Smoke and Mirrors

HK Gruber Frankenstein!! Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor

(from memory)

With Marcus Farnsworth (chansonnier) and Nicholas Collon (conductor)

Sunday 16 September 2018, 4pm Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

The Orchestral Theatre: The Claus Moser Series at Southbank Centre

Mary woke to four sharp knocks on the door. She lay absolutely still, her heart fierce and quick in her chest. The knocks came again, louder still. Mary heard the key turn in the lock. She reached to light the candle by her bed but no sooner had the flame sprung to life than the door swung open, releasing a great gust of cold air that blew the light to nothing. And with it, two towering figures swept into the room.

1816 was the year without a summer. The world was locked in shadow, the rain unending, the cold as fierce as a wolf.

Poems spoke of the darkness. Music sang of loss and fear and pale-faced corpses returned to life.

As the mist hung like a ghost over Lake Geneva, five travellers found themselves shut up in a house. Lord Byron, John Polidori, Claire Clairmont, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley.

In this house was a book. The book held stories of wicked phantoms and rattling chains and creatures of the night whose long, cold fingers would grip the throats of sleeping men.

The travellers cackled over these tales. They read them to one another in the flicker of candlelight, laughing and smoking as the book’s strange stories wound about them like trails of smoke. And after ten nights of reading, Lord Byron proposed they play a game: each must write a tale of their own.

The men finished their stories quickly. They hatched tales of sleeping counts, sealed coffins and blood supped warm from pale necks. The men read their stories to one another in ringing voices until the floor shook.

But Mary could not find her story and she burned with the want of one. Nights passed and her nerves grew tight. As the party breakfasted each morning, she would sit white-lipped, fingers tapping on the table, eyes ablaze. The men laughed at her fervour and her quiet. They said ‘Mary, dear Mary, let it come to you in a dream.’

That night, after the others had gone to their rooms, Mary laid out her tools.

She placed a bottle of ink, a small oval looking glass and a piece of smoking charcoal on a silver tray. She pricked the tip of her ring finger with a needle and let four drops of blood fall lightly onto the looking glass.

Mary murmured under her breath, letting the smoke from the charcoal curl across the looking glass to conjure skies and creatures and promises and passions. She spoke the curses. And as the clock on the mantelshelf chimed midnight, she felt the sour weight of the household, its force and roar, dissolve about her. She felt the current of her wits, her fancy, her skill, her fury begin to spark. Her hands crackled with a white heat.

Mary slept deeply until the knocks came. She felt the thrill rise in her chest as the knocks sounded again and the door opened. As her candle faltered, she threw the match down, letting her eyes settle into the darkness as the two figures took their places at the foot of her bed.

The first was of many forms. Its limbs were lumpen and bruised, every joint held together with crude stitching. The creature mumbled and twitched, holding its arms out towards Mary. She spoke to it softly and the creature’s hands clumsily withdrew, its head bowed.

The second figure was a tall man, holding aloft a handwritten score. His hair was wild and black and he wore a furious expression. Mary surveyed him slowly then clapped her hands four times, at which he startled and placed the score at her feet. She picked up the manuscript and slowly turned its pages, occasionally looking up to meet the man’s stern gaze.

Then with the smallest of gestures, Mary directed the two figures to the corner of the room where they stood side by side, their eyes cast down to the floor.

And she rose from the bed, walked slowly to her writing desk and picked up her pen.