rolhirst.co.uk

They called it The Dangerous Interval, Diabolus In Musica – The Devil In Music.

The tritone, a harmonic construction spanning three whole tones, also known as an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth. Responsible for a strange, discomforting effect on the listener, its dissonance has been used by composers from Beethoven to Black Sabbath to suggest the horrors of warfare, madness, death… hell. And every now and then, it has been used for more than mere effect.

It’s a Friday night, the lights are soft and warm. You have alcohol, good company, the atmosphere you pay so much to be part of – and for your entertainment tonight, your pianist, Clive Andrew Nixon…

Do you even notice me?

Venetian priest and composer Antonio Lucio Vivaldi used the tritone in one of the many musical settings he wrote for Gloria in Excelsis Deo, part of the Holy Roman Catholic Mass. In 1730, following a tragic incident at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, the Church threatened Vivaldi with excommunication unless he destroyed all known copies of this particular Gloria, and swore never to have it performed again. Although Vivaldi complied, he was thereafter known in many quarters as The Red Priest, a sobriquet which brought shame upon his entire family.

As always, you talk and laugh the night away. Stories of your week. Your life. That woman you banged in a grubby back alley somewhere in Solihull. How much you paid for that Audi, so much less than the list price. Ordering O’Neil to clear out his desk and vacate the premises before you called security to have him forcibly ejected. There would be no severance pay, you left him in no doubt about that. Of course, he was welcome to take it to a tribunal… just as you were welcome to tell his fiancée all about the Amsterdam trip, and share with her the photos. Haw haw haw, the look on his face. Haw haw haw.

It is said that Adolf Hitler’s favourite classical work was Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, the last of the four operas comprising The Ring of the Nibelung. Götterdämmerung is the German translation of the old Norse ‘Ragnarök’, the final battle of the gods which brings about the end of the world. The opera makes extensive use of the tritonus throughout. It was one of Wagner’s last major works.

Your hands up the waitress’ skirt, the stench of your cigars in defiance of law, the sweat on your pig-flesh foreheads. Your breying, your bragging, your bullshit. And all the while, I play on. For your entertainment.

Can you even hear me?

Read the complete story here.