Dagon

Based on H. P. Lovecraft's immortal story of terror "Dagon," this Wind Quintet takes the listener into the mind of an insane man touched by one of the old gods. I apologize in advance that the file is only a MIDI, so the full effect of the piece will be left to your imagination. However, even the MIDI file gets the message across pretty well. This is program music, and the following program illustrates the different sections of the piece:

Introduction - A broken man recounts the days leading up to his insanity
The Ocean - A happy traveler sets sail in the Pacific, but gets lost at sea after many days
The Island - The traveler, weary from hunger, passes out and wakes up on an oppressive island void of all life and filled with a “hellish black mire” as far as the eyes can see
The Lake - After days of hopeless searching for food or water, the traveler finds a lake.
The Monster - The lake has a massive obelisk in front of it depicting a strange and gargantuan beast devouring whales whole. As the traveler examines the obelisk, a scaly hand of impossible size emerges from the lake, and the monster appears.
Conclusion - The broken man ends his story, hears a banging on the door, and believing it to be the old god he encountered, leaps from his apartment window to his inevitable demise.

End.

In addition to the program, I recommend reading the story here: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/d.asp

I would like to thank Dr. James Carlson for his indefatigable patience and assistance in guiding me through this piece and its many, many steps and revisions. As is customary with my musical works, this is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported by me, Peter Kennedy. I would also like to thank the developers of MuseScore for making a great product that lets you create a score from start to finish. Of course, I also thank my parents for their patience and support while I toiled on this seemingly endless project. Last, but not least, I would like to thank Lovecraft for creating the most comprehensive horror universe in all of fiction; may we all aspire in our endeavors to have half the creative force and full-bodied imagination of H. P. Lovecraft. Thank you all for listening, and please enjoy Dagon.