I re-read it this night. 
It is a short story about a musician whose music is utilised as a means to fend against a much more sinister source of music, which remains unseen behind the curtains of the sole window of the attic where he lives.
The story is a first person narrative, with Erich Zann being the main character the narrator is focusing upon, along with the object of the road where he and Zann were to be found in the past; the rue Ozeig.
While the story is not very descriptive, as most of Lovecraft's work, there is a logical amount of decriptions about the road, the decaying state of the building where the narrator has lived for a while, and the apartment of Zann, with some further descriptions of the staircases and the door to Zann's room, which are used so as to give a sense of space, which in a horror story ussually is used so that to convey the feeling of distancing from the object of horror.
The description of the characters is even more schematic, with the landlord being merely named as "paraplegic", and Zann described shortly as old, having the head of a satyr, a mute, and some details which are going against the general feeling of decadence, such as that he had blue eyes. However Lovecraft does not at all expand such descriptions into anything organic for the story, and my own impression is that they work against him since Zann ends up looking vague and artificial.
Of much greater decriptive power- although again with some errors in my view- is the built-up of the connection between Zann and his musical interests, and the nameless notes which from time to time are heard from behind the curtain in his room. Zann is able to perform two very distinct types of music. Being proficient in both, he reserves his more relaxed, virtuosic, methodical, calculated plays for the narrator in his first visit. Then, in the final visit, and also while the narrator is not in his room, he explodes into his more personal music, which is revealed in the end to be not amined at impressing, but in defending himself against the source of his inspiration, behind the curtain. Zann is incapable of any other movement, or perhaps even of any other thought, while he is sunk into his world of exchanging music with the darkness outside the window. In that he made me think of forgotten defensive mechanisms of childhood, against horrors which at the time seemed entirely threatening, but in the future were forgotten, much like the narrator is unable to remember clearly Zann's music whereas Zann was obviously experiencing it very clearly or rather was the embodiment of it.
There is one clear point of climax for the story, which takes place when the narrator decides, in the midst of Zann's chaotic playing, to get up from his chair and observe what he expects to be the lit-up city panorama, from the window, only to see a void where music echoes from what sounds like an infinity of gaps.
Overall the music of Erich Zann is in my view the best short-story by Lovecraft. In his view it was also his greatest work. However i was left with the feeling that the thematology of the artist who uses his art as a defense against a forgotten horror was not examined deeply in this story. However it is a good source for inspiration on such a matif, which i will probably try to use
-Your views on the short story? (you can even find an etext of it online; there are various sites with the complete works of HPL)
It is a short story about a musician whose music is utilised as a means to fend against a much more sinister source of music, which remains unseen behind the curtains of the sole window of the attic where he lives.
The story is a first person narrative, with Erich Zann being the main character the narrator is focusing upon, along with the object of the road where he and Zann were to be found in the past; the rue Ozeig.
While the story is not very descriptive, as most of Lovecraft's work, there is a logical amount of decriptions about the road, the decaying state of the building where the narrator has lived for a while, and the apartment of Zann, with some further descriptions of the staircases and the door to Zann's room, which are used so as to give a sense of space, which in a horror story ussually is used so that to convey the feeling of distancing from the object of horror.
The description of the characters is even more schematic, with the landlord being merely named as "paraplegic", and Zann described shortly as old, having the head of a satyr, a mute, and some details which are going against the general feeling of decadence, such as that he had blue eyes. However Lovecraft does not at all expand such descriptions into anything organic for the story, and my own impression is that they work against him since Zann ends up looking vague and artificial.
Of much greater decriptive power- although again with some errors in my view- is the built-up of the connection between Zann and his musical interests, and the nameless notes which from time to time are heard from behind the curtain in his room. Zann is able to perform two very distinct types of music. Being proficient in both, he reserves his more relaxed, virtuosic, methodical, calculated plays for the narrator in his first visit. Then, in the final visit, and also while the narrator is not in his room, he explodes into his more personal music, which is revealed in the end to be not amined at impressing, but in defending himself against the source of his inspiration, behind the curtain. Zann is incapable of any other movement, or perhaps even of any other thought, while he is sunk into his world of exchanging music with the darkness outside the window. In that he made me think of forgotten defensive mechanisms of childhood, against horrors which at the time seemed entirely threatening, but in the future were forgotten, much like the narrator is unable to remember clearly Zann's music whereas Zann was obviously experiencing it very clearly or rather was the embodiment of it.
There is one clear point of climax for the story, which takes place when the narrator decides, in the midst of Zann's chaotic playing, to get up from his chair and observe what he expects to be the lit-up city panorama, from the window, only to see a void where music echoes from what sounds like an infinity of gaps.
Overall the music of Erich Zann is in my view the best short-story by Lovecraft. In his view it was also his greatest work. However i was left with the feeling that the thematology of the artist who uses his art as a defense against a forgotten horror was not examined deeply in this story. However it is a good source for inspiration on such a matif, which i will probably try to use
-Your views on the short story? (you can even find an etext of it online; there are various sites with the complete works of HPL)
