Twenty-seven days into my rekindled habit of delving, with dread and reverence, into the arcane works of the master of cosmic horror, H. P. Lovecraft, I find myself at last arriving at one of the most sublime and unsettling tales ever penned by that mad scribe of unfathomable terrors: “The Music of Erich Zann.”
What is it, I muse, that draws me with such fearful admiration to this particular tale and lifts it above the shadow-haunted corpus I have consumed thus far? It is a question I had not fully pondered until today’s reading, as the eldritch tones of Zann’s viol once again filled my soul with disquiet. Perhaps it is the setting, that strange and nameless street—Rue d’Auseil—with its claustrophobic, ancient buildings huddled together beneath a brooding, oppressive sky. Or maybe it is the squalid, forlorn chamber where Zann, a mute German of strange and haunted countenance, plies his ungodly trade. How curious that, no matter how fervently the narrator seeks, the cursed Rue d’Auseil can never again be found on any earthly map. Yet I know that neither the place nor the isolation of the reclusive Zann truly grips my imagination, what sinks its talons into my very mind.
No, the truth is far more insidious. It lies in the dreadful mystery of what unspeakable visions lurk beyond Zann’s accursed window, concealed behind heavy, shrouded drapery that quivers in the night as though straining to contain a hideous, otherworldly force. And it is the sound—the alien, maddening strains of Zann’s viol—emanating not from a mere instrument but some cosmic gateway to that which should not be known. What arcane melodies, what ghastly harmonies, did Zann conjure from beyond the veil of human understanding? My mind reels with the horror of it as I realize I am far from his modern Laundry Files series; Charles Stross invoked this same sinister motif—a testament to the enduring terror of Zann’s music, which resonates even in the most blasphemous of contemporary minds.
It would be useless to describe the playing of Erich Zann on that dreadful night. It was more horrible than anything I had ever overheard, because I could now see the expression of his face, and could realise that this time the motive was stark fear.
In “The Music of Erich Zann,” we follow the fateful descent of a nameless student of metaphysics, destitute and weary, who seeks shelter in the dilapidated Rue d’Auseil—a steep, cobbled street seemingly forgotten by both time and the sane world. Zann, a mute viol player of unnerving reclusion, dwells atop the highest floor of a decaying edifice among its meager and shadowy inhabitants. Night after night, the student hears the unearthly, nerve-shattering music emanating from the old man’s quarters—melodies that scrape the soul, beckoning the student with their unholy allure.
When the student finally gains entry to Zann’s inner sanctum, what he finds defies rational explanation. Frantic and wild-eyed, Zann plays with fevered intensity, as though his music alone holds back some invisible, malevolent presence from beyond the window. And then, in that final, unspeakable moment—the window shatters, the night outside devours the papers that might have explained the abominable truth, and through the gaping void, the student sees not the city below but a vast, black infinity—an abyss where no man’s gaze should ever fall.
The horror, once glimpsed, cannot be forgotten. And though the student fled that cursed room, that malignant street, he is haunted still by what he saw—or rather, by what he could never fully comprehend. For Rue d’Auseil, the truth of Zann’s music is lost to him forever. No map bears the street’s name, and no inquiry will bring it to light. It is as though the whole place—like the awful music itself—existed only on the threshold of reality, a whisper of madness on the brink of oblivion.
And thus, the mystery lingers, unresolved, lurking in the shadowy corners of the mind, as one asks: What horrors did Erich Zann see? What unspeakable melodies did he play to keep the darkness at bay? The answers are lost, perhaps mercifully so, in the eternal void beyond the window.