Ghost stories

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Originally improvised, then written out. Recorded on a Weinbach grand.

0:07 Storm at night
2:02 March of the Ghosts
6:18 Night gondola
9:08 Armageddon

Ghost stories is a short suite of gothic character pieces, originally improvised.

Storm at night is a dark introduction, full of terror and driving rain.

In March of the Ghosts, the purposefully ambiguous harmonies reflect the fleeting, ever-shifting forms of the diaphanous ghost army as they march through the night.

Night gondola is in part a tribute to the ethereal harmonic sense present in late Liszt, as the deathly gondola traverses the half-lit waterways in the gloom of night.

Armageddon closes the set with a clangorous cataclysm.

Whilst still keeping a foothold within the tonal world of the romantic era, it's not particularly easy listening.

[ted]

I didn't find it hard to listen to and good for you taking the trouble to notate it. The overriding mood seems to be a lugubrious soup of Arthur Machen, M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood and Stephen King, spiced up with a few religious myths. I do not "believe" in the supernatural at all but I'm a big fan of Machen, Blackwood and James; not so much of King. Liszt seems to have developed an associative obsession with augmented chords in his old age. I've always used them a lot in improvisation but their metaphysical concomitance there is more racy of the soil and ecstatic than macabre. But then does a specific sound really possess invariant transmissible meaning ? I submit that the ineffable joy of music lies precisely in the totally chameleon nature of sound, with meaning arbitrarily imposed by the listening mind.

Anyway, well done, anything you play is always thought provoking.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks, glad you liked it!

The augmented chords and the tremolandi, especially in the third piece, are definitely a nod to Liszt's late gondola pieces, Nuages gris, etc. I find their harmonic ambiguity both useful and suggestive.