musicians of old

Chapter 898 Nighttime Ramblings (Part Two): Wagner Lister

So this means
If the perceived length of time in the virtual world does indeed differ greatly from the actual flow of time, and music provides a more reliable reference point...
That means only six or seven minutes of "Night Travelogue" had passed.

But in such a short period of time, the brightness of the pale boundary "background" increased significantly?

Knowing that he had escaped the "scherzo" of the previous day, he immediately set off into the virtual world as soon as night fell.

It was only early evening, and only a short while later, that the brightness increased so significantly?
So this means?
"In short, the duration of each lunar night varies greatly and also differs from place to place, but overall, it is slowly decreasing, and the distribution pattern is gradually becoming 'decentralized.' We speculate that this is because the world has not been in chaos for very long, and the light of the 'Noon Moon' has not yet penetrated completely."

Lasus had issued such a warning during a meeting in the “central control zone”.

"Finally, I must remind you that a generation that is stuck in the 'noon' should not have the night. Please climb the tower as soon as possible."

This is what Mr. F left in his letter.

By combining several facts, it can be inferred that Fanning's assessment and premonition of the external situation became increasingly ominous!
"No one wants me to not climb the tower. Mr. F's motive shouldn't be 'to stop' me, but rather, to make me undergo some 'changes that conform to the expectations of the Descent of the Gods'?"

Or should we retreat now and quickly climb the tower?
Pogrerich had actually been urging Fanning to climb the tower earlier and had been using the Special Patrol Hall to warn him about the "danger of daylight." He also did not want Fanning, the "organizer," to change in an unknown way in the direction the other party expected.

He should provide some kind of support, such as setting up a control field of "Jin" near the sky below the source of the Honkai.

After repeatedly speculating on the motives behind the conflict between the two sides at the top of the tower, Fanning did indeed begin to consider retiring.

He was unsure whether the night was long or short, a little short or extremely short, and even less certain whether the "daylight" that followed would be the same kind of daylight he had known before!
He couldn't help but look up at the abyss above, at the cliff he had fallen from.

Back?
The current altitude is not very deep.

This is not the time to hesitate; if you're going back, you must return immediately!

But
The careers of these artists, these "stars" in the long river of history.
Today, pilgrimages have only entered the era of Impressionism.

The opportunity to travel to the Void Realm may very well be a once-in-a-lifetime chance in one's destiny.

"Alas, idealists are truly the nemesis of flaws."

Fan Ning stared at this ocean of sound graveyards, feeling the absolute, frozen silence that even the process itself was frozen, and suddenly gave a self-deprecating laugh.

His figure disappeared below the sea surface.

Continue onward, into the deeper void!
The moment you enter, it feels as if you've broken through an invisible membrane and are then enveloped by an extremely viscous, almost solid medium.

Fanning felt as if she were sinking into a huge, transparent piece of amber, composed of countless silent musical notes compressed together.

The descent became extremely slow, but to ensure it was "controllable," every tiny movement required a tremendous amount of divine power. The light of the "Night Watchman's Lamp" was compressed to its limit, and the dark jade halo could only adhere to the surface of his body. Beyond that, it was as if it had been absorbed and assimilated, unable to extend even a fraction of its light.

And so, Fan Ning, like a spore emitting a faint glow, sank alone into the boundless, all-absorbing silent womb.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he heard a "negative sound".

This is an inappropriate neologism conjured up in consciousness. The sound is long dead. What we hear now is probably a "negative" of a deficient sound, not only without any sound, but possibly even canceling out the normal sound and "returning to zero". Fanning can recall and imagine the "shape" of a famous motif in a symphony, but its interior is absolutely empty and silent. He can "touch" the brilliant high point reached by a coloratura soprano in an opera, but it is left with only an abstract pitch outline stripped of all vibration and emotion.

Yes, at least Fanning can still recall and think of it.

After bidding farewell to the ambiguity and haze of the swamp of light and shadow, he could imagine those endless melodies, harmonies so complex they reached their limits, and the chromatic crawling that poured forth in the polyphonic parts. This belonged to the late Romanticism, that unstoppable torrent of emotions on the verge of self-disintegration.

Fanning once longed for this era in the original timeline, and in other timelines, she left behind a passion and kiss marks that lasted until death.

Light began to appear in the darkness.

The light has no source; its pure colors and forms, as if severed from all causal connections, float in the darkness in pieces, strands, and clumps. All these oversaturated crimsons, revelatory purples and azures, are beautiful, yet lifeless. The light churns in the field of vision, projecting the torrents of the past and the echoes of the present.

Fanning could vaguely see the towering theater, unfinished, magnificent yet desolate, like a giant stone temple.

An obese, anxious old ghost wearing a signature soft hat is frantically conducting in front of the empty orchestra pit and audience seats, muttering incantations as he brings forth a magnificent and heavy torrent of orchestral music.

Richard Wagner, "The Crescent Moon" or "The Torchbearer," is one of the most controversial figures in the history of German opera and even world music. The eternal struggle between artistic ideals and reality leaves a lingering echo even in the virtual world. The extremely demanding performance conditions of "Der Ring des Nibelungen," the theater's financial difficulties, and the huge controversy and misunderstandings that arose after the work's release kept him in a state of anxiety of "not being fully understood." He regretted that the supreme purity of "total art" could never be perfectly realized in the mortal world.

"Thank you for Tristan and Isolde."

Instead of trying to imitate those massive orchestral torrents, Fanning did something more fundamental—capturing and extracting the core “leading motifs” from Wagner’s works and stripping them away from that complex texture.

Thus, in this desolate temple, the cold gleam of the "Ring" motif from *The Ring of the Nibelungs*, the torment and longing of the "Erotic" motif from *Tristan und Isolde*, and the solemnity and compassion of the "Cheese" motif from *Parsifal* resonated.
Fanning then quietly played the most tender pastoral passage from Siegfried on the Illyrian—originally a private gift from Wagner to his wife—the melody, imitating the woodwind timbre, occasionally intertwined with the parts of "Red Star Over the Night," without creating any sense of disharmony.

The obese old man listened intently, his anxious expression softening into a complex and rare gentleness, yet he continued to mutter to himself: "My theater should be a sanctuary for cleansing the soul, but why can't it ever escape the clamor of money and the controversy of ignorance?"

“The temple has already been built,” Fanning replied calmly. “It’s not in Bayreuth, but deep within every soul touched by your music.”

Wagner's figure disappeared.

It transformed into an ever-expanding dark golden nebula, filled with complex and entangled "dominant motives," before crashing into the "Night Watchman's Lamp."

"boom--!"

Although Fanning's clothes were immersed in the "deep sea," they fluttered in the wind of divinity and echo.

Through the surrounding "black and transparent" deathly liquid, he frowned again and looked at the "boundary" in the background. The thing there seemed to have melted its segmented body and turned into a viscous, thought-like filth that seeped in!

We must act as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, after collecting Wagner's "starlight," this desolate area was further stirred, and the search for and guidance of other contemporary light using the "Unending Secret" became smoother.

A silvery-white shooting star with countless decorative trails.

Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer.

It should have had the most brilliant and dazzling trajectory, but now it seems confused and troubled, oscillating between the peak of skillful display and the abyss of introspection, drawing a contradictory arc.

Even as Fanning approached, the meteor's light split, projecting two overlapping phantoms: one was the "King of the Piano," who had conquered all European salons and whose fingers stirred up storms on the keys; the other was an elderly priest in black robes, seeking salvation in the solitude of a monastery. They looked at each other, their gazes filled with unfamiliarity and scrutiny.

Fanning played the "Blessing of the Lonely God" from "Harmony of Poetry and Religion," as well as the third "Consolation Song."

A calm that sees through the ways of the world, a faint sense of relief and sorrow.

It was as if, under a dark sky filled with swirling snow, someone was praying alone in a brightly lit church.

“I conquered the world with my own hands, but I could not quell my restless soul.” Lister’s self-deprecating words echoed in Fanning’s mind.

"Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

Fanning's tone, however, carried a hint of comforting pity.

"You belong to a spiritual ministry, and peace and tranquility will surely be yours."

“And even in earlier years, you only showed us the frontiers that spirituality could reach in the most intense way.”