North Coast Synthesis Ltd.

Phantomia

I call this a phantomia to suggest that it's horror-themed and to avoid confusion with the Disney movie, but it is basically the form of musical piece called a fantasia. Fantasia form means no form; it is a freely-structured composition that shifts between different moods, keys, and tempi. This one is an attempt to tell parts of the story of the book Carmilla, in music. It's a long movement that cycles between four parts, starting successively in the keys of B, G, Eb, and back to B again, that cycle of three different notes being the notes of the Eb augmented chord which represents the character of Carmilla and is used as a musical pivot between sections.

The book Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, is available for download from Project Gutenberg. This summary is only a summary of what I tried to include in the music.

The first section picks up the story in Chapter 4 of the book: Laura's family has a lovely new houseguest, but she never gets up in the morning, waiting until well after noon to come out and have breakfast. As the rest of the household is starting their day, Carmilla has nothing to do but sleep. There are quotes in this section both from the hymn tune Bunessan ("Morning Has Broken"), which if sped up seems to reveal its origin as a slip jig, and from the slip jig in this suite's last movement.

In the second section (also from Chapter 4 of the book), Laura and Carmilla are out walking. Laura and Carmilla are OMG Best Friends! but Carmilla, the more worldly of the two, sometimes says things Laura doesn't understand, such as declaring fervently that "You will die for me!" Carmilla's affection is also surprisingly physical, more like that of a lover than a friend, and the extent of Laura's imagination regarding such things is to briefly wonder whether Carmilla might possibly be a boy - but to quickly dismiss that as obviously not the case.

They see a funeral procession go past. It is for a peasant girl in the nearby village, who has been killed by a mysterious illness that is ravaging the countryside and rumoured to be of supernatural origin. The mourners sing a hymn similar to Haydn's Austrian Hymn ("Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken") and to Laura it is beautiful, but Carmilla cannot stand it, and it causes her to have some kind of fit or panic attack. She tries unsuccessfully to explain to Laura that to her ear the hymn is unbearably dissonant - along with comments Laura doesn't understand on the meaninglessness of religion. (This episode, straight out of the book, was a source of compositional inspiration for me: Carmilla's sense of musical harmony is different from most people's; alien.)

Then they are back at the castle. A travelling mountebank arrives and sells both girls charms against the mystery illness. Then he offends Carmilla by suggesting she would be more beautiful if she let him file down her notably prominent canine teeth. Carmilla says that as punishment he should be flogged and branded, but no such thing is in fact done. Laura's father is worried as the mystery illness spreads and more peasant girls die.

The third section corresponds to Chapters 6 and 7 of the book. Laura begins to develop the same illness that killed the peasant girls. She loses her strength and experiences a feeling of sweet lassitude, with the enervating sensation of moving through icy water. She does not resist, quickly coming to accept her approaching death. Laura has strange dreams, and nocturnally feels something like two needles being stuck into her breast. One sequence of dreams is interrupted by a voice that says "YOUR MOTHER WARNS YOU TO BEWARE OF THE ASSASSIN." At that she wakes, or imagines that she wakes, and sees Carmilla standing at the foot of her bed. Covered in blood.

The fourth and final section of the movement is itself split into four repeated strains, like a march. It starts with the arrival of a family friend, the General. He insists on immediately proceeding to the ruined chapel of Karnstein with Laura, her father, and some servants. Carmilla is absent at this point. On the way and once they arrive at the chapel, in the next four chapters of the book, the General tells the story of how his niece recently died of the same illness plaguing the countryside - the same illness now killing Laura. And the story, particularly the involvement of a mysterious girl named Millarca who came to stay with them, echoes recent events in Laura's own household.

The General is convinced that Millarca was actually Mircalla, Countess of Karnstein, who died more than a century earlier and is now in an horrific state of undeath. (In an earlier chapter, not covered by the music, they found a portrait of this Countess. She looked exactly like Carmilla.) He hopes to find her tomb in the chapel and finally destroy her. They search the chapel and then suddenly Carmilla appears at the doorway. The General recognizes her as Millarca/Mircalla, and attacks her with an axe, but when she grips his wrist he loses all strength and drops the weapon. She makes her escape, unobserved by the servants waiting outside. Another vampire hunter called the Baron arrives. With his help, they are able to find the tomb of the Countess.

The next day, Laura stays home in protective custody while the vampire hunters go back to the chapel. They conduct the trial and execution of the vampire (Chapter 15 of the book). The end of the movement, and the final chapter of the book, are a sort of epilogue: Laura, writing the story years later as a mature woman, reflects on this peculiar episode in her youth, discusses some points of vampire folklore including the name-anagram thing, and says that she still remembers Carmilla, almost expecting to see her again.