NEWS

June 8th, 2010

The upcoming third Sagittarius album will mark the end of a cycle of creative process. "Die Große Marina", "Songs From The Ivory Tower" and "The Kingdom Come" represent a conceptual triad – three albums featuring personal musical reflections on classical pieces of traditional German and European literature dear to me. Whilst "Die Große Marina" was a contemplation on the classic novel "On the Marble Cliffs" by Ernst Jünger, "The Kingdom Come" will continue a golden thread opened with "Songs From The Ivory Tower" – meditation on poetry in its purest sense.

The album's title "The Kingdom Come" is derived from the English title of Stefan George's final poem book "Das neue Reich" according to the translation by Olga Marx and Ernst Morwitz. It perfectly reflects the general impetus of the new opus, since many of the poems I set to music this time are taken out of that particular book, which has been my constant companion and spiritual influence for many years. Apart from that a few songs will be based on poems by Hermann Hesse, William Butler Yeats, Charles Baudelaire, Ernst Morwitz and the Finnish poet Uuno Kailas - a writer being rather famous in my second native land Finland, but almost unknown in the rest of the world, which is a shame because his poetry belongs to the strongest I am aware of.

Another poem set to music is "Lebenslied (An die Deutschen)" by the German exul poeta Karl Wolfskehl, which is one of the most impressive and haunting pieces of German poetry ever. Descending from one of the oldest Jewish families in Germany, Wolfskehl had an enormous impact on the intellectual life in Germany. A magnificent poet, close friend to Stefan George and one the leading experts on German mythology and medieval poetry, he was forced to go to exile in 1933. This particular poem is a long reflection on his homeland and his spiritual influences, and both a song of valediction and distant hope.

"The Kingdom Come" will contain 14 songs with a playing time of approx. 52 minutes. The recordings will be finished this year, and the album will be published by Cold Spring Records, the only record label I could entrust my magnum opus with – an opus which would probably have remained unfinished without the patient support and assistance of my friend and comrade-in-arms Marcel P.

I can't forsee the future, but for the moment I believe everything necessary has been said and done. After the release of "The Kingdom Come" and possibly a few final concerts, Sagittarius will enter a period of silence and solitariness. A return will be unlikely.


Cordially yours,
Cornelius Waldner