This Mythos work
was kick-started in the magazine “The
Unspeakable Oath” and became a mainstay of the Delta Green canon. While it’s fine as far as it goes, the premise
of the document seemed to ignore the traditional manner in which such works
came into being. The following is my re-working of Brodighera’s musical
indiscretion that takes into account existing historical evidence and the
standard music-production process extant at the time. This is not meant to
replace the published material of Chaosium
or Pagan Publishing; in fact the essential mechanics are the same as that
canon information. However, if you want a deeper awareness of the process that
the publishing of such a document would have entailed, then I submit this
re-work for your delectation.
*****
The
circumstances surrounding this infamous production would seem to be fairly well
known; however, things aren’t as straightforward as they appear at first pass.
Undoubtedly, Brodighera’s contribution to the writing of this work cannot be
said to be completely innocent, but a closer look at the material would seem to
exonerate him somewhat, or at least open a window upon the possibly that he was
assisted, or perhaps coerced in his blasphemous misdeeds. The evidence lies in
the nature of the writing and composing of choral works of this type.
Despite the
fact that the composer tends to get sole credit for the construction of these
kinds of pieces, no choral work is normally the effort of one single person,
especially back in the 1700s. Unless the musical work was an adaptation of an
existing piece of literature, the process usually began with a libretto. This is a synopsis of the
story, accompanied by lyrics and stage directions, often including background
or historical information necessary to the plot and sometimes the notation for
various musical motifs which should recur throughout the piece. Libretti were often shopped around in
the Age of Reason to various court composers and other musical wunderkind (such as Mozart or Salieri)
and their purchase, or acceptance as joint commissions, formed the basis of the
livelihoods of the librettists. The
tradition has continued through until today with the collaborations of Gilbert
& Sullivan and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Obviously, Brodighera’s
composition work in the “Massa” is
extraordinary and strange, but did he work from an existing libretto, and was it (unusually for one
so young) his own? And, if it wasn’t, who was his librettist?
Benvenuto
Chieti-Brodighera (his last name is adopted, and is probably a combination of
both his parent’s birth towns) was born of working-class stock in Rome in 1746.
Showing incredible musical aptitude from an early age he was apprenticed to
various composers and musical instructors as a copyist, many of them attached
to the Vatican. He is known to have made minor contributions to various masses
and operatic works from an early age, most of these with a heavy ecclesiastical
tone. Records within the Vatican show that he was occasionally cautioned
against wilful pride for episodes of writing which were “too complicated” and
once for an outburst of “impiety” whilst in class. Once free to earn his own
living as a composer, he is known to have travelled to Paris and to Vienna,
where he contributed favourably with many other composers, copyists and librettists, before returning to Rome to
write his infamous mass.
Unusually for
the time, the Massa di Requiem per
Shuggay is a pure fantasy, and reads like an ‘imaginary voyage’ (a very
popular literary genre at this
juncture) set to music. It tells of the demise of the land of “Shuggay”, home
of a clan of people known as the “Shan”, and their efforts to flee to a new
homeland. The Shan worship an ancient deity called “Azathoth” but their prayers
for him to intercede against a malevolent creature called “Baoht Z’uqqa-Mogg” –
“the Bringer of Pestilence” – and its followers go unheard, forcing the Shan to
take to the skies in their wondrous flying craft. The story concludes with the
Shan realising that their faith in their deity had dwindled to an insufficient
degree, thus bringing upon them their own punishment: as they watch their
homeland burn in the distance, they offer new prayers to their god with hope
for a new age of co-existence with his will to guide them.
Musically, the
work is complex and convoluted, baroque in the best sense and as mathematically
precise as anything by Bach; however, the mathematical principles which the
piece addresses are hardly suitable for the format, let alone the instruments
available for its execution (notes in the original sheet music call for the
radical mis-tuning and modification of many key orchestral instruments).
Certain refrains repeat as motifs and form the basis of the music; however it
is unlikely that Brodighera – precocious as he undoubtedly was - would have
come up with this notation without some kind of assistance. Added to this,
there are no ‘imaginary voyages’ published before this period which bear any
resemblance to the story contained in the Massa.
All of this prompts the hypothesis that the young composer was working from a libretto of some kind and probably not
one of his own devising.
An examination
of working librettists of the time
reveals a likely candidate as a collaborator - one Louis de Cahusac. De Cahusac
was born in Montauban France in 1706 and died in Paris in 1759. During his
career, he worked as a librettist
mainly in collaboration with the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), a
composer of many strange Orientalist operas notable for their heavy Masonic
influences and non-Classical mythological settings. Their collaborations
include “Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de
l'Amour” (1748), “Zaïs” (1748), “Naïs” (1749), “Zoroastre” (1749, a reworked version of which emerged in 1756), “La naissance d'Osiris” (1754), and “Anacréon” (1754): this last opera was
the first of several by Rameau to bear this title. The presence of Egyptian,
Persian and Zoroastrian myth elements in this short list alone might suggest
the creation of such outlandish terms as ‘Azathoth’ and ‘Shan’ in the “Massa” libretto, but there’s more:
De Cahusac’s
last libretto was for an opera
entitled “Les Boréades” (probably
finished for Rameau around 1763); this story was set in the mythical land of
Hyperborea and involves the tensions surrounding a proposed marriage between
two noble and semi-mythological houses, which almost precipitates a clan war
until a solar deity intervenes to prevent bloodshed. Rameau did not begin work
on the opera until after de Cahusac’s death and the staging of the piece was
fraught with difficulties from the start. The music was finished and rehearsals
were set to proceed in 1763 at the Paris
Opéra, with funds provided by a private patronage based in Choisy. Early
on, however, disputes arose because of references to “subversive material”,
which managed to embroil several figures at the Royal French Court, causing
factional ructions resulting in a death by duel; the musicians staged a strike
because the musical notation was “too difficult”; and finally, the Paris Opéra unexpectedly burnt down.
Rameau was
never to see his work performed: a heavily-rewritten version of “Les Boréades” was performed in the French
township of Lille after his death. Rameau’s biographer J.J.M. Lacroix collected
all of Rameau’s writings posthumously, including both versions of “Les Boréades”, for later storage in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, along with all his associated documentation; but the original
libretto by de Cahusac was never
found.
Brodighera’s “Massa di Requiem per Shuggay” is
strikingly reminiscent of “Les Boréades”
in that it concerns an ancient culture disrupted by internal politics and
encroaching external forces which are resolved by the sudden emergence of a
fiery entity of worship. The difficulties in musical notation are a distinct
hallmark and the fact that – as ascertained from investigations by metaphysical
investigators – the last act of the performance is an encoded ritual which
summons Azathoth to this continuum, could at least go part of the way towards
explaining the previous fire at the Paris
Opéra.
It begins to look
likely that Brodighera may have encountered de Cahusac during his stay in Paris
around 1759; that he could have begun work on his own composition for the “Les Boréades” libretto, possibly with
de Cahusac’s encouragement, and completed the task, after de Cahusac’s death,
in 1768. The difficulties surrounding the original operatic version in France
began to be replicated once more in Rome, before Pope Clement XIII shut down
the first performance of the “Massa di
Requiem per Shuggay” prior to its finale; the work has been banned by the
Church ever since. In 1770, Brodighera was imprisoned on charges of heresy,
ironically while the first performance of Raneau’s “Les Boréades” was being performed in Lille; he was burnt at the
stake as a heretic in 1771.
(Source:
Scott D. Aniolowski, et.al., Unspeakable Oath #3: “Mysterious Manuscripts”)
Italian;
Benvenuto Chieti Brodighera; 1768; 1d3/1d6 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos
+4 percentiles; 2 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: None; however, completing a full
performance of the opera has the same result as casting the spell, Summon Azathoth
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