About this item

Klaus Schulze about “X“

Richard Wagner could also have been part of these musical biographies on "X". Wagner is particularly close to me because for me he was the first to create a synthesis of the arts. For instance he demanded for a composition a separate theatre where the orchestra could disappear in the pit. Therein I see an analogy to the synthesizer. Here the actual instrument is also disappearing behind a few buttons – you're hearing very much but you don't see much. But Wagner was a far too tremendous topic because then I would have had to make "X" a triple album. For this reason I had chosen only authors – except Friedemann Bach – who had influenced me very much.

Frank Herbert's novel Dune almost was a bible for me at that time! Bavarian king Ludwig II was, of course, no author but his life is a novel itself. "X" also was film music – Barracuda – I had the budget so I could afford an orchestra. However, it was really difficult to master the orchestral score. I can actually write notes – I once took also classical guitar lessons – but to write such a score is a different kind of thing. All that music I could have played within a day but on the score I worked for four weeks long. Cellist Wolfgang Tiepold was a big help since I wasn't that experienced just to say a violin can really play what I had written in the score. In the middle section of "Ludwig II." We had to make a tape loop for those repetitions. The loop reached out across the studio and the kitchen, and then we looped it. Because the musicians dropped their violins when trying to play this passage live for 15 minutes. The tape loop of course was – typical for my compositions! – 20 meters long, haha.

The bonus track "Objet d'Louis" is a live verson of "Ludwig II." using a complete orchestra. I did that in 1978 because I wanted to hear how this track sounds live on stage with an orchestra. I was on tour and also performed "Ludwig", and in Belgium there was an opportunity to perform the song in that style. A radio station wanted to broadcast the concert live. So I asked if we can do that with an orchestra. Then Tiepold rehearsed it a little bit with the orchestra, and in the evening we played it and it was broadcasted live. Now you can hear it again on the CD.

TRACK LISTING

CD 1:
Friedrich Nietzsche
Georg Trakl
Frank Herbert
Friedemann Bach

CD 2:
Ludwig II Von Bayern
Heinrich Von Kleist
Object D'Louis