Peter Hammill - 18. The Haunted Palace video free download

From the opera, The Fall Of The House Of Usher. This is from the 1999 re-release, "The Fall Of The House Of Usher (Deconstructed & Rebuilt)". The original 1991 release, under Some Bizzare Records, contained drum parts. When Hammill regained rights to the opera, he removed the drum parts and added string parts, played by Stuart Gordon on violin.

Music by Peter Hammill

Libretto by Chris Judge Smith

The House - Peter Hammill

Roderick Usher - Peter Hammill

Madeline Usher - Lene Lovich

Montresor - Andy Bell

The Herbalist - Herbert Grönemeyer

Chorus - Sarah Jane Morris

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RODERICK: In the greenest of our valleys

by good angels tenanted

once a fair and stately palace -

radiant palace - reared its head.

In the monarch, thought's dominion

like a jewel it stood there.

Never seraph spread opinion

over fabric half so fair.

Wanderers in that happy valley

through two luminous windows saw

spirits moving musically

to a lute's well-tuned law,

round about a throne where sitting,

side by side with his fair queen,

in state his glory well befitting,

the ruler of the realm was seen.

RODERICK, MONTRESOR:

Wait!

Did you hear it?

What was it?

It's nothing.

What was that

distant sound?

I say, I heard nothing

RODERICK: All with pearl and ruby glowing

was the glorious palace door

through which came flowing, flowing,

flowing and sparkling evermore

a troop of echoes, whose sweet duty

night and day was but to sing

in voices of surpassing beauty

the wit and wisdom of their king.

RODERICK, MONTRESOR:

No!

There's something,

I heard it

quite clear,

a voice crying.

It's nothing, I say,

but the wind!

You heard the wind,

just heard Within the House!

the wild wind crying.

RODERICK: But evil things, in robes of sorrow

assailed the monarch's high estate;

let us mourn for never morrow

dawn upon him, desolate;

round about his home the glory

that had always blushed and bloomed

is but a dim-remembered story

of the olden time entombed.

RODERICK, MONTRESOR:

There!

Yes, you heard it!

There is someone else -

There's nothing something else

I say, down there!

You hear nothing!

There's no-one there.

It is the storm Are we

that you hear. alone here?

RODERICK: Travellers now within that valley

through red-litten windows see

vast forms that move fantastically

to a discordant melody

while like a rapid, ghastly river

through the ever open door

a hideous throng rush out forever

and laugh - but smile no more!

And laugh - but smile no more!

And laugh - but smile no more!

No! No! No!