Swan Song of the Satanist

Because of its ability to evoke unaussprechlichen thoughts, feelings and memories, music is often an important element in horror entertainments.  It is a central focus in two stories written in the 1920s and the 1930s by two of the more famous pulp fiction authors.  H.P. Lovecraft published his beloved The Music of Erich Zann in the March issue of The National Amateur, in 1922.  This story was discussed in an earlier post, (see A Musical Nightmare ), and is generally well known to readers of Lovecraft.

Briefly, in Lovecraft’s The Music of Erich Zann, an impoverished student of metaphysics befriends a secretive old musician named Erich Zann.  The man is a very accomplished player of an instrument that resembles a cello.  He plays his instrument near an open window, overlooking the city.  There is an eerie sense that the old man that is actually playing a duo and not a solo, and there is a nightmarish end to his last performance.

Robert E. Howard’s Casonetto’s Last Song is probably less well known, but shares some similarities with The Music of Erich Zann.  One wonders if the earlier story was the inspiration for Howard’s work.  Casonetto’s Last Song was published posthumously in 1973 in Etchings and Odysseys #1, but must have been written sometime before 1936, the year that Howard died. 

Although Erich Zann played live for the narrator of Lovecraft’s story, the late—because recently executed—Casonetto appears in Howard’s tale only as a gramophone recording of his last vocal performance.  (Disc shaped records like the one depicted in the story came into vogue by the early 1920s.) And what a performance!  The deceased opera singer nearly accomplishes a unique form of revenge through the power of his song. 

The helpful chart below summarizes some of the similarities and differences between these interesting stories.

	The Music of Erich Zann	Casonetto’s Last Song
Instrument played	Viol	Male operatic voice
Musical Composition	Unknown	Invocation from the Black Mass
Career	Cheap orchestral gigs	Renowned opera singer; high priest of demonic cult
Type of performance	Live performance, including duo with a guest musician	High fidelity gramophone recording
Intent of musical composition	Ward off entity from another dimension	Accompaniment to sacrifice of human virgins when invoking Satan
Effect on audience	Cosmic fear	Psychic re-enactment of a black mass ending in ritual murder
“Where are they now?”	Erich Zann died of fright during his last performance, but kept on playing even while dead.	Casanetto was arrested and executed for human sacrifice.  He made an unsuccessful, posthumous attempt at revenge against his accuser.  He is in Hell now.