Eberhard Schoener – Meditation (1973)

Eberhard Schoener (born May 13, 1938, Stuttgart) is a German musician, composer, conductor, and arranger. His activities combine many styles and formats. Originally a classical violinist and conductor of chamber music and opera, he was one of the early adopters and popularizers of the Moog synthesizer in Europe.

In the 1970s he traveled to Indonesia and incorporated musical elements from Asia into his own work. He has collaborated with rock musicians such as Jon Lord, Pete York and The Police.

He has composed film scores, videos, music for television, and an opera to be broadcast via the Internet. He has won numerous awards, including the 1975 Schwabing Art Prize for music, the 1992 Bambi Award for creativity and a lifetime achievement award at the Soundtrack Cologne Festival of Music and Sound in Film and the Media in November, 2014. (by wikipedia)

And here´s his 3rd solo-album:

Eberhard Schoener had, by 1973, made a couple of albums for Ariola, including the avowedly strange Destruction of Harmony in 1971, a proto-postmodern, irony-laced deconstruction of the classics that took as much of a cue from Stockhausen’s Hymnen, as it did Switched on Bach.

But after “a lengthy trip to Asia” (oh yes! one of those!) the idea for Meditation had come to Schoener, in what must have been a blazing Damascian white-light of revelatory gnostic visionary insight – if the results are anything to go by!

Of course, Schoener was good friends with the mystic, Florian Fricke, and would have, of course, heard the first two Popol Vuh lp’s – Affenstunde and In den Garten Pharoas, perhaps the nearest stylistic signposts we have for this lengthy piece of mantric musical nirvana.

In particular, the heady, ghostly, spectral musings of the title track of “Pharoas…” is close to the darkened electronic musings on offer here. Released in 1973, the LP is made up of two huge, gradually unfolding, electro-drone mantras – Music for Meditation I and Music for Meditation II. The first side begins amidst synthesised white-noise waves crashing on the shore, the underwater vibe remaining, as a bell-tone submarine pulse echoes as it passes by. Gothic cello-like synthesiser warbles intone at ominous intervals. It reminds one a lot of “On the Way” and “Through Pains to Heaven” (from side 2 of Popol Vuh’s Nosferatu soundtrack) as the notes curl and strain around the ever-present electronic pulse. Zeit might be another obvious signpost here. From time to time huge swells of synthesised white noise swirl like fizzing breaking foam around the droning notes. The trance goes on – as the track barely changes for 17 minutes – allowing the listener time to let their mind drift and buffet against the shores of this glistening rare jewel of a track.

Side Two – although ostensibly another 17-minute electronic drone piece – has slightly more to it in terms of sonic components and is definitely the artistic peak of the LP. Here the Eastern flavour is a little more apparent, as resonating synthesiser notes unfurl like sun-drenched spheres of birthing light. Filters are skilfully manned to create a dry, arid solarscape of sound. It sounds like the musical equivalent of sun-blindness or heat exhaustion – but for the listener it’s a blissful, nurturing sound. Here and there gongs are gently struck and cooler, more spectral voices are heard – a distant woman-voiced lunar ululation calling from afar.

It’s an incredibly peaceful and hypnotic 17 minutes – with similarities to other abstracted sides of cosmic awe – including the aforementioned Popol Vuh’s early Liberty/Pilz sides and Nosferatu OST, Stomu Yamashita’s Red Buddha LP and “Mandala” (from Man from the East) and Zeit-era Tangerine Dream. A monolithic, pulsating, droning, glistening,primal slab of Kosmiche! (by aether)

Personnel:
Eberhard Schoner (synthesizer)

Tracklist:
01. Meditation – Part 1 / 17.16
02. Meditation – Part 2 / 18.27

Music composed by Eberhard Schoener

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Eberhard Schoener & Pete York in 2019

 

Jon Lord – Windows (1974)

Windows is a live album by Jon Lord and the German conductor and composer Eberhard Schoener. The music and the record are primarily credited to Lord. It was taped at a concert in Munich, (West) Germany on 1 June 1974 and the music is a mix between progressive rock and orchestral late romantic/modernist styles.

The piece on the first side, “Continuo on B-A-C-H” is a loose attempt to build on the unfinished triple fugue that closed Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Art of the Fugue”. The second side of the LP is a three-part composition called “Window”. In the liner notes of the LP album Lord makes a comparison between the rhapsodic structure here and the renga tradition of chain composition of poetry in medieval Japan. The music of the middle section was lifted from Lord’s earlier crossover effort Gemini Suite (1971). (by wikioedia)

The least impressive of all Jon Lord’s 1970s flirtations with the classics, Windows — a collaboration with synth wizard Eberhard Schoener — was recorded live at the Eurovision presentation of Prix Jeunesse on June 1, 1974, in Munich. Performed by both a seven-piece rock band and the orchestra of the Munich Chamber Opera, Windows comprises just two pieces. The title track, which was built around a Far Eastern renga (a form of chain poetry), is highlighted, for longtime Lord watchers, by the inclusion of large swathes of the vocal segment of his earlier Gemini Suite; and the somewhat presumptuously intended “Continuo on B.A.C.H.,” “a realization” (say the liner notes) “of a well-known incomplete fugue by Bach.” Whether Bach himself would have appreciated the end result is, of course, another matter entirely. While “Continuo” certainly has its moments of quite sublime beauty, one is never allowed to forget what one is listening to — an orchestra battling it out with a rock band, and only occasionally giving ground. The inclusion of David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes in the band is particularly eyebrow-raising.

Though more or less ideal for the last years of Deep Purple, neither musician was what one would call subtle, with Coverdale’s histrionic bellowing, in particular, swiftly distracting from the moods that the music and the other musicians are so patently attempting to maintain. Indeed, of the photos from the concert that bedeck the album jacket, one speaks louder than many words could — it depicts Coverdale in full vocal flight, while the horn player beside him raises his eyes, apparently, heavenward. Overlook some of the rock band’s excesses, however (including an utterly unnecessary jazz fusion passage during “Continuo”), and Windows does pack some breathtaking passages, both melody- and energy-wise. Like too many mid-’70s rock ‘n’ classical hybrids, however, it simply tries too hard to be special. (by Dave Thompson)

But …  this is a very Special album for me … not only because it was signed by Jon Lord, Tony Ashton and Pete York ….

Personnel:
Tony Ashton (Keyboards, vocals)
David Coverdale (vocals)
Glen Hughes (bass)
Ray Fenwick (guitar)
Gottfried Greiner (cello)
Jon Lord (keyboars, syntheziser)
George Morrison (trumpet)
Sigune von Osten (soprno vocals)
Gunter Salber (violin)
Ermina Santi (soprano vocals)
Eberhard Schoener (synthesizer)
Pete York (drums, percussion)
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The Munich Chamber Opera Orchestra conducted by Eberhard Schoener

Tracklist:
01. Continuo On B.A.C.H (Lord/Schoener) 16.28
02. Window (Lord/Schoener) 32.23
02.1. 1st Movement – Renga
02. Movement – Gemini
02.3. 3rd Movement – Alla Marcia: Allegro

Composed by Jon Lord + Eberhard Schoeber

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