"Fitzcarraldo” (Soundtrack)

Tracklisting :
1) Wehe Khorazin 05:32
2) Scene from „Ernani“ 05:51
3) Engel der Luft 02:35
4) RidiPagliacci – Caruso/Leoncavallo 03:09
5) O Paradiso – Caruso/Meyerbeer 03:35
6) Kind mit Geige (Traditional) 00:54
7) Im Garten der Gemeinschaft 02:23
8) Blasmusik (Traditional) 00:41
9) Tod und Verklärung (Excerpt) R. Strauss 02:52
10) Musik aus Burundi (Traditional) 01:49
11) Il Sogno – Manon/Verdi 02:36
12) Quartett – Rigoletto/Verdi 03:57
13) Oh Mimi, tu piu non torni – Caruso/Puccini 03:02
14) Als lebten die Engel auf Erden 02:04
15) A te o cara, amor talora _ I Puritani/Bellini 05:50

Gesamtzeit 47:27







"Coeur De Verre” Soundtrack

Tracklisting :
1) Engel der Gegenwart 08:18
2) Blätter aus dem Buch der Kühnheit 04:19
3) Das Lied von den hohen Bergen 04:12
4) Hüter der Schwelle 03:47
5) Der Ruf 04:42
6) Singet, denn der Gesang
vertreibt die Wölfe 04:15
7) Gemeinschaft 03:50

Bonustracks* (formerly unreleased)
8) Auf dem Weg - On the Way 04:42
(alternative Guitar Version)
9) Hand in Hand in Hand
(Agape Guitar Version) 05:44

Gesamtzeit 43:58







"Das Hohe Lied Des Salomons”

Tracklisting :
1) Steh auf, zieh mich Dir nach 04:44
2) Du schönste der Weiber 04:28
3) In den Nächten auf den Gassen 01:33
4) Du Sohn Davids I 02:59
5) In den Nächten auf den Gassen II 03:26
6) Der Winter ist vorbei 03:42
7) Ja, deine Liebe ist süßer als Wein 03:36
8) Du Sohn Davids II 03:47
9) Du tränke mich mit deinen Küssen 04:57

Bonustracks* (formerly unreleased)
10) In den Nächten auf den Gassen III 02:10
11) Schön bist Du vor Menschensöhnen 02.45
(alternative Session)
12) Mitten im Garten 04.50
(alternative Piano Version)

Gesamtzeit 43:13







"Letzte Tage, Letzte Nächte”

Tracklisting :
1)Der große Krieger 03:10
2) Oh wie nah ist der Weg hinab 04:34
3) Oh wie weit ist der Weg hinauf 04:33
4) In Deine Hände 03:01
5) Kyrie ^ 04:34
6) Haram Dei Raram Dei Haram Dei Ra 01:27
7) Dort ist der Weg 04:29
8) Letzte Tage-Letzte Nächte 04:20

Bonustracks* (formerly unreleased)
9) Wanderschaft- Wanderings 05:56
0) Gib hin (session version) 02.30
11) Haram Dei Ra 06:32
(alternative version)







"Die Nacht der Seele – Tantric Songs”

Tracklisting :
1) Mantram der Erdberührung I 02:13
2) Engel der Luft 02:38
3) Mit Händen, mit Füssen 02:42
4) “Wo bist Du, der Du 05:41
überwunden hast?“
5) Mantram der Erdberührung II 02:12
6) Im Reich der Schatten 02:10
7) Wanderer durch die Nacht 04:07
8) Mantram der Herzberührung I 01:48
9) Auf dem Weg 02:53
10) Mantram der Herzberührung II 01:40
11) In der Halle des Lernens 04:02

Bonustracks:
12) Mantram der Stirnberührung I 02:16
13) Zusammenkunft 00:47
14) Mantram der Stirnberührung II 02:03
15) Im Garten der Ruhe 10:19
( Piano session version)

Gesamtzeit 47:49

Read the last Interview with Florian Fricke :
Interview

For over 30 years Florian Fricke, mastermind and founder of German electronic rock act Popol Vuh, was one of Germany’s foremost and most innovative artists. He is considered a pioneer of the electronic genre, and his music had considerable impact on everything that became popular under the heading of ambient and trance music in the Nineties. Fricke left a substantial musical heritage of over 20 album releases. A total of 19 original albums and soundtracks are about to be re-released on SPV in lavish digi-packs, featuring original sleeve designs.

The icing on the cake are a number of previously unreleased bonus tracks and a comprehensive full-colour booklet with liner notes by renowned colleagues like Klaus Schulze, director Werner Herzog or music producer Gerd Augustin. These re-releases come in special series and collectors’ quality thanks to the elaborate design on the digi-pack spine. Never before have the complete works of Popol Vuh / Florian Fricke been presented as comprehensively or as appropriately.

In the early Seventies, Popol Vuh were initially ardent advocates of the legendary Moog III synthesizer, Florian Fricke enthusing in 1970: “The music that you create with a Moog covers the entire range of human emotion.”

Born in Lindau on Lake Constance, he began to play the piano at the age of seven. Having completed his courses at the Freiburg music college, where he studied piano, composition and conducting, Fricke worked as a film and music reviewer for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel and Neue Züricher Zeitung and as a maker of short films. This period was marked by his first encounter and friendship with director Werner Herzog, for whom he went on to compose several soundtracks and whose first feature film, ‘Signs of Life’, starred Fricke as a soldier playing Chopin.

At the age of 26, he founded Popol Vuh together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler in 1970. The band name refers to ancient Maya mythology and is a reminder of the story of incarnation.

Popol Vuh’s first LP, Affenstunde, came out on Liberty / United Artists Records, Germany’s most progressive record label of that time, which also had acts like Amon Düül II and CAN on its roster. Then Popol Vuh signed with the Ohr-Pilz label (distributed by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser) – suitably ‘cosmic’, their music was advertised as “pearl-like sounds full of inwardness”. Following their two seminal electronic albums, Affenstunde and In den Gärten Pharaos, the band, to everybody’s surprise, embarked on a new stylistic path. Fricke had already gone on to concentrate on the musical translation of religious lyrics on In den Gärten Pharaos. “I don’t want to use synthesizers as part of Christian religious music,” he announced in 1972. “But you can’t refer to it as church music, unless you consider your own body as a church and your ears as its door.”

Recorded with guitar, oboe, tambour and the Korean vocalist, Djong Yun, the albums Hosianna Mantra, voted “one of the most beautiful records ever” by an Italian music magazine, or Seligpreisung featured religious lyrics like the new Sermon of the Mount or excerpts from the Book of the Essenes. The band referred to their music as “lyric rock” or “cosmic space rock”, using lyrics by the Israelite king, Solomon, or drawing inspiration for more musical visions from the Kurds on the river Eurphates, or in the Himalayas. “This is music that reflects the artist’s deep faith,” commented an impressed New Musical Express, proving their understanding of Fricke’s cause. “I create totally conscious music with the intention of steering the listener towards new emotions, towards a living self,” he explained, eager “… to find a way to convey archaic wisdom in a fascinating manner.” This style earned Popol Vuh, who rarely played live, their cult status, a lot of devoted followers and a faithful fan community.

Director Werner Herzog, who had always been impressed by their music’s depth, commissioned Fricke and Popol Vuh in 1971 to compose the legendary soundtrack for his movie ‘Aguirre: The Wrath of God’, starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani. This collaboration was followed by four more soundtracks between 1976 and 1982 for movies like ‘Heart of Glass’, ‘Nosferatu’ and ‘Fitzcarraldo’ and several documentaries (‘The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner’, ’The Dark Glow of the Mountains’ and others). 1990 saw the last major collaboration with the director on ‘Cobra Verde’, starring Kinski in the male lead again. Arrangements from this soundtrack were featured in ‘My Best Fiend’, Herzog’s recent documentary on Kinski.

Fricke subsequently released his City Raga album, which reflects budding techno influences, at the time burgeoning in Germany, and a new production team consisting of Guido Hyronimus, Frank Fiedler and vocalist Maja from Yukatan. Florian Fricke recorded a Mozart CD in 1992, another document of his versatility. ‘Kailash’, his documentary about the holy ritual mountain in Tibet, featured a soundtrack that was to be the last regular Popol Vuh production, released as an album under the title of Shepherd Symphony.

Florian Fricke was not only cosmopolitan in musical terms, his extensive journeys took him to many different cultures. He was involved in film productions in the Sinai desert, travelled to Israel and the Lebanon. Fricke visited the Kurds on the Eurphrates and Tigris and made trips to Morocco, Afghanistan, Nepal and Tibet. The final years of his life were devoted to scenic audio-visual installations, as featured in Molfetta, Italy. Together with his friend, the cinematographer Frank Fiedler, he blended archetypal visual motifs from the ancient Greek Orpheus myth with light and sound into moving sonic roads that revealed a multi-dimensional sonic and visual experience. Fricke called his installations ‘Good Rooms’ – acoustically altered rooms that hold a new aural experience. “We hear so much that we don’t hear anything, we see so much that we don’t see anything,” Fricke said in an interview at the time. Parallel to his musical work, he devoted himself to music and sound therapy, which he taught at several institutes and felt very strongly about. Based on breathing therapy and the study of Tibetan singing, he developed his own form of sound therapy, which he called ‘Alphabet of the Body’. The initiator of many such innovative projects may have died in December 2001, but his ideas live on.

In the course of his musical career with Popol Vuh, Florian Fricke recorded a total of 23 LPs with different line-ups (14 of them with guitarist Daniel Fichelscher), which sold world-wide. On an international level, Popol Vuh are considered one of the most influential German “progressive rock” avant-garde acts of the Seventies. For the younger generation of musicians, like Brian Eno or, more recently, Aphex Twin, Alex Patersson (The Orb) or Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth), Popol Vuh with their Moog III synthsizer albums Affenstunde and In the Gärten Pharaos were considered influential, pioneering electronic musicians and forefathers of ambient and trance music. Popol Vuh went down in the annals of German film music history with their soundtracks for legendary cinema classics by director Werner Herzog. Fricke himself was reluctant to have his music categorized, certainly not under headings like ‘new age’ or ‘krautrock’. “Call it lyrics or magic music, if you will,” he conceded in the end.

Special editions of the following original albums will be re-released on SPV:

1970 AFFENSTUNDE
1971 IN DEN GÄRTEN PHARAOS
1972 HOSIANNA MANTRA
1973 SELIGPREISUNG
1974 EINSJÄGER & SIEBENJÄGER
1974 AGUIRRE - DER ZORN GOTTES (SOUNDTRACK)
1975 DAS HOHELIED SALOMOS
1976 LETZTE TAGE - LETZTE NÄCHTE
1976 HERZ AUS GLAS – COEUR DE VERRE (SOUNDTRACK)
1978 NOSFERATU (ORIG. SOUNDTRACK)
1978 BRÜDER DES SCHATTENS – SÖHNE DES LICHTS
1979 DIE NACHT DER SEELE – TANTRIC SONGS
1981 SEI STILL - WISSE ICH BIN
1982 AGAPE-AGAPE, LOVE-LOVE
1982 FITZCARRALDO (SOUNDTRACK)
1987 COBRA VERDE (SOUNDTRACK)
1991 FOR YOU AND ME
1991 FLORIAN FRICKE - SOLO
1997 SHEPHERD'S SYMPHONY – HIRTENSYMPHONIE



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