"And the music? I have utterly failed to describe that, also. It was as if some marvelous elixir had been turned into sound-waves — an elixir conferring the gift of superhuman life, and the high, magnificent dreams which are dreamt by the Immortals."

Clark Ashton Smith along with H.P. Lovecraft were the leading contributors to Weird Tales back in the 1920s and 1930s, the heyday of the pulp magazine, a time when the literary world past harsh judgement on authors writing in the genres of fantasy, horror or science fiction. Nowadays most critics and reviewers recognizes the mature work of these two authors are among the finest in American literature. The focus of my review will be on one such story, the title story from this Clark Ashton Smith collection, The City of the Singing Flame, a piece of deep philosophical significance.

A brief synopsis: Giles Angarth, himself an author of fantastic fiction, relates in his diary how he discovered two craters out in the Nevada desert wherein he could step between these craters and be propelled into another non-earthly dimension. This new incredible landscape leads to a city. We read:

“I was standing in the midst of a landscape which bore no degree or manner of resemblance to Crater Ridge. A long, gradual slope, covered with violet grass and studded at intervals with stones of monolithic size and shape, ran undulantly away beneath me to a broad plain with sinuous, open meadows and high, stately forests of an unknown vegetation whose predominant hues were purple and yellow. The plain seemed to end in a wall of impenetrable, golden-brownish mist, that rose with phantom pinnacles to dissolve on a sky of luminescent amber in which there was no sun.

In the foreground of this amazing scene, not more than two or three miles away, there loomed a city whose massive towers and mountainous ramparts of red stone were such as the Anakim of undiscovered worlds might build. Wall on beetling wall, spire on giant spire, it soared to confront the heavens, maintaining everywhere the severe and solemn lines of a rectilinear architecture. It seemed to overwhelm and crush down the beholder with its stern and crag-like imminence.”

Rather than saying anything further regarding the story’s many other details, I’ll turn to the alluring, mystical singing flame at the very center of both the city and the tale, a tall flame producing ecstatic sound that forcefully brings to mind the following:

Odysseus and the Sirens
In Homer’s famous epic, Odysseus had himself bound to the ship’s mast so he could hear the beautiful music of the Sirens and live to tell the tale. Giles Angarth likens the singing flame to Homer’s Sirens. But is this an accurate assessment? Is Giles judging the flame in a rather limited way, projecting his own cultural categories and prejudices? In other words, does surrendering one’s physical body to merge with the singing flame necessarily result in death? Perhaps another interpretation could be all those non-earthy creatures who leap or fly into the fame surrender personality and personhood in order to unite individual consciousness with the highest cosmic vibration, the most ecstatic, consciousness-expanding sound.

Nada Yoga
Within the world of yoga from India, there is what is known as nada yoga, the yoga of sound. Men and women following the path of yoga chant the sacred sound of OM and other seed syllables and mantras to raise their consciousness to the divine. Also, there is the path of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, where music is key – kirtan, the singing of the many names of the divine. (Personal note: in years past I played mridanga drum for kirtans).

An ancient Indian mandala depicting the vibrational form that mystical seers and yogis visualized during meditation while chanting the seed sound OM.


Ambient Music
Much in the same spirit as nada yoga, modern composers such as Steve Roach and Steve Reich have employed electronics to create music associated with meditation, harmony, peace and states of bliss. Link to a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf4mZ2chDXU

Heavenly Music
Within the tradition of Christianity, celestial music has historically been linked with heaven and life eternal as with the playing of musical instruments by angels as in Hans Memling’s gorgeous fifteenth century medieval painting.


Scriabin's Music and Light Show
Lastly, to my mind, no music captures the spirit of rapture, joy and ecstasy more than Russian composer Alexander Scriabin’s 1910 Prometheus: Poem of Fire, especially the concluding sustained chord, complete with light that is meant to flood the eye. Please take a look at this astonishing performance. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3B7uQ5K0IU

Link to Clark Ashton Smith's City of the Singing Flame: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/26/the-city-of-the-singing-flame


Clark Ashton Smith - (1893-1961) - Self-educated American author who lived most of his life by himself in the log cabin in Northern California built by his parents.