and you consider yourself and Shulk (if you are wise) to be...
Because a monad is axial. You have to sing. It is all you can do.
It's not so small, is it? It's a small metaphor for the largest thing possible. The cries of all creatures since the beginning and end of all time and times; is that small, to you?
Of course not. You, Alvis...nothing is small, to you. Except yourself, and then your measure, your censure, fell away.
You don't know your size, your stature.
If you sang, you could feel it. To your bones, reverberations.
That strange, silvery horn. Its odd, lilting call.
All sizes and none. All sounds and one.
You are not just the observation of wonder.
You have to sing! Life.
It belongs to us all. You belong to us all, and to yourself most of all.
And to Shulk?
.And to Shulk
And to Shulk?
!And to Shulk
As to Shulk, as to Alvis. As to Alvis, as to Shulk.
He is only a person. But he is wonder.
You are wonder. But you are only a person.
(Too, too reductive, by far.)
You, who have created creatures; life, this you know.
This you know! Know this, you.
Know that Tyrea's indignance is not only stale. Know that Melia's kindness is not only young.
Know that Nopon are wise; this you know, in many ways, shockingly so.
Know that there are steps to take which your calculations have not seen before. Know that once you have taken them, you are far too precious to go back and undo them again.
You have to sing! How powerful, that is
You Have To Sing!
These are not instructions. These are impulses coordinated in a place far beyond, a place to which you have not been and a place to which you will never go, for you are here, now, and the gift is yours as it has never been before.
There is a place for you. Not some gilded seat.
Please. Can you sing?