Popol Vuh
Seligpreisung

POPOL VUH 

"Seligpreisung" - (Pdu - Die Kosmischen Kuriere)  1973

by Carmine Pescatore

Look at the face of Florian Fricke, composer and voice of Popol Vuh (album covers, images on the Internet, interviews on Youtube, etc.), and you will see a portrait lifted straight from the German nineteenth century come to life: a long face, a high forehead marked by wrinkles, long blonde hair falling messily on his temples, ascetic blue eyes.
It's not just a coincidence; he too, like the great artists of that era, composed music that is the reflection of another, better world and sang in awe of the sacred messages.
His is the face of someone who has found what cannot be seen but only intuited.

It is said that Fricke, after graduating from the Munich Conservatory, had to give up a promising career as a classical pianist due to joint problems in his hands. After working as a film critic and traveling in the East and South America, he decided to embark on a project, starting another journey, this time musical, from continent to continent dedicated to the millennial religions of the world, from ancient Egypt to paganism, from the Maya Quiché civilization (whose sacred book provides the group's name) to Hinduism, from the Bible to the Gospel, up to Buddhism. A path where no confused New Age syncretism enters, but a precious and personal compendium of the world of the sacred.
I have always been strongly impressed by Popol Vuh's ability to switch from a set of electronic instruments, to the classic scheme of a rock band with bass, guitar, drums, and keyboards, then abandon everything to play only acoustic instruments, or sing entirely vocal pieces as if it were the simplest thing in the world. A commitment that has very few parallels.

In 1973, Fricke decided to compose an album inspired by the Gospel, specifically Matthew's, and Christ's Beatitudes (also known as the "Sermon on the Mount"), one of the most beautiful pages of sacred literature of all time, choosing as titles for the pieces seven phrases with those immortal words.
The album is full of sincere inspiration; each piece possesses melodies and harmonies transparent and delicate like crystal, born from a piano, supported by the sound of a poignant oboe (by Robert Eliscu) and interventions of electric and acoustic guitar (by Daniel Fichelscher and Conny Veit). The combination of instruments is perfect; one would say that the selected notes are the only ones capable of accompanying those texts sung by Fricke with an impassioned voice in spiritual trance tones.  

"Seligpreisung" was a quadraphonic LP, a sound reproduction technique that used four distinct audio channels diffused by as many speakers. The vinyl version of the album had a splendid internal photo showing a centuries-old oak shading a circle of white stone seats.
I do not like to use literary comparisons for a review, as they are often personal, not objective, misleading, but in this case, I believe an exception is justified or at least forgiven, because listening to "Seligpreisung" generates a storm of suggestions.
One notices first of all that the songs of this work are modern lied (literally "song" in German), and we find ourselves once again 200 years back, where Romanticism (which was not just the triumph of symphonism) united music and poetry: the lieder were chamber compositions with solo voice accompanied by piano. No other era has ever known such an intense liederistic flourishing with musicians like Schubert, Schumann setting texts by poets like Heine, Goethe, Holderlin to music.
"Music is the most romantic of all arts because it is about the infinite," wrote E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776 - 1822), "touches the mysterious harp, and draws in this dark world, but with precise order, precise and dark magic signs, and the strings of our heart resonate, and we understand their resonance" added Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (1773-1798).
This fascinating concatenation of romantic influences, painting (just think of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings) and even in the Biedermeier architectural style, with houses and furniture marked by simplicity. This album, so profoundly German, is welded to that thought (and to the hymns) of the pietistic movement that in those years advocated in Germany a doctrine inspired by the Christian revival understood as sentimental mysticism, inner transformation, individual religiosity, overcoming dogmas.
These themes are also confirmed cinematographically since Popol Vuh have linked their name to the activities of director Werner Herzog, also fascinated by that period, composing many soundtracks for his films ("Aguirre," "Heart of Glass," and "Nosferatu" among others).

The tracks of "Seligpreisung" are genuine pearls. The first is "Selig sind, die da hungern. Selig sind, die da dursten, nach Gerechtigkeit Ja, sie sollen satt werden" (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice for they shall be filled) is the longest track on the album and develops in the end a rock sound, but as an astute critic wrote, it is the "Black Forest rock," rich in a twilight sense whose originality is also present in the use of percussion that favors the use of cymbals.
With "Tanz der Chassidim" (Dance of the Hassidim), we leave the Christian tradition to touch the Jewish one. It is the only instrumental piece on the album characterized by the steady pace of the 12-string guitar and its crossings with the electric one. Hassidism is a trend of Judaism (similar to the previously cited Christian pietism), born in Poland around the 18th century, which advocated an individual way to reach God. Music and dance are a fundamental part of this doctrine, and indeed the Hassidim gather in large groups to dance in a circle with spectacular movements made of speed, jerks, and sudden pauses.
"Selig sind, die da hier weinen Ja, sie sollen spater lachen" (Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted). It is not hard to imagine Fricke singing and playing the piano with closed eyes for concentration, something he indeed did and which is also testified when he acts in Herzog's "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser."  The piece is moving and has a long instrumental introduction. The voice resonates arcane and almost halts the music, which then launches into an almost psychedelically rock final.
"Selig sind, die da willig arm sind Ja, ihrer ist das Himmelreich" (Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven) presents the same execution scheme, while in  "Selig sind, die da Leid klagen Ja, sie sollen getrostet werden" (Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted) a harpsichord and a vibrant Alleluia are used among the thousand plays of light of the guitars. Then comes "Selig sind, die Sanftmutigen Ja, sie werden einst die Erde erben" (Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth) which has melodies supported by the obstinate arpeggios of the piano, pure melodies like the water of a stream and the wind passing over a meadow. In listening, the words of Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857) in the novel "Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing" come to mind: "I felt like it was an eternal Sunday (...) I took my violin and began to play and sing along the road". 
"Selig sind, die da reinen Herzens sind Ja, sie sollen Gott schauen" (Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God) elegiac and with three-dimensional chords that seem to offer the listener gleams and very sweet memories. E.T.A. Hoffmann, writer and musician, comes to mind "Their humble muse lingers long on the same chords and dares only slowly to pass to the nearest notes; but every change of chord, even the smallest one, unsettles our whole soul with its mysterious progress. Sacred music, infinite yearning".
The album concludes with the decisive "Ja, sie sollen Gottes Kinder heiben Agnus Dei" (For they shall be called children of God. Agnus Dei). A liberating voice stands out in the finale.
Music for the early German romantics was infinite nostalgia for a homeland, a world that has been lost and is yearned to be found again (Sehnsucht).

The union between the music and the words of "Seligpreisung" is testified by an almost esoteric path: each phrase of Christ is illustrated in music: with the pronouncement of a beatitude, the sound assumes somber tones and then gives way to the revelation of the heavenly reward that kindles the piece. Towards the end, each piece fades smoothly, an analogy with the awareness that light leaves a trace of itself in the world but returns to where it came from. Popol Vuh's music has taught, if there was still a need, that speed and the number of notes played do not matter, but the essence, the meaning, and the effect they create.
This and other albums of the group, compared to others (though extraordinary) of the German "Cosmic Couriers" music, have resisted time. In fact, they have none.
"The musician listens profoundly. He listens from within" wrote Novalis, another soul of German Romanticism. The premature death of Florian Fricke, at only 57 years, due to heart problems, in 2001 in Munich, is curiously similar in circumstances and spirit, to his occurrence in 1801. Both, two hundred years apart, left us gently in their sleep. 

I thank Enrico Bassi for giving me a rare record of Mozart sonatas interpreted by Florian Fricke.