H. P. Lovecraft Suite, Op. 14 (2023)

Each movement in this piece is based on a different short story by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Unlike my earlier orchestral tone poem, At the Mountains of Madness, the movements of this piece do not closely follow the plot of the stories, but are only loosely inspired by them. However, major spoilers for the four stories can be found beginning in the third paragraph of this description.
This piece is an exercise in different ways of expressing tonality. As will be seen below, one of the movements is completely atonal, and only one of the four is in an unambiguous diatonic key. Although this piece adheres rather closely to the symphonic form, it was not originally conceived as such, and it is best thought of as a collection of mostly unrelated sections.
The first movement, The Colour Out of Space, is based on a story in which a strange being made of pure color comes to the earth in a meteorite, taking over a farm and killing five humans. Of the four movements, this one follows the plot of the original story most closely. The movement is in a loose sonata form; the first theme represents the farm and its inhabitants, and the faster second theme represents the alien color. Near the end of the movement, the color ascends back into space, and the tempo slows. At the end of this section, the farm theme is heard again, and instruments drop out one by one, representing the demise of the family. The quickly changing and often ambiguous key center of the movement evokes the utterly alien qualities of the titular creature.
Next, The Dreams in the Witch House takes the form of a quick scherzo. In the original tale, a college student experiences strange dreams which gradually grow in intensity. They begin to disrupt his waking life, and he finds evidence that the dreams are actually real, before falling deaf and violently dying at the end of the story. Two reoccuring themes represent a witch and her familiar, and are developed and punctuated by unrelated sections. Although this movement is clearly in B-flat minor, grotesque chromaticism and modulations as far away as A major contribute to an overall sense of unease.
The third movement bears the title Out of the Aeons: A man from over 150,000 years ago is still alive, his body turned to stone but his mind intact, and presumably quite insane. Although the original story tells of museum curators slowly uncovering the truth of the mummy, the music instead communicates the slow passing of thousands and thousands of years inside the mind of the prehistoric man. The piece opens with a sort of twelve-tone fugue, the row presented in different ways before being taken over by the harp. Two fully chromatic chords and clarinet multiphonics form the middle section of this movement, before ending with a "reverse fugue" in which the instruments drop out one by one. This movement makes use of the twelve-tone row technique of the Second Viennese School, and is the only one of the four to be completely atonal (or "pantonal" as Schoenberg preferred to call it).
The story Dagon is the very short tale of a sailor who is stranded on a deserted island, and finds himself face-to-face with the ancient and terrible fish-god Dagon. In the finale of this piece, the ostinato in the harp represents the narrator's slow marching over the barren island, getting closer and closer to the titular creature. The piece grows and grows toward the end, reminiscent of the slow movement of Atterberg's 5th symphony, or a distorted version of Respighi's I pini della Via Appia. Although the key signature of the movement is C minor, the actual scale used is C-D♭-E♭-F♯-G-A♭-B, reminiscent of Middle Eastern music.
0:00 The Colour Out of Space
5:02 The Dreams in the Witch House
7:54 Out of the Aeons
13:58 Dagon
Created with Dorico Pro 4 and NotePerformer 3
Woodwind fingering diagrams from fingering.bretpimentel.com/

[@christianschoell3403]

woah! nice!

[@bmjessep]

This video has an unprecedented number of views and likes for my channel, as well as a very high average view duration. I wonder why that might be? Thanks for watching everyone, and if you like this piece I can recommend you listen to my second string quartet next!

[@Acererak__]

I can't speak for others, but I've been taking a music appreciation class, and have been listening to classical and romantic works in hopes of using them in my tabletop games (One of which is Call of Cthulhu). Thus, I have been getting recommended music of this nature. Hope the input helps. :)

[@bmjessep]

@Lenny J Thanks for the reply! I'd suggest Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antartica, which I plan to use as my theme music if I can ever get my group to play Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

[@R0bstar-YT]

I am curious what you use for sounds for your compositions, is it what's built into the notation program or separately programmed via midi and rendered from samples?

[@bmjessep]

It's a sound add-on called NotePerformer. It uses AI for phrasing. I'd definitely recommend it although it doesn't always play back correctly right away, and sometimes you need to mess with the settings a bit.

[@R0bstar-YT]

@@bmjessep Ah ok thanks. Really enjoy your compositions!

[@charlesrobb7984]

Kinda based. Keep it up.