We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Imagine Dante​’​s death​-​mask lit up by the red glow of the lamp .​.​.

from HdB - album (2020) by HöFLICH

/

about

From the writings of Honoré de Balzac

lyrics

“Imagine Dante’s death-mask lit up by the red glow of the lamp and crowned with a forest of silver-white hair. The bitter, sorrowful expression of this magnificent face was enhanced by blindness, for the power of thought gave a new life to the dead eyes. It was as if a burning gleam emanated from them, the effect of a single relentless desire which was vigorously marked on a high brow, furrowed with wrinkles like stone-courses in an old wall. The old man puffed away [at his clarinet] at random, without paying any attention to the time or the tune; his fingers went up and down touching the old keys mechanically. He did not worry about playing wrong notes, but neither did the dancers nor my Italian’s two acolytes notice them; for I was sure that he was an Italian and in fact I was right. There was something great and masterful about this old Homer who kept within himself an Odyssey doomed to oblivion. It was a greatness so real that it triumphed even over his abject condition, a masterfulness so strong that it dominated his poverty. Not one of the violent passions which can lead a man to good as well as to evil, make him a criminal or a hero, was absent from the nobly formed, sallow Italian face. It was a face with overhanging, greying eyebrows that cast their shade over the deep sockets below; I trembled lest I should see the light of thought reappear in them, just as I would be afraid to see robbers armed with torches and daggers come to the mouth of a cave. There was a lion in that cage of flesh and blood, a lion whose fury had been spent in vain against its iron bars. The conflagration of despair had expired in its ashes, the lava had grown cold. But the furrows, the devastation, a little smoke bore witness to the violence of the eruption, to the ravages of the fire. These thoughts aroused by the man’s appearance were as burning in my soul as they were frozen on his face.”

credits

from HdB - album (2020), released January 8, 2020
Narration & concept by Peter Hoflich
Soundscapes & mixes produced by Cronkite Satellite

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

HöFLICH image

HöFLICH Singapore

Peter Hoflich is a musician living in Singapore. He has sung in the rock bands MegalomaniA, the Hideous Motör-Apes, Reckless Hearts, Von Doom and The Sinisters, as well as the folk unit the Es with Athena Desai and Jae Lee. He also performs his own acoustic songs from time to time, and is trying a few experimental things in the home studio. ... more

contact / help

Contact HöFLICH

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like HöFLICH, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featured guests are the golden-voiced Baby Rose and psyche soulsters Brainstory.
listen now