Q+A / Story (2/2): QNTAL: “… our pragmatic world…”
In the first part, on the occasion of their current album “IX – Time Stands Still”, we talked to Qntal about wintry waves and recording a cover, which in turn was a cover song itself. That’s where we continued:
The root of Goth?
A bit like the romantic previous album “VIII: Night Flower”, “Dancing with the Daffodils” is based on a poem by William Wordsworths. Syrah smiles, “It actually goes back further than that, we’ve had English or German romantics on there every now and then for a few albums. Michael thinks that these people were the forerunners of the Gothic movement.” Love was not only an important theme in Romanticism, but manifested itself in poetry from time immemorial, including the medieval Minne poems. The complex concept of love can be found in different forms in “IX – Time Stands Still”. Michael recalls: “I just came back from Turkey, where I played a concert at a Sufi festival. There I learned in long conversations with my musician friends that ‘Minnelyrik’ is also a kind of mystical philosophy and not unlike Sufi mysticism. It’s about opening one’s heart for other people and the spiritual world, also for nature … The experience of inner deep connectedness with what surrounds us. I think that’s what it’s all about – also in Minnelyrik. The more you engage with it, the more aware you become of the fact that our pragmatic world does lack some deep experiences.”
Unheard?
With Syrah we explore the composition “Quis est deus” in Latin and English: “The text is ingenious. It seems to be set at the time of Christianization. The author asks, ‘Who shall this be, your God? Is he rich and powerful, does he have sons and daughters, where does he live, your God, and what does he look like?’ The English text is the modern translation and we had the spontaneous idea to include it partly in the song. It was also the first time for us. Never heard anything like that at all.” “O Welt”, based on a late text by Walther von der Vogelweide, is thought-provoking. Michael dives into the subject: “This is a poignant work of old age, a timeless one at that, the last text Walther wrote. He is torn by feelings: Bitterness about the society in which he had to live, fear of imminent death, melancholy and sadness about the lost good times long ago. To put all this into words in such a poignant way is high and supreme art.”
(Interview: Claudia Zinn-Zinnenburg)
Missed the first part? No problem, here it is.
The album “IX – Time Stands Still” at Amazon.de
QNTAL can also be heard here: “Gothic & Dark Wave” – enjoy & follow:
