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During this first half of the 1st millennium secular songs and dances are being suppressed in official reports, historiography and music theory. The power of the Catholic church and the popes had just begun to spread, the ideal of “Universitas Christiania” – a Christian world order – was to be realized. Means to reach this goal contained e. g. the unification of the liturgy in church services (Gregorian). Folk songs were banished, polished or modified in a way that no worldly origin whatsoever – a little dance maybe – could be discovered immediately. At least they tried. One reason why it didn’t work out certainly was the fact that even kings and other faithful Catholics didn’t want to abstain from dancing in their leisure time.
With the Islam at the european gates around 800, new cultural influences were intruding into Europe in the following centuries. The Muslims brought along novel instruments; the bagpipes and the shawm for example originate from the orient, the lute descends from the Arabian “al Ud”, and also the trombone developed from the Arabian buisine. While the popes were striving to destroy the heathen-antique ideas (Celtic culture), the Arabs had preserved many old scripts from ancient Greece, which were once again spread around the turn of the millennium.
Early medieval music was unisonous. With profane instruments like the bagpipes or the hurdy-gurdy the so-called Bordun (drone) music became popular. I. e. every melody is accompanied by a deep bass tone – the Bordun. Later there were two constant tones – two Borduns – like it is e. g. the case with our bagpipes. This is the earliest form of concerted music, and, starting in the 12th century, this technique was adopted from the minstrels’ music into the liturgical music as well, but was refined there for e. g. the organum. The fact that concerted music was widely spread in worldly melodies is also proven by a song by Walter von der Vogelweide. In this song he asks to be accompanied “the old way”, with thirds. In these times the third was still regarded a disharmonious interval, a dissonance, which was to be avoided… in folk music it was common practice.
Because medieval music theory was dominated by ecclesiastics, it is often difficult to determine from the existent manuscripts exactly how the secular (popular) music of the day sounded. But a number of things are known for certain. For example, the profane music of the day was often accompanied by a droning bass tone similar to that generated by the bourdon stop on an organ, which is provided in Corvus Corax's case by the drones on their bagpipes. An inkling as to the harmonies used is found in a song by Walter von der Vogelweide, in which he calls for the song to be played "the old way", meaning harmonising with thirds. At the time, the third was considered an awkward, ugly interval by the sacred musician — like the tritone, or diabolus in musica — but it was a common interval in folk music.
Matters are further complicated by the fact that each minstrel would add his personal interpretation to a piece, and that recorded (i.e. written) versions may differ depending on who did the transcribing, and where. Medieval popular music was played more from the heart than the brain.The medieval minstrels picked up melodies on their journeys and altered them, in doing so they might have forgotten certain passages or changed them deliberately – for example to fit the melody of a French song to German lyrics – or the scribes simply made mistakes, which also happened quite often when copying literature, etc.
On medieval instruments
The origins of the bagpipe can be traced back to the most ancient civilizations. The bagpipe probably originated as a rustic instrument in many cultures because a herdsman had the necessary materials at hand: a goat or sheep skin and a reed pipe. The instrument is mentioned in the Bible, and historians believe that it originated in Sumaria. Find out more here on sights and sounds of medievil instruments.
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In 1991, Michael Popp and Ernst Horn developed the concept of combining medieval melodies and songs with electronic music. As singer they chose Syrah, alias Sigrid Hausen, who is one of the leading interpreters of medieval music. She had the courage as well as the power for musical border crossing . Thus the trio was founded but without a name yet. Shortly after Syrah joined the band, she dreamt of letters written on the wall reading QNTAL, a word that does not exist in any language, and therefore being perfect for a kind of music that did not exist so far either.
Soon afterwards, the first song was published: "Por mau tens" a song from troubadour Thibaut of Navarra in a new arrangement, it didn't rock the boat , bBut in 1992 time was ripe: until then Syrah had searched for more texts and tunes, one song or the other was borrowed from the repertoire of Estampie, composed and arranged by Michael Popp and Ernst Horn and, finally, in autumn the album QNTAL was released without big advertisement or promotion. It was more of a secondary project to the musicians and thus it came as a great surprise that the album was a hit in the wave-scene. The band's lyrics are primarily drawn from historical sources. Throughout their first three albums, lyrics were primarily in Latin, medieval German, and a few other European tongues. On Qntal IV, the band added a few songs in English to their body of work
In 1995, when the second CD was finished and Deine Lakaien were about to go on tour (Ernst Horn and Michael Popp were members of this band), the idea of a double concert was born. QNTAL as first act with smooth transition to Deine Lakaien. There were two tours held in this constellation in 1996 with overwhelming success. The Palestine Song became QNTAL II s hit. Still, there was no direct follow-up to this success and as Ernst Horn wanted to primarily care for the progress of Deine Lakaien, he left the Qntal.
Replacement was found in the Berlin musician and producer Phillip Groth. On Pentecost 2002, QNTAL made its first appearance since 1996 during a Wave-Gothic Meeting. Although the concert took place on the outskirts of the festival area and Syrahs vocal chords suffered from a cold, the great number of the audience and its reaction showed how close this band was the their hearts. In 2003 Qntal release Tristan und Isolde with their new keyboardplayer Philipp Groth and create an exiting mix of Ambient, Pop and World Music. Less experimental as their first two albums, yet a varied and a convincing album. 2005 saw the release of QNTAL IV - Ozymandias, followed by QNTAL V - Silver Swan (2006) and their first US tour in 2007, meanwhile QNTAL VI - Translucida (2008) has hit the shelves. Later that year a best of album was released, Purpurea.
Qntal – Qntal IV - Ozymandias ( 173mb)
01 All For One 4:33
02 Ozymandias I 1:59
03 Vogelfluc 5:38
04 Blac 5:15
05 Dulcis Amor 6:19
06 Cupido 5:51
07 Flow 4:38
08 Flamma 3:58
09 Amor Volat 4:24
10 Ozymandias II 2:22
11 Indiscrete 4:13
12 Noit E Dia 5:25
13 Remember Me 8:24
14 Rose In The Mor 6:03
15 Lasse, Grant Douçor 5:46
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Schandmaul was founded in the summer of 1998, when six musicians from Munich and the surrounding area, then belonging to different bands, decided to come together for a folk rock concert. Because they weren't content with performing nothing but covers, they decided to write a few songs of their own for the event. The very first song written by the newly-formed band, Teufelsweib (lit. Devil's Woman), already exhibits a sound that, cultivated and developed over the years, is now considered typical for Schandmaul.
The first concert took place in the bar 'Die Hexe' (lit. 'The Witch') in Gröbenzell. For this event, the self-deprecating name 'Schandmaul' was chosen, inspired by a jester from a deck of cards. The jester is viewed as a fool, but this indignity gains him the privilege to speak his mind freely, and accordingly, the outdated swearword 'Schandmaul' (lit. 'malicious-tongue') refers to somebody who frequently says things considered rude or outrageous.
The success of the concert awakened the desire to produce a CD, which, after many more shows, appeared as the self-produced album Wahre Helden (lit. True Heroes). Due to more and more gigs and an abundance of creative energy for more songs, a second album titled Von Spitzbuben und anderen Halunken (lit. Of Rogues and Other Scoundrels) was released in 2000, a mere year later.
In 2001, record label 'F.A.M.E. recordings' took notice of the band, which led to a re-release of Von Spitzbuben und anderen Halunken. Simultaneously, through numerous shows including big festivals like M'era Luna, Zillo-Festival and Wave-Gotik-Treffen, the first big tour came about. The third CD, Narrenkönig (lit. Jester's King) was recorded in a professional studio and was released in October 2002, reaching #7 on the charts. In September 2002, the band parted ways with bassist Hubsi Widman, and Matthias Richter took his place. In 2003 the first live CD and DVD, Hexenkessel (lit. Witch's Cauldron) was released, recorded during a concert in the Munich club New Backstage, at which Michael Rhein from In Extremo appeared a cameo as guest singer. .
In early 2004, Wie Pech & Schwefel (German idiom "thick as thieves") appeared in stores. This first studio album with Matthias Richter reached #13 on the charts. A tour with over 80 concerts and shows throughout German-speaking Europe followed. The following year, the biggest project yet in the band's history was created: An acoustic tour, where the electric guitars were replaced by a string quartet and extra percussion, capped off by a huge concert in Munich's Circus Krone Building, accompanied by the Puchheimer Jugendkammerorchester (a 50 piece orchestra) and helped out by numerous musicians from other bands, such as Castus and Wim from Corvus Corax on bag pipes and Oliver Sa Tyr from Faun on the celtic harp (who just previously had teamed up with Birgit to create a folk project called Sava). This huge show was recorded and released as both a CD and DVD under the name "Kunststück" (lit. Feat). The CD reached #12 in the album charts and the DVD made it to #3 on the video charts.
In March 2006 another album appeared, titled Mit Leib und Seele (lit. With Body and Soul). This became the first Schandmaul album to broach the top ten of Germany's Media Control charts. Schandmaul's sixth album Anderswelt (lit. meaning "Other-world") appeared in April 2008. It reached a position of #8 in its first week . This success has since been topped by their 2011 album, Traumtänzer. (Lit. Dreamdancer) , this album was released on 28 January 2011 and was followed by a short spring tour. Appearances at festivals in the summer of 2011 have been announced. The album reached a position of #4 in the German Media Control album charts, making it their most successful album as of yet.
Schandmaul – Kunststück ( 116mb)
01 Tyrann 5:37
02 Vogelfrei 5:01
03 Goldene Kette 5:53
04 Letzter Tanz 4:24
05 Kalte Spuren 5:41
06 Frühlingsleier 4:24
07 Bin Unterwegs 3:48
08 Talisman 4:18
09 Waldmär 4:32
10 Der Clown 5:37
11 Dein Anblick 5:12
12 Herren Der Winde 4:04
13 Walpurgisnacht 4:42
14 Geisterschiff 5:51
15 Willst Du 4:48
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