Stannum invited the pianist to his apartment several times, but concert
engagements intervened, and when Herr Bech actually appeared his host
did not attempt to conceal his pleasure. He admired the playing of the
distinguished virtuoso, and said so privately and in print. Bech was a
rare specimen of that rapidly disappearing order--the artist who knows
all composers equally well. Not poetic, nor yet a pedantic classicist,
he played Bach and Brahms with intellectual clearness and romantic
fervor. All these things Stannum noted, and the heart of him grew elate
as Bech sat down to the big concert piano that stood in the middle of
his studio. It was a room of few lights and lofty, soft shadows; and the
air was as free from sound as a diving bell. Stannum leaned back on his
wicker couch smoking a cigar, while the pianist made broad preludes in
many keys....
The music, from misty weavings, tentative gropings in remote tonalities,
soon resolved itself into the fluid affirmations of Bach's Chromatic
Fantasia. Stannum noticed the burnished, argent surface of an
old-fashioned Egyptian mirror of solid tin hanging in front of him, and
saw in leaden shadows his features, dim and distorted. Being a man of
astrological lore he mused, and presently mumbled, "Tin is the sign of
Jupiter in alchemy and stands for the god of Juno and Thunders," and
immediately begged Bech's pardon for having interrupted him. The pianist
made no sign, having reached the fugue following the prelude. Stannum
again speculated, his head supported by his hands. He stared into the
tinny surface, and it seemed to take on new echoes of light and shade,
following the chromatic changes of the music.... Presently rose
many-colored smoke, as if exhaled from the enchantments of some oriental
mage, and Stannum's eyes strove to penetrate the vaporous thickness. He
plunged his gaze into its tinted steamy volutes, and struggled with it
until it parted and fell away from him like the sound of falling waters.
He could not see the source of the great roaring--the roaring of some
cosmical cataract. He pushed boldly through the dense thunder-world into
the shadow land, still knew that he lived. A few feet away was his
chamber wherein Bech played Bach. Faintly the air cleared, yet never
stopped the terrifying hum that attracted his attention. And now Stannum
stood on the Cliff of the World, saw and heard the travailing and
groaning of light and sound in the epochal and reverberating Void. A
pedal bass, a diapasonic tone, that came from the bowels of the
firmament struck fear to his heart; the tone was of such magnitude as
might be overheard by the gods. No mortal ear could have held it without
cracking and dying. This gigantic flood, this overwhelming and
cataclysmic roar, filled every pore of Stannum's body. It blew him as a
blade of grass is blown in a boreal blast; yet he sensed the pitch.
Unorganized nature, the unrestrained cry of the rocks and their buried
secrets; crushed aspirations, and the hidden worlds of plant, mineral,
animal, and human, became vocal. It was the voice of the monstrous
abortions of nature, the groan of the incomplete, experimental types,
born for a day and shattered forever. All God's mud made moan for
recognition; and Stannum was sorrowful....
Light, its vibrations screeching into thin and acid flame-music,
transposed his soul. He saw the battle of the molecules, the
partitioning asunder of the elements; saw sound falling far behind its
lighter-winged, fleeter-footed brother; saw the inequality of this race,
"swifter than the weaver's shuttle," and felt that he was present at the
very beginnings of Time and Space. Like unto some majestic comet that in
passing had blazed out "Be not light; be sound!" the fire-god mounted to
the blue basin of Heaven and left time behind, but not space; for in
space sound abides not and cycles may be cancelled in a tone. Thus sound
was born, and of it rhythm, the planets portioning it; and from rhythm
came music, primordial, mad, yet music, and Stannum heard it as a single
tone that never ceased, a tone that jarred the sun with mighty
concussions, ruled the moon, and made rise etheric waves upon the rim of
the interstellar milky way. Then quired the morning stars, and at their
concordance Stannum was affrighted....
His ear was become a monstrous labyrinth, a cortical lute of three
thousand strings, and upon it impacted the early music at the dawn of
things. In the planetary slime he heard the screaming struggles of fishy
beasts; in the tanglewood of hot, aspiring forests were muffled roarings
of gigantic mastodons, of tapirs that humped at the sky, beetles big as
camels, and crocodiles with wings. Wicked creatures snarled crepitantly,
and their crackling noises were echoed by lizard and dragon, ululating
snouted birds and hissing leagues of snaky lengths. Stannum fled from
these disturbing dreams seeking safety in the mountains. The tone
pursued him, but he felt that it had a less bestial quality. Casting his
eyes upon the vague plateau below he witnessed two-legged creatures
pursuing game with stone hatchets; while in the tropical-colored
tree-tops nudging apes eyed the contest with malicious regard. The cry
of the pursuers had a suggestive sound; occasionally as one fell the
shriek that reached Stannum plucked at his heart, for it was a cry of
human distress. He went down the mountain, but lost his way, his only
clue in the obscurity of the woods being the tone....
And now he heard a strange noise, a noise of harsh stones bruised
together and punctuated with shouts and sobbings. There was rhythmic
rise and fall in the savage music, and soon he came upon a sudden secret
glade of burial. Male and female slowly postured before a fire, scraping
flints as they solemnly circled their dead one. Stannum, fascinated at
this revelation of primeval music, watched until the tone penetrated his
being and haled him to it, as is haled the ship to the whirlpool. It was
night. The strong fair sky of the south was sown with dartings of silver
and starry dust. He walked under the great wind-bowl with its few
balancing clouds and listened to the whirrings of the infinite. A
dreamer ever, he knew that he was near the core of existence; and while
light was more vibratile than sound, sound touched Earth, embraced it
and was content with its eld and homely face. Light, a mischievous Loge:
Sound, the All-Mother Erda. He walked on. His way seemed clearer....
Reaching a mighty and fabulous plain, half buried in sand he came upon a
great Sphinx, looming in the starlight. He watched her face and knew
that the tone enveloped him no longer. Why it had ceased set him to
wondering not unmixed with fear. The dawn filtered over the head of the
Sphinx, and there were stirrings in the sky. From afar a fluttering of
thin tones sounded; as the sun shone rosy on the vast stone the tone
came back like a clear-colored wind from the sea. And in the
music-filled air he fell down and worshipped the Sphinx; for music is a
window that looks upon eternity....
Then followed a strange musical rout of the nations. Stannum saw defile
before him Silence, "eldest of all things"; Brahma's consort Saraswati
fingered her Vina; and following, Siva and his hideous mate Devi, who is
sometimes called Durga; and the brazen heavens turned to a typhoon that
showered appalling evils upon mankind. All the gods of Egypt and
Assyria, dog-faced, moon-breasted and menacing, passed, playing upon
dreams, making choric music black and fuliginous. The sacred Ibis
stalked to the silvery steps of the Houris; the Graces held hands.
Phoebus Apollo appeared; his face was as a silver shield, so shining
was it. He improvised upon a many-stringed lyre made of tortoise shell,
and his music was shimmering and symphonious. Hermes and his Syrinx
wooed the shy Euterpe; the maidens went in woven paces: a medley of
masques flamed by; and the great god Pan breathed into his pipes.
Stannum saw Bacchus pursued by the ravening Mænads; saw Lamia and her
ophidian flute; and sorrowfully sped Orpheus searching for his Eurydice.
Neptune blew his wreathéd horn, the Tritons gambolled in the waves,
Cybele clanged her cymbals; and with his music Amphion summoned rocks to
Thebes. Jephtha's daughter danced to her death before the Ark of the
Covenant, praising the Lord God of Israel. Behind her leered unabashed
the rhythmic Herodias; while were heard the praiseful songs of Deborah
and Barak, as Cæcilia smote her keys. Miriam with her timbrel sang songs
of triumph. Abyssinian girls swayed alluringly before the Persian Satrap
in his purple litter; the air was filled with the crisp tinklings of
tiny bells at wrist and anklet as the Kabaros drummed; and hard by, in
the brake, brown nymphs, their little breasts pointing to the zenith,
moved in languorous rhythms, droning hoarse sacrificial chaunts. The
colossus Memnon hymned; priests of Baal screamed as they lacerated
themselves with knives; Druid priestesses crooned sybillic incantations.
And over this pageant of woman and music the proud sun of old Egypt
scattered splendid burning rays....
From distant strands and hillsides came the noise of strange and unholy
instruments with sweet-sounding and clashing names. Nofres from the
Nile, Ravanastrons of Ceylon, Javanese gongs, Pavilions from China,
Tambourahs, Sackbuts, Shawms, Psalteríes, Dulcimers, Salpinxes, Keras,
Timbrels, Sistras, Crotalas, double flutes, twenty-two stringed harps,
Kerrenas, the Indian flute called Yo and the quaint Yamato-Koto. Then
followed the Biwa, the Gekkin and its cousin the Genkwan; the Ku, named
after the hideous god; the Shunga and its cluttering strings; the
Samasien, the Kokyu, the Yamato Fuye--which breathed moon-eyed
melodies--the Hichi-Riki and the Shaku-Hachi. The Sho was mouthed by
slant-haired yellow boys; while the sharp roll of drums covered with
goat-skins never ceased. From this bedlam there occasionally emerged a
splinter of tune, like a plank thrown up by the sea. Stannum could
discern no melody, though he grasped its beginnings; double flutes gave
him the modes, Dorian, Phrygian, Æolian, Lydian and Ionian; after Sappho
and her Mixolydian mode, he longed for a modern accord....
The choir went whirling by with Citharas, Rebecs, Citoles, Domras,
Goules, Serpents, Crwths, Pentachords, Rebabs, Pantalons, Conches,
Flageolets made of Pelicon bones, Tam-Tams, Carillons, Xylophones,
Crescents of beating bells, Mandoras, Whistling Vases of Clay,
Zampognas, Zithers, Bugles, Octochords, Naccaras or Turkish castanets
and Quinternas. He heard blare the two hundred thousand curved trumpets
which Solomon had made for his temple, and the forty thousand which
accompanied the Psalms of David. Jubal played his Magrepha; Pythagoras
came with his Monochord; Plato listened to the music of the spheres; the
priests of Joshua blew seven times upon their Shofars or Rams-Horns. And
the walls of Jericho fell.
To this came a challenging blast from the terrible horn of Roland--he of
Roncesvalles. The air had the resonance of hell, as the Guatemalan
Indians worshipped their black Christ upon the plaza; and naked Istar,
Daughter of Sin, stood shivering before the Seventh Gate. Then a great
silence fell upon Stannum. He saw a green star drop over Judea, and
thought music itself slain. The pilgrims with their Jews-harps dispersed
into sorrowful groups; blackness usurped the sonorous sun: there was no
music upon all the earth and this tonal eclipse lasted long. Stannum
heard in his magic mirror the submerged music of Dufay, Ockeghem,
Josquin Deprès and Orlando di Lasso, Goudimel and Luther; the cathedral
tones of Palestrina; the frozen sweetness of Arezzo, Frescobaldi,
Monteverde, Carissimi, Tartini, Corelli, Scarlatti, Jomelli, Pergolas,
Lulli, Rameau, Couperin, Buxtehude, Sweelinck, Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell,
Bach: with their Lutes, Monochords, Virginals, Harpsichords,
Clavicytheriums, Clavichords, Cembalos, Spinets, Theorbos, Organs and
Pianofortes and accompanying them was an army, vast and formidable, of
all the immemorial virtuosi, singers, castrati, the night moths and
midgets of music. Like wraiths they waved desperate ineffectual hands
and made sad mimickings of their dead and dusty triumphs.... Stannum
again heard the Bach Chromatic Fantasia which seemed old yet very new.
In its weaving sonant patterns were the detonations of the primeval
world he had left; and something strangely disquieting and feminine. But
the man in Bach predominates, subtle, magnetic and nervous as he is.
A mincing, courtly old woman bows low. It is Haydn, and there is
sprightly malice in his music. The glorious periwigged giant of Halle
conducts a chorus of millions; Handel's hailstones rattle upon the pate
of the Sphinx. "A man!" cries Stannum, as the heavens storm out their
cadenced hallelujahs. The divine youth approaches. His mien is excellent
and his voice of rare sweetness. His band discourses ravishing music.
The tone is there, feminized and graceful; troupes of stage players in
paint and furbelows give startling pictures of rakes and fantastics. An
orchestra mimes as Mozart disappears....
Behold, the great one approaches and the earth trembles at his
tread--Beethoven, the sublime, the conqueror, the demi-god! All that has
gone before, all that is to be, is globed in his symphonies, is divined
by the seer: a man, the first since Handel. And the eagles triumphantly
jostle the scarred face of the Sphinx.... Then appear Von Weber and
Meyerbeer, player folk; Schubert, a pan-pipe through which the wind
discourses exquisite melodies; Gluck, whose lyre is stringed Greek
fashion, but bedecked with Paris gauds and ribbons; Mendelssohn, a
charming girlish echo, Hebraic of profile; Schumann and Chopin, romantic
wrestlers with muted dreams, strugglers against ineffable madness and
stricken sore at the end; Berlioz, a primitive Roc, half monster, half
human, a Minotaur who dragged to his Crete all the music of the masters;
and then comes the Turk of the keyboard, Franz Liszt, with cymbalom,
[vc]zardas and crazy Kalamaïkas. But now Stannum notices a shriller
accent, the accent of a sun that has lost its sex and is stricken with
soft moon-sickness. A Hybrid appears, followed by a vast cohort of
players. The orchestra begins playing, and straightway the Sphinx
smiles....
Stannum saw what man had never seen before--the tone-color of each
instrument. Some malign enchanter had seduced and diverted from its
natural uses the noble instrumental army. He saw strings of rainbow
hues, red trumpets, blue flutes, green oboes, garnet clarinets, golden
yellow horns, dark-brown bassoons, scarlet trombones, carmilion
ophecleides while the drums punctured space with ebon holes. That the
triangle had always been silver he never questioned; but this new
chromatic blaze, this new tinting of tones--what did it portend? Was it
a symbol of the further degradation and effeminization of music? Was art
a woman's sigh? A new, selfish goddess was about to be placed upon high
and worshipped--soon the rustling of silk would betray her sex. Released
from the wise bonds imposed upon her by Mother Church, music is a novel
parasite of the emotions, a modern Circe whose feet "take hold on hell,"
whose wand transforms men into listening swine. Gigantic as antediluvian
ferns, as evil-smelling and as dangerous, music in the hands of this
magician is dowered with ambiguous attitudes, with anonymous gestures,
is color become sound, sensuality in the mask of Beauty. This Klingsor
tears down, evirates, effeminates and disintegrates. He is the great
denier of all things natural, and his revengeful, theatric music is in
the guise of a woman. The art nears its end; its spiritual suicide is at
hand. Stannum lifted his gaze. Surely he recognized that little
dominating figure directing the orchestra. Was it the tragic-comedian
Richard Wagner? Were those his ardent, mocking eyes fading in the mist?
A fat cowled monk marches stealthily after Wagner. He shades his eyes
from the fierce rays of the noonday sun; more grateful to him are
moon-rays and the reflected light of lonely pools. He is the
Arch-Hypocrite of Tone who speaks in divers tongues. It is Johannes
Brahms, and he wears the mask of a musical masker.... Then swirled near
a band of gypsies and moors, with guitars, tambourines, mandolins and
castanets, led by Bizet; Africa seemed familiar land. Gounod and his
simpering "Faust" went on tiptoe; a horde of Calmucks and Cossacks
stampeded them, Tschaïkowsky and Rimski-Korsakoff at their head. These
yelled and played upon resounding Svirelis, Balalaïkas, and Kobzas
dancing the Ziganka all the while; and as a still more horrible uproar
fell upon Stannum's ears, he was aware of a change in the face of the
Sphinx: streaked with gray, it seemed to be crumbling. As the clatter
increased Stannum diverted his regard from the great stone and beheld an
orgiastic mob of men and women howling and playing upon instruments of
fulgurating colors and vile shapes. Their skins were of white, their
hair yellow, and their eyes of victorious blue. "Nietzsche's Great Blond
Barbarians, the Apes of Wagner!" exclaimed Stannum, and he felt the
earth falling away from him. The naked music, pulsatile and drowsy,
turned hysterical as Zarathustra-Strauss waved on his Übermensch with an
iron hammer and in frenzied, philosophic motions. Music was become
vertiginous; a mad vortex, wherein whirled mad atoms, madly embracing.
Dancing, the dissonant corybantes of the Dionysian evangel flitted by,
scarce touching earth in their efforts to outvie the Bacchantes. With
peals of thunderous and ironical laughter the Sphinx sank into the
murmuring sand, yawning, "Music is Woman." ...
And then the tone grew higher and ultra-violet; the air darkened with
vapors; the shrillness was so exceeding that it modulated into Hertzian
waves and merged into light; this vibratile, argent light pierced
Stannum's eyes. He found himself staring into the Egyptian mirror while
about him beat the torrential harmonies of Richard Strauss.... Herr Bech
had just finished his playing, and, as he struck the last chord of
"Death and Transfiguration," acidly remarked:
"Tin must be a great hypnotizer, lieber Stannum!"
"In alchemy, my dear Bech, tin is the sign of Jove, and Jove, you know,
hath power to evoke apocalyptic visions!"
"Both you and your Jove are fakirs!" The pianist then went away in a
rage because Stannum had slept while he played.