musicians of old

Chapter 878 Night Walk (Part 1): Ode
"In a generation stagnant at 'noon,' toil and pleasure, possession and abandonment, regret and fulfillment, contemplation, quest, survival, marriage, the realization of value, and moral judgment are all neither life nor death. One must both dissect existence and escape from it."

Fanning walked quietly ahead.

The dried-up lakebed resembles both a once-flooded wasteland and the boundless void below the "X-coordinate" cliff.

He used to call himself the last gravedigger of the Romantic era, and the world thought so too.

But Fanning felt that she had never understood Romanticism from such a perspective before, and had never written a "nighttime journey" chapter that would never be staged in this way.

The adjective "romantic" here becomes a mysterious way of thinking that marks the combination of the external world and the inner world, the finite and the infinite, the temporary and the eternal.

Through this, Fanning dissects all her past feelings, all her sighs, all her doubts, instinctively and sleepwalkingly immersing herself in all the darkness and sin in the Sixth Symphony that she once did not want to face, immersing herself in a contrapuntal harmony, a shimmering metaphor, and a transcendental rhetoric.

He stubbornly romanticizes this unrecognizable world.

People followed him at night.

These shadows are probably not real; they are merely confirmations and projections of the collected "starlight."

Along the way, there are occasional "refuges" along the rugged cliffs of the lake shore.

Houses, wooden sheds, pillars, a dilapidated stage.

Intermittent, off-key notes drifted out from inside, yet the music persisted.

Perhaps it was when the abnormal zone was flooded with slurry and blotting, that some of the Turner Cinema ruins were preserved by chance.

The survivors huddled in their seats, listening to the out-of-tune music, maintaining what they thought was the last line of defense for their minds. The surrounding walls were covered with an extremely complex, constantly self-adjusting musical score. The notes were made of a material similar to dried blood scabs, and these "scores" were clearly slowly eroding the material itself.

These people don't know if they are still alive, or on the verge of decay, or already decayed. It doesn't matter anymore. Unknown fear has long since gnawed at their hearts, and only their daily "professional habits" are maintaining their last remaining survival posture.

Fanning, standing on the lakebed below, gazes out gently and waves.

These distorted remains of people and objects weathered and collapsed instantly.

A few more stars slowly rose up.

The decaying things of the world rise towards the moonlit night, only to be called back by travelers. All that is made sacred by the touch of love will be reconciled and melted, flowing in a hidden form to the banks of the river of history, where it will travel with the shadows that are sleeping.

Fanning walked quietly ahead, as if planning a pilgrimage.

There is a difference in elevation between the lakebed and the shore, and the shore is winding and rugged. This is what I saw.

The texture of the lakebed itself is similar, with drops and variations between higher cliffs and lower riverbeds. This is what is visible.

Fanning looked down at the road, noticing the even more chaotic scene at his feet: magnificent pillars, broken domes, scattered statues, and the remains of door hinges.

At that time, and later, the new batch of higher-standard Turner Cinemas were all built in this style. Some of them did particularly well in the cause of arts rescue and received quite high honors in the "Cinema Rating System".

Amidst the chaotic debris, there were some children's dolls—just crooked "human figures" pieced together from scraps of wood and cloth—they were seated with empty faces, and scattered among them were some small wooden horses and tin drums with peeling paint and distorted shapes.

The guitar plucks a simple, looping pattern, leading to an innocent melody from the woodwinds, reminiscent of folk dance music, like a children's song played in a circle.

Suddenly, the faded dolls on the lakebed all turned around and faced Fanning.

A few extremely faint, almost invisible strands of colored starlight rose.

The crackling sound, like an old radio with an unstable frequency, mingled with the simple and innocent dance steps of the second movement.

"Therefore, this augmented sixth chord is like a traveler who is humble on the outside but full of tension and drive on the inside."

"It urgently seeks a solution, leading to a dominant chord, like a traveler longing to return home."

As an honorary professor at the University of Saint Lennia, Fan Ning was in high spirits and had a clear voice. Below the stage, countless blurry heads stared at him.

A wildly popular open course on "Introduction to Harmony".

As Fan Ning explained, he turned around and wrote on the blackboard, the corners of his mouth occasionally curving into a slight smile because of a brilliant metaphor.

But at one point when he turned back, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of something pale that seemed to quickly shrink back behind a broken pillar not far from the classroom!
That inexplicable sense of unease vanished in an instant, like a slippery tail fin disappearing underwater.

"The dissonances in its intervals are not meant to create chaos, but to pave the way for a more perfect resolution, for ultimate harmony and enlightenment."

Fan Ning's eyes flickered slightly on the stage, but she continued her meaningful discussion and summary.

The mirror structure of the second movement has returned to the initial opening section. When the slower "step-by-step march" reappears, the orchestra plays augmented sixth chords, but does not introduce the dominant function as Fanning explained.

"Ring~" Ring~

It evokes a clear, ethereal bell sound.

The sound of cowbells, which was once featured in several "fantasy passages" in the Sixth Symphony.

"In the past, when traveling or hiking, there was a process of gradually moving away from the hustle and bustle of the towns behind or below."

Its signature timbre emanates from a very distant position, creating a sense of spatial and emotional alienation.

Like the wind, the waves, or a phantom and sorrowful song.

The last sound of the world, the cow bells—what a unique, sincere, and ingenious arrangement.

In fact, she had told herself this long ago, and they had told her this long ago as well.

It predates the generations of those who traveled to the Himachal Pradesh mountains.

"I will never forget a night a few years ago when I was enjoying the cool air outside a house in the countryside of Misin, and the dull mooing of a cow deeply wounded me with that pain from the darkest part of my soul."

That was what that cheerful and lovable student told Fanning when she was still struggling with the "Mankind Tells Me" movement of her Symphony No. 3 in Minor.

Introspection on boundless suffering.

About a long and deep longing.

"If there were a sip of wine, that chilled drink aged underground for many years, it would evoke images of a fiery land, of Flora, love songs, sunshine, and dance."

"If there were a cup of southern warmth, filled with a bright red fountain of inspiration, with pearly bubbles shimmering on the rim, it would stain my lips purple."

"I will drink it all in one gulp and then quietly leave this world, to disappear with you into the dark forest."

Fanning softly recited another poem about the night, as if chanting a mysterious song that draws the soul.

John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale".