NEWS

July 9th, 2011

An unreleased instrumental Sagittarius track entitled "Lethe" has been used by the Hellenic Black Metal band Stutthof, now known as Acherontas, as an outro for their re-released second full-length CD "And Cosmos From Ashes To Dust". This magnificent double CD is for sure not available from the usual mainstream metal dealer.
 

April 8th, 2011

The upcoming album "The Kingdom Come" has been successfully mastered by Christoph Ziegler (Vinterriket). Right now Cornelius Waldner and long-time friend and collaborator sG (Secrets of the Moon) are putting finishing touches to the CD artwork.

In the meantime, you may expect the release of "Mit fester Hand", a stunning compilation CD with Allerseelen cover versions of personal friends of Gerhard Hallstatt. Sagittarius contributed an interpretation of the track "Musa", originally released on the Allerseelen album "Venezia". Other bands and projects featured on this brilliant release are ARNICA, BLOOD AXIS & SANGRE CAVALLUM, CAWATANA, DER ARBEITER, DER FEUERKREINER, DIE WEISSE ROSE, ERNTE, FANES, FRÄKMÜNDT, HABERFELD, HREFNESHOLT, LARRNAKH, O PARADIS, SCIVIAS, STURMPERCHT, SVARROGH, TYR-KREIS and others, as well as ALLERSEELEN themselves.

"Mit fester Hand" will be released by Ahnstern / Steinklang in approx. 2 weeks.
 

February 25th, 2011

"Through tempests and the dread fanfares of dawning,
He leads his tried and faithful to the work
Of sober day and founds the Kingdom Come."

(Stefan George)


The upcoming third Sagittarius album "The Kingdom Come" marks both the peak as well as the end of a cycle of creative process. "Die Große Marina", "Songs From The Ivory Tower" and the new album represent a conceptual triad – three albums featuring personal musical reflections on classical pieces of traditional German and European literature. 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, highly influenced by the intellectual world of the German poet Stefan George.

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 that particular book has been a constant companion and spiritual influence to the project's founder Cornelius Waldner for many years. Four poems that were set to music on this album were taken from the book. Other songs are based on poems by George's disciple Ernst Morwitz, Hermann Hesse, William Butler Yeats, Charles Baudelaire, Karoline von Günderrode, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the Finnish poet Uuno Kailas.

Another poem set to music is "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 and translator, close friend to Stefan George and a leading expert 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 spiritual influences, and both a song of valediction and distant hope.

Recorded between 2008 and 2011, "The Kingdom Come" contains 18 songs with a playing time of 66 minutes. With Sagittarius now grown to a full four piece line-up featuring as new members Herr Twiggs (Kammer Sieben) on vocals and Theresia W. on oboe, and once again assisted by a number of highly gifted guest musicians, including sG (Secrets Of The Moon), Dev (While Angels Watch), Josef K. (Von Thronstahl), Fräulein König and René P., Sagittarius has managed to conceive a unique and outstanding album in the tradition of the classic European Art Song, blending sophisticated neoclassical compositions with a touch of suicidal folk noir.