In addition to being a prolific critic and editor and an occasional fiction writer, S. T. Joshi has long been a classical musician-violinist, singer, composer, and conductor. Over the past several years he has composed more than a dozen songs for unaccompanied four-part choir, based on the poetry of H. P. Lovecraft and others.
Three sonnets from Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth-"Background," "Expectancy," and "Continuity" (dedicated to the memory of W. H. Pugmire)-provide the texts of three songs that evoke their author's awareness of humanity's place in the cosmos. Joshi also interprets Lovecraft's love of nature ("Sunset") and of cats ("Little Sam Perkins").
Clark Ashton Smith's "Ecstasy" and "Requiescat" are rendered in lush musical settings, as are George Sterling's "Ever of You," "My Swan Song," and the bleakly atheistic "To Science." Edgar Allan Poe's "To Helen" ("the glory that was Greece, / And the grandeur that was Rome"), Ernest Dowson's evocative "Non Sum Qualis Eram," and "Imprisoned" by the contemporary poet Mary Krawczak Wilson are also turned into moving songs.
Accompanying the scores of these pieces is a free download of computer-generated sound files, allowing readers to hear every note of the songs. A truly unique publication by Hippocampus Press!
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