White Gold (Album)
| White gold | ||||
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| Studio album by star combo Meißen | ||||
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Publication |
1978 |
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| Label (s) | Amiga | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
8 + 1 |
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running time |
around 38 min |
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| occupation |
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Volkmar Andrä |
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Weißes Gold (spelling in part: Weisses Gold ) is a concept album released in 1978 by the band Stern-Combo Meißen . It is about the invention of porcelain by Johann Friedrich Böttger in Dresden . The music can be assigned to art rock .
occupation
The compositions come from the band members Thomas Kurzhals , Reinhard Fißler and Lothar Kramer as well as from Peter Werneburg. The gold maker is the adaptation of a song by Johann Kuhnau . Most of the arrangements were made by Thomas Kurzhals, the string and wind arrangements by Wolfgang Müller. The text is based on a version by Kurt Demmler , but was rewritten by Norbert Jäger. The producer was Volkmar Andrä.
At the time of recording in 1978, the star combo Meißen consisted of Martin Schreier (band leader), Thomas Kurzhals (keyboard), Norbert Jäger (percussion, choral singing), Reinhard Fißler (vocals), Lothar Kramer (keyboard, choral singing), Werther Lohse (drums , Vocals) and Bernd Fiedler ( bass ). In addition, the symphony orchestra of the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin played under Horst Förster; the choir of the guard regiment "Feliks Dzerżyński" Berlin sang . Ernst Kahler acted as spokesman.
history
The Stern-Combo Meißen published their first successful Amiga album Stern-Combo Meißen with art rock pieces in 1977 . The Central Council of the FDJ then commissioned Stern-Combo Meißen to create a large-scale work. The band leader Martin Schreier had the idea to set Johann Friedrich Böttger's fate to music and wrote a provisional English text. The professional lyricist Kurt Demmler wrote a German text on this basis, which the band sang in a production for radio in the GDR . In September 1977 the play was “ready for the stage”. The premiere took place in November 1977 in East Berlin's Kino International . However, the band later disliked the text, so Norbert Jäger wrote his own text version. Thematically it did not differ from the Demmler version, but in the opinion of the band it was easier to understand.
As a result, there was a civil lawsuit between Demmler and the band in September 1978 . It was the first copyright litigation of this magnitude in GDR history. Demmler was represented by lawyer Friedrich Karl Kaul . The process ended with a settlement : Demmler from then on received half of the royalties ; the lyricists of Weißes Gold were listed on the cover as "Norbert Jäger based on motifs by Kurt Demmler".
According to initial plans, the renowned Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra should accompany the recordings instead of the orchestra of the “Hanns Eisler” Berlin Music Academy . However, this was changed for cost reasons.
The circulation was almost 100,000. The LP did not sell as well as the previous album.
In 1978 the album was also released as an LP by Pool / Teldec in the Federal Republic of Germany . In 1987 Weißes Gold was first released on CD by the Japanese label Nexus , and in 1993 the album was also released on DSB as a CD with the bonus title Spring after Antonio Vivaldi . The accompanying choir was referred to as "a male choir". The CD was released again in 1998, 2006 and 2018, most recently on Buschfunk . The 2018 edition was a special anniversary edition, on which four different versions can be found (radio production 1978, recorded in the Nünchritz clubhouse ( The Unpublished ), AMIGA production 1979 ( the original ), CD 2 studio production 2001 ( The Legacy ), Studio Production 2018 ( The New Production )). Three of the four versions were published for the first time.
content
The album is about the invention of porcelain at the Saxon court at the beginning of the 18th century. The alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger should find a method to produce gold from other raw materials. For this he was locked up in Dresden . However, he happened to be the first European to find a way to produce porcelain, in other words " white gold ". To date, Meissen porcelain world famous.
The overture is a longer instrumental piece that is characterized by the use of synthesizers . Shortly after the cautious beginning, the speaker appears and states the most important facts of the action in a factual tone. The music later becomes more rhythmic with the addition of further instruments and contains many semitone steps that are supposed to represent the alchemical search. Apart from high-pitched, textless voices, the dream is an instrumental title that contains elements of pop music with its catchy theme . Des Goldes Bann is a rock piece with a catchy bass groove that consists of two verses. The following piece, Der Goldmacher, is a spoken text, which is underlaid with baroque keyboard and orchestral music, especially deep string instruments. Ernst Kahler speaks a text that emotionally describes the conditions at the court of Augustus the Strong . Escape is played much louder and is characterized by the lively bass and synthesizer playing as well as high scat-like vocals.
The alchemist's doubts are also expressed in the piece of the same name through disharmonious chords. The male choir sings to the sounds of the organ. In between, the speaker explains how bad things are for the unsuccessful Böttger. The realization, also shaped by the keyboards, gradually becomes more harmonious until a rocky melody emerges. Fißler and Lohse sing in first-person form in two stanzas, how Böttger would like to produce porcelain instead of gold. This is followed by the last piece, Weißes Gold, which begins with a fast, lively synthesizer interlude, which is replaced by a melodic theme. The keyboards, here the electronic organ , dominate again. A third stanza of Des Goldes Bann is the last part sung. The orchestra, with its dominating brass section, repeats the stanza until the long end, which changes from minor to major chords and is accompanied by bangs .
Cover
The first two issues had differently designed record sleeves . The Amiga edition as well as the following CDs are mainly designed in brown-white-black. The title is in Fraktur at the top center. Below is a black and brown drawing of the silhouette of Meissen with the cathedral and the Elbe, and underneath is a depiction of a wavy sheet of music with some lines of notes replaced by stripes in the colors of the rainbow . Below is the band name. The reverse is also essentially brown, black and white, but has a blue and white portrait of Böttger, including a brief description of his life. On the left are the titles, composers, copywriters and arrangers, on the right the names and designations of the contributors.
The pool edition is designed in blue and white colors. The front is marked by a similar, larger image of the silhouette of Meissen, the sheet of music is missing.
reception
“The rock concert by Stern Combo Meißen, entitled White Gold , is probably the most convincing demonstration of how little entertainment [...] can be equated with the effortless consumption of music in our dance music development. [...] How much the young audience knows how to honor such efforts was not least evident from the success of the premiere of this sophisticated new creation in November last year at the Berlin Kino International. "
Track list
page A
- Overture (8:21)
- The dream (2:13)
- The Ban of Gold (1:53)
- The Gold Maker (2:31)
- The Escape (4:10)
Side B
- Doubt (9:08)
- The Knowledge (5:25)
- White Gold (3:54)
Extra title
The CD released in 1993 also contains this title:
- The spring
literature
- Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , pp. 281-294
Web links
- Kurt Demmler text of the radio production ( Memento from May 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ record cover of the Amiga LP
- ↑ a b Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 284
- ↑ a b c Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 282
- ↑ Interview with Martin Schreier 2008 "Heimatkunde 7th grade"
- ↑ Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 286
- ↑ Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 287
- ↑ Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 292
- ↑ Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 285
- ↑ quoted from Jürgen Balitzki: Electra. Lift. Star combo Meißen: Stories from the Saxon threesome . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3896023230 , p. 282