Intro 297

‘’Nemt frouwe disen kranz’’, ca. 1200, written by Walther von der Vogelweide, (1170-1230) tells a story about
a young man who sees a lovely girl which apparently is about to take part in a dance.

Sanne Zijlstra (front cover photo CD) plays both the young man and the young girl.

As she wanders in the other dimension, Sanne is absolutely not aware of what she is doing.
She always drags three heavy chains along with her searching for an entity to deal with.
Waiting for the world to come! Split personality? A nuisance?
We don’t know! Only her shadow knows.
The wolves, the storm, the rain, the thunder and the high woman’s voice emphasis that during the piece.
To reach the effect Sanne reads out the poem a bit woodenly and although the poor young man doesn’t exist, you can hear his voice in the background.

Two drummers! One lead drummer (Sophie Neijts) and one additional drummer (Marcel van Weerdenburg)
Toon Klaver plays tubular bells, concert  drums and snare drum.
Fact:
The length of Intro 297 are exactly 297 measures and 297 is also my house number!

The poem
Old German language 13th century!

During much of his career Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1230) led the life of a touring artist, acting at
the courts of secular and ecclesiastical rulers as reciter and singer with poems and songs of his own.

In this poem we meet him as a brilliant innovator who plays with the conventions of the love song.
The motives ‘dance’ and ‘dream’ are interwoven throughout the song masterfully.
The traditional position of the pastourelle is recognizable, but the eroticism is brought to a higher level here through the symbolism of flowers.
Unlike many courtly love poetry, she is not a beloved wife worshipped from afar, an unattainable lady,
but a girl who is trying to draw his attention, so there is a love that makes both happy.
But also a love that doesn’t exist! A love that turns out to be a dream, an ideal that in reality does not allow achievement.


Walther von de Vogelweide

Verse 1

We hear a lover who sees a lovely girl which apparently is about to take part in a dance.
He uses a form of address expressing his respect and trepidation: ”Frouwe” as a symbol of the love he
feels for her, he offers her a wreath of flowers. He has gems at his disposal, he assures her, he would like
to adorn her head with a diadem!

Verse 2

The response of the girl. It shows itself sensitive to its charm and declares that she wants to give back
her garland, (the wreath that she had received from him), so she answers his love.
She says to know a place (in jener heide) were you can find white and red flowers!
There, in the lovely nature, they will pick the flowers together (surrender to the love game).

You can hear a short rudimental for three snare drums in the background when Sanne starts and
dedicates the poem to Walther von der Vogelweide!
Slow, woodenly and sort of “disrespectful”

Yes, yes , the wench does not give a sod…….

Verse 3

The lover continues his story. He has never felt happier. Blossoms fluttered down on them while they lay together in the grass and loved each other.
He laughed with joy and happiness and that made him wake up surprising the reader that he finds out that everything in here is told in a dream.

Verse 4

But the dream is not without consequences. The girl gave him her love in the dream continues to dominate
his desire into reality. Since then he has been looking for her. All the girls he meet, he looks deep into their eyes. Is she perhaps among the participants of the dance that is going on here?

LARRIOS SONGS

The larrios songs are quiet the same as recorded on the Armadillo Lounge CD (2005)

The changes I have made are more in the structure of the song. I also added some strings, percussion and hammond organ.
I am playing drums on Shady haze and Leroy!
Sophie is playing drums on Lucifers son and Toon is playing drums on out on my own!
Old Larrios member Peter Ebbers did a good job on the vocal parts and old larrios member Ron Roelofsen banged his head on all guitar parts!!
Eric Vilier lives in Canada and was not able to do the bass guitar parts!!
Lawrence Gharib, former member of the metal band Return to Reason is playing bass guitar on all four
Larrios songs!! Sanne Zijlstra appears on the backing vocal tracks together with Peter Ebbers!!

Nothing more to say….just four old school classic rock songs!!!

Breeze stones

Breeze stones is a medium up tempo rock instrumental! A bit pompous with a lot of guitars, keyboards,
strings and percussion!
When I was working on Breeze stones to make the song ready with the use of a demo version for all the
other band members to learn
I did not know that you had to use ”Bounce to clips” to make the program lighter! So in the end the midi files got heavier and heavier and the program was slowing down immensely!
The midi files felt like big heavy stones!! Later when I was in Spain I was working in my brother’s house in
the garden to fill some gaps underneath its construction to avoid cats and other animals raising their family!

I filled the gaps with three or four really heavy concrete stones that I got from a friendly Spaniard who then worked for a road construction company at the end of the street!
Frank, the neighbour payed me a visit and told me that in England they call them Breeze Stones!
The song was first named Jungle, just as a work name. Later I changed the name into Breeze Stones!!

Silent & Music for Strings

Silent is a short piece for percussion and string orchestra!

Music for Strings a short piece written for string orchestra!

A mixture of fantasies and memories! That’s it!

K 104

K 104 is a slow heavy rock piece which has a middle part that was written during my conservatory study
years ago! This middle part is a canon for three snare drums!

The rhythmic pattern is an one eighth, two sixteenth note pattern!

The difficult part is that each snare drum player starts playing the same one eighth, two sixteenth note pattern on a different count in a different measure.

The canon is divided in 6 parts!

Each part contains a block of 4 measures starting with 9/4 then 7/4 then 5/4 then 3/4 then 1/4 and ends
with 4/4!

Sanne counts the measures in Latin when the first snare drum player starts playing on the first measure
after a block of 4! The tempo is 80 BPM!

Fact:
K 104 stands for Keizersgracht 104, the canal and number in Amsterdam were the percussion department was situated!

First snare drum starts on the one of the very first measure!

Second snare drum starts on the second measure on the 7th count!

Third snare drum starts on the 3rd measure on the 5th count!

Sanne

Sanne plays the girl who makes life a bit more difficult than it really is.

In this piece she is not of this world! She lives in another dimension waiting for the world to come.
She sneaks into a room, says something in a whisper, kills an entity and makes a faustian deal with the devil.

She likes what she is doing! You can hear her laugh sometimes, you can hear the three chains that she drags along with her all the time and the three knocks on the old wooden door before she enters.

Three knocks that represents  a sign of death, the mocking of the Holy Trinity by a demon.
She reads out snippets, in collaboration with the devil, (286r and 276r) from the Codex Gigas (Giant Book) known as the Devil’s bible.

CODEX GIGAS

The Codex Gigas is the largest and one of the strangest manuscripts in the world.  It is so large that it is said to have taken more than 160 animal skins to make it and takes at least two people to lift it.
The Codex  is bound in a wooden folder covered with leather and ornate metal. 92 cm (36.2in.) tall, 50 cm (19.7in.) wide and 22 cm(8.6in.) thick and weighing 74.8 kg (165 pounds)!

According to one version of a legend that is already recorded in the Middle Ages, the scribe was a monk who broke his monastic vows and was sentenced to be walled up alive. In order to forbear this harsh penalty he promised to create in one single night a book to glorify the monastery forever, including all human knowledge. Near midnight he became sure that he could not complete this task alone so he made a special “prayer”
not addressed to God but to the fallen angel Lucifer asking him to help him finish the book in exchange for his soul.
The devil completed the manuscript and the monk added the devil’s picture out of gratitude for his aid. In tests to recreate the work, it is estimated that reproducing only the calligraphy, without the illustrations or embellishments, would have taken 5 years of non-stop writing.

286r

Virgo mater ecclesie etterne porta glorie esto nobis refugium aput patrem et filium
O Clemens, Virgo clemens Virgo, pia Virgo dulcis O Maria
Funde preces tuo nato Jesu Christo
Vulnerato pro nobis et flagellato, spinis, coronato, sputo, felle potato.

Virgin, mother of the Church, gateway to eternal glory,
be our refuge with the Father and the Son.
O gracious Virgin, gracious Virgin, merciful Virgin, sweet Mary
hear the prayers of the fugitives who cry unto thee, O merciful one
pour forth prayers to thy son Jesus Christ, wounded for us and scourged, crowned with thorns,
mocked after drinking gall O Mary most holy

276r

Quos anguis dirus tristi mulcedine pauit
Hos sanguis mirus Christi dulcedine lauit
Suffocat, extinguit, suffocat, guttura stringit
Cum simus limus nescimus quando perimus

Those whom a fearful serpent reared with a revolting caress
The same Christ’s wondrous blood washed with tenderness
Suffocates, extinguishes, suffocates, strangles the throats
Because we are earth, we do not know when we succumb

Mezcolanza

Mezcolanza is the spanish word for mishmash! Various different styles in one piece of music!
Rock, a bit of Flamenco, the Arabic scale ( Frygian and Minor harmonic scale!) and at the end a bit of a
Bluesy jazzy feel!

Actually there were two pieces of which I had to choose from namely Mezcolanza (mishmash) and
Incomodar which means to annoy, to irritate! The latter was the first choice but in the end sounded
too artificial. Mezcolanza was older and with some re-writing a new piece was born!

Bits and pieces of ideas were written in Spain a while ago. That’s why the name is in Spanish.