musicians of old

Chapter 871 Night Walk (Part 1): The River
Many details and textures in the music have changed compared to the elements originally composed by Fanning.

“Precious perfume drips from the hands of the night, and from the bunch of poppies, lifting the wings that bear the weight of the soul.”

"I was surprised to catch a glimpse of a dignified face. She leaned down at me with gentle reverence, revealing her motherly charm amidst her endless, tangled curls."

"Now I realize how poor and immature light is, and how joyful the departure of daylight is; it could not be called a blessing."

The low-pitched strings surged like an undercurrent, and the obscure "two short and one long" signal motifs repeated themselves. The slightly stubborn tenor horn calmly intervened, sounding the horn of nightfall.

Then came the violent roar of nature, the tangled and ear-piercing counterpoints, and some mysterious and terrifying specks of light flashed by.

In the latter part of the development section, the harp and strings create a soft, fairy-tale-like veil, as if everything is frozen in the air.

"The night will alienate your servants from you, so you will scatter shining stars in the vast expanse of space to proclaim your omnipotence and your return in the years you have been away."

"But those infinite eyes, more beautiful than the shining stars, are the eyes that the night opens within our hearts. They can see beyond the faintest stars, and without light, they can see into the depths of a loving heart."

Fanning, holding her guitar, walked forward quietly.

The morbid light of the "Midday Moon" still shone down, and there was only one person in the collapsing world, not just a figment of imagination, but a fact.

Compared to the previous "disheartened" calm, this calm has undergone a profound change.

It is the profound silence brought about by "reflection" and "search".

He was calmly understanding, or creating, the secrets of nocturnal travel.

"The pillars of the path are the Trinity, which means that the order of things is united, each has its own interpretation, each seeks its own witness, and each cherishes its own pursuit."

“The three are light, the three are night, the three are not counted.”

Fan Ning seemed to be smiling. He thought of the figures of some people who had already fallen into the long river of history, drifting endlessly downstream.

"Buzz—buzz-buzz-buzz—buzz-buzz-buzz—"

In the recapitulation section of the piece, the somber "two short and one long" string signal motif resounds once again.

The piece "Orchestra at Night" was originally written, and the recapitulation should naturally reappear the "night theme" from the opening tenor horn, which is an irrefutable rule in any composition.

But now Fanning has changed it.

Completely rewritten.

Almost entirely a product of another thought, the deep, hoarse sound of a large horn came from the desolate mountains and underground, a long, dotted opening phrase, ascending arpeggios, a more yearning stepwise scale, and a continuous longing.
It turned out to be the Symphony No. 6 in A minor.

It turns out to be some fragments of the characteristic features from the "utopian" secondary theme that once carried all idealism in the final movement of the Sixth Symphony.

It has received the most beautiful declarations and the most fervent desires, and it has also experienced the most profound shattering and the most inexplicable extinction.

That was a "tragedy," something that should never be revisited, but now it has reappeared in a possible Seventh Symphony.

Moreover, what picked up those fragile and sensitive fragments was the sound of a horn from a simple yet rugged bass brass tube.

The sound of the horn gradually blurred and distorted, merging into the dull background noise.

And so, the poison ingested in the spirit, the dark music concocted by their own hands, and the hammer blows of sin were reconciled with themselves at this moment.

Fanning smiled with relief, like the innermost soul of life, breathing in the magnificent world of its never-ending celestial bodies, and roaming in its dark blue tides, touching the gleaming, slumbering rocks, the contemplative, sucking plants, and the wild, frenzied creatures of all kinds. Every force presents infinite variations, and countless alliances form and dissolve, allowing their mythical image to shroud all the distorted things of the mortal world, revealing the terrifying wonders beneath the surface of the world.

Of course, the intense scenes in the latter part of the recapitulation section still arrive as expected.

But as the piece drew to a close, Fan Ning, whose thoughts were wandering, finally made up his mind and was ready. He took a deep breath and began to play his fingers, his movements both delicate and intense.

The colorful light and shadow burst forth from the strings of Illyrian's harp, causing the "instruments" that grew everywhere in the world to collectively erupt with a teeth-grinding hissing sound.

"Clang!!" "Boom!"

Beneath his feet, in the sky, in the distance, amidst the jagged ruins and vegetation, Fanning's actions tore apart the surface of the world, opening countless valves or creating countless gaps!

Layers of illusory rivers, chaotic objects and light and shadow, a cool and lost vortex, a dangerous and tangible sense of falling comes one after another, drifting and surging, like the broken stones and logs swept along by a mountain torrent, swirling along the vortex to a deeper and more ethereal depth! With the power of the Order Executor, Fanning has unveiled a corner of a tributary in the long river of history!
"boom!!"

The next moment, on the surface of the world behind us, the giant moon, which had been quietly casting green light, suddenly opened its dense wrinkles like compound eyes!

The terrifying feeling of being watched and the sticky, cold texture instantly spread across Fanning's back!

"Carol, what are you doing!?"

Even Joan's panicked voice echoed in Fanning's mind.

Joan's current state is extremely unusual and difficult to understand. She was originally unable to speak in the outside world. Whenever Fan Ning retracted the Southern Kingdom projection into the flower bouquet emblem on her wrist, she would lose consciousness until the next time the projection was planted, when the transition would be abrupt.

But now she was actually managing to make a sound in Fan Ning's mind, which could only mean that this change was so terrifying that it had threatened the little bit of subconsciousness that remained.

"The river of history!? It's not like before. It's completely changed. How dare you still come here? It's full of active people. Are you preparing for this?"

The thoughts Joan conveyed were difficult, disjointed, and like a dream, but the message of "advising her to stop" was still very strong.

Fan Ning completely ignored the anomaly behind him and went a step further, thoroughly probing his mind and cognition beneath the surface and into the flowing water.

The world suddenly shifted from an eerie clamor to another eerie silence.

"Indeed, it has come to this," he sighed softly.

This place is both beneath the surface of the world and the outer edge of the former migratory layer, which is the opposite direction from the direction of reaching the core: "wasteland → mountains → basin → tower"—the cliffs, waterfalls, and endlessly flowing waters beyond the wasteland.

All those who have glimpsed the will of the world can only seek the core; no one dares to venture into this place in the opposite direction, for it is a purely meaningless and forbidden void.

Moreover, the above only reflects past situations.

Now even the migration and the dream itself have collapsed, sticking together with the waking world into a rotten mass of connective tissue. Naturally, the outer edge of the migration and the historical river below it have also been completely altered.

The upstream and downstream, main stream and tributaries, left and right banks of the long river are no longer connected. Looking around, there are only countless stinking puddles and pools, each reflecting the folds of the green moon, and then connecting, twisting and folding with each other by twisted and tiny veins, like a whole dark and heavy ribbon that has formed itself into a ball.

Even history itself is broken, so how can we salvage the broken obsessions and people in the long river of time? This purpose, along with its very nature, is taboo and nihilistic, but Fan Ning will always remember the promises he made and the aspirations he expressed.

“I will continue to search for answers with your projections in my arms until one day I find you again in the long river of life.”

He strode forward, his trousers and knees still submerged by the rotten, floating matter in the "pool" before him.

“I felt a heavenly weariness in my heart. The pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre had been so far away, it had exhausted me, and the cross was too heavy for me to bear.”

“Glistening waves, inaudible to the ordinary senses, surged into the silent heart of the graveyard; the tides of the world rose at the foot of the tomb.”

The "Orchestra at Night" had stopped, and gradually, as Fanning moved forward, the colors of the music began to change subtly.

For a long time, Fanning was unable to make a clear statement.

Should his own composition, "Orchestra at Night," be used as a possible next Symphony No. 7 in E minor?
Should it exist as the first movement?
I should write something more.

Because there are no longer any audiences here, no longer any "commissioned creations" to fulfill, or any meaningful rituals required.

Does a work not written for a performance exist?
Even during the time when it was composing the Fourth Symphony, it still had the potential to transcend the mundane world.

But Fanning now realizes that the Seventh Symphony should exist, and precisely for her own search and meditation, and as an antidote to the sins that follow the fall of night.

A new chapter.

The bugle sounded alone.

A touch of melancholy gentleness, a hint of nostalgic tranquility, begins to seep in, bringing with it a more mysterious and dark woodwind melody, like a harbinger before the first star quietly emerges.

The poet Novalis sang hymns to commemorate the night, and now Fanning understands the same thing: what words and secrets about the night should he record in the second movement?

This movement could perhaps be called "Night Walk".