# Lovecraft's Horror Symphony



## Guest




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## Weston

The Weird Tales and dark fantasy geek in me likes this. Got the Amazon site bookmarked and might download it tonight. Can't beat the price. Sure it's got that Hollywood or video game over the top drama, but sometimes you gotta wallow in that and embrace it.


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## Guest

Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know but _between_ them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.

Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where Man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.


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## Guest

...I saw Zann start as from the hint of a horrible shock. Unmistakably he was looking at the curtained window and listening shudderingly. Then I half fancied I heard a sound myself; though it was not a horrible sound, but rather an exquisitely low and infinitely distant musical note, suggesting a player in one of the neighbouring houses, or in some abode beyond the lofty wall over which I had never been able to look. Upon Zann the effect was terrible, for dropping his pencil suddenly he rose, seized his viol, and commenced to rend the night with the wildest playing I had ever heard from his bow save when listening at the barred door.
It would be useless to describe the playing of Erich Zann on that dreadful night. It was more horrible than anything I had ever overheard, because I could now see the expression of his face, and could realise that this time the motive was stark fear. He was trying to make a noise; to ward something off or drown something out-what, I could not imagine, awesome though I felt it must be. The playing grew fantastic, delirious, and hysterical, yet kept to the last the qualities of supreme genius which I knew this strange old man possessed. I recognised the air-it was a wild Hungarian dance popular in the theatres, and I reflected for a moment that this was the first time I had ever heard Zann play the work of another composer.
Louder and louder, wilder and wilder, mounted the shrieking and whining of that desperate viol. The player was dripping with an uncanny perspiration and twisted like a monkey, always looking frantically at the curtained window. In his frenzied strains I could almost see shadowy satyrs and Bacchanals dancing and whirling insanely through seething abysses of clouds and smoke and lightning. And then I thought I heard a shriller, steadier note that was not from the viol; a calm, deliberate, purposeful, mocking note from far away in the west...


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## Guest

Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival...a survival of a hugely remote period when...consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in the shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity...forms of which poetry and legend have caught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings or all sorts and kinds.--Algernon Blackwood.


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## Guest

A feeble scratching on the floor downstairs now sounded distinctly, and Ammi's grip tightened on a heavy stick he had picked up in the attic for some purpose. Slowly nerving himself, he finished his descent and walked boldly toward the kitchen. But he did not complete the walk, because what he sought was no longer there. It had come to meet him, and it was still alive after a fashion. Whether it had crawled or whether it had been dragged by any external force, Ammi could not say; but the death had been at it. Everything had happened in the last half-hour, but collapse, greying, and disintegration were already far advanced. There was a horrible brittleness, and dry fragments were scaling off. Ammi could not touch it, but looked horrifiedly into the distorted parody that had been a face. "What was it, Nahum-what was it?" he whispered, and the cleft, bulging lips were just able to crackle out a final answer.
"Nothin' . . . nothin' . . . the colour . . . it burns . . . cold an' wet . . . but it burns . . . it lived in the well . . . I seen it . . . a kind o' smoke . . . jest like the flowers last spring . . . the well shone at night . . . Thad an' Mernie an' Zenas . . . everything alive . . . suckin' the life out of everything . . . in that stone . . . it must a' come in that stone . . . pizened the whole place . . . dun't know what it wants . . . that round thing them men from the college dug outen the stone . . . they smashed it . . . it was that same colour . . . jest the same, like the flowers an' plants . . . must a' ben more of 'em . . . seeds . . . seeds . . . they growed . . . I seen it the fust time this week . . . must a' got strong on Zenas . . . he was a big boy, full o' life . . . it beats down your mind an' then gits ye . . . burns ye up . . . in the well water . . . you was right about that . . . evil water . . . Zenas never come back from the well . . . can't git away . . . draws ye . . . ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use . . . I seen it time an' agin senct Zenas was took . . . whar's Nabby, Ammi? . . . my head's no good . . . dun't know how long senct I fed her . . . it'll git her ef we ain't keerful . . . jest a colour . . . her face is gettin' to hev that colour sometimes towards night . . . an' it burns an' sucks . . . it come from some place whar things ain't as they is here . . . one o' them professors said so . . . he was right . . . look out, Ammi, it'll do suthin' more . . . sucks the life out. . . ."
But that was all. That which spoke could speak no more because it had completely caved in. Ammi laid a red checked tablecloth over what was left and reeled out the back door into the fields.


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## Antiquarian

As a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft's writing, I find all the posted music above somewhat wanting. The least cheesy I think, is the Cryochamber mix. The others remind me too much of Danny Elfman's compositions and consequently feel a bit too Hollywood for my taste. They do make interesting listening, however, and really show an affinity for the subject, just not way I perceive it. Lovecraft's fiction has been always about cosmic horror, and the inhuman nature of the cosmos. Humanity is an anomalous fleeting speck in the universe, and music that seems to be melodic strikes me as being too human. This is just my uneducated opinion. When I read Lovecraft, the soundscapes of Lustmord or Vidna Obmana come closer to what I feel is the true nature of Lovecraft's vision: The universe is a strange and alien place, and we make a grave error in thinking that our place in it is central, or of any importance.


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## Potiphera

Well what a journey of discovery that I quite like the cryochamber sound affects and find it really intriguing. Igoring the story with it, the sounds actually are quite soothing to me in a weird way. It's takes you into the deepest mysterious universe and all the noises are energies creating new worlds and life forms. Something like that anyway.


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## Guest

This goes very well with the Cryochamber piece.


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## clara s

Victor Redseal said:


> Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know but _between_ them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.
> 
> Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where Man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.


'The thing has gone for ever. It has been split up into what it was originally made of, 
and can never exist again. It was an impossibility in a normal world."

the one and only H.P. Lovecraft

the music interesting and it is listened pleasantly
it suits the writing


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