1.XI.MMIII - Allerseelen - Odrinhas - Portugal

Portugal Magical Mystery Tour

November MMIII

Allerseelen performed live on November 1st, 2003, in the Museu Arqueologico in Odrinhas, close to Sintra. The event was organized by Dagaz/ Sol de Ferro/ Terra Fria.

"Todos conheceis a intratavel melancolia que se apodera de nos ao recordamos tempos felizes." (Ernst Jünger, Sobre as falesias de marmore)

"Em cima, ficava ainda demoradamente sentado a janela, invadido por uma alegria serena, sentinao do fundo do coracao come a vida interra se desbobinava do fuso em fios dourados." (Ernst Jünger, Sobre as falesias de marmore)

The airplane from Wien to Lisboa. Blazing sunlight on the wings. Thinking of the book Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima. In the evening with my drummers in Lisboa. Rain. The paving-stones slippery - like a paradise for frogs jumping around in the steep lanes of Lisboa. The Cervejeria da Trindade. The Incognito Bar. The first copies of the Allerseelen mcd Pedra which was published especially for the concert in Odrinhas.

Sintra was beautiful, very autumnal. The lane with the beautiful name Caminho dos Castanhais. Visiting the artificial paradise Quinta da Regaleira with the mysterious Poco Iniciatico, a staircase of initiation built deep into the ground with three tunnels leading to other parts of this hidden world with grottoes, pools. Reminding me of The Magical Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The strange flower Jarro, its vanilla white blossom like an ear with a long white microphone in its inside. Soundcheck and concert in the Museu Arqueologico in Odrinhas. Presenting on stage all the new songs of the MCD Pedra. In the audience also some small children. Midnight dinner in Azenhas do Mar.

The Museo Arqueologico of Belem - stone warriors from the North of Portugal, their expression of saudade reminding of the tragic figure of Don Quijote. Wild boars made from stone. The beautiful cloister of the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, also in Belem, with some beautiful flowers and mandalas in the stone. A large dolmen in Belas, between Sintra and Lisboa, re-constructed with the help of three-hundert soldiers. Peacocks in evergreen trees covered with moss. Books on the megalithic culture of Portugal, menirs, dolmens, cromeleques. Vinho tinto from Alentejo.

Searching in the cloister of the Se Catedral in Lisboa for the corvo e coruja, the raven and the owl which I had discovered in the book Portugal. Terra de Misterios by Paulo Alexandre Loucao. Finding Auf den Marmorklippen by Ernst Jünger in Portuguese, Sobre as Falesias de Marmore. Drinking coffee in the Casa d´Alentejo. In the Museu Arqueologico do Carmo many prehistoric artefacts, stones and bones and pottery with rock carvings. Two Inka mummies, a girl and a boy. The noisy soundscapes of Imbolc. The green eyes of the Portuguese cats. In the evening reading some lines in the two books by Otto Rahn, translated into Portuguese.

The train to Porto. Many impressions. Being almost in a state of dream or drunkenness. Vinho verde. The beautiful and passionate music of Sangre Cavallum, full of saudade. Sleeping in front of an open fire.

The train from Porto to Regua and Vila Real. The most beautiful colours of outono, autumn along the Caminhos de Ferro Portugueses. Golden chestnut-trees, ruby-red vine leaves, the ferns like rusty. More and more hills. Steep vineyards, tunnels, the hoopers of the train. Blood-red leaves. Lemons, oranges growing on the trees. Alto Douro, Tras-os-Montes. The river Douro like the Donau in the Strudengau. More and more stones, granite. Beautiful blue blossoms with purple pentagrams inside. Between Regua and Vila Real one of the most beautiful landscapes I ever saw . Flaming red vineyards, darkbrown earth. The colours of scarlet, gold. The excavations of Panoias. The small town Chaves. Drinking Brandymel. The dark music of Karnnos, Wolfskin. Visiting in the moonlight the ruins of the castle Montfort. The cries of the corujas, the owls.

Serra do Geres. Cows with long twisted horns. Beautiful mountains with grey peaks, golden chestnut-trees, golden maples, golden oaks. The ruin of the Mosteiro close to Pitoes das Junias and the sounds of the accordion of Karnnos in the warm sun of Callaecia. A small cromeleque in the evening, between the rising moon and the setting sun. Eating bacalhao, stockfish. Vinho tinto Cabeca de Touro. Walking in the blue light of the moon through pine woods. The blue face of the moon here much more clear than in Central Europe, mouth and nose like a painting by Joan Miro.

The ancient Roman gold mines of Tres Minas in the East of Vila Pouca de Aguiar. A long subterranean tunnel. Silver drops of water on the ceiling. The earth on the shoes like a mud containing particles of gold. Some ravens in the air. Thinking of alchemy. The actual gold not inside in the tunnels where the Romans were searching for it but on the outside - to be aware of the beauty of the omnipresent gold of the leaves. The autumnal music of Comus. The waste lands of Serra da Falperra and Serra da Marao. Being tired and enchanted - cansado e encantado. The Cozinha de Quessus in Penafiel - rural kitchen, vinho verde. The powerful and passionate and psychoactive folklore of Sangre Cavallum, again containing a lot of saudade - a word which needs in German three different words - Schwermut, Sehnsucht, Wehmut.

A rainy day in the Serra do Geres. A rainbow. The beautiful Roman and Templaric church of Bravaes with stone ravens looking like odal runes on the portal. The dolmens of Mezio, wild chestnut-brown horses in the rust-brown ferns that are turning whole hills into hills of rust. Cow bones in the fog. In the twilight the village Soajo with the strange corn containers named Espigeiros which look like the tombstones of the Bogomiles. Visiting at midnight in the rain the beautiful dolmen Santa Marta of Penafiel.

Alto Douro. The dolmen Orca Grande close to Alvite. Nossa Senhora da Lapa, a beautiful grotto sanctuary inside a church with a narrow tunnel. The castel of Penedono. Close to Penela da Beira the church ruin Nossa Senhora do Monte with a dolmen that was used as altar. Another dolmen close to the church. Great landscape, golden glowing chestnut-trees, dark-grey granite, blueish hills and a strange sunlight between the heavy clouds. Close to the river Douro, close to the village Sao Joao da Pesoveira in the twilight on the hill of Sao Salvador do Mundo - three white chapels on the hill, close to one of them a gruta, a grotto leading maybe to one of the other chapels. Radio Aveiro playing music by Allerseelen, O Paradis and other groups in the programme 4 Luas, Four Moons. At the beach. The water and the clouds again like grey granite.

Train to Lisboa. Síntra. Castel dos Mouros. Much granite stones, prehistoric traces, cisterns. The lighthouse Cabo da Roca. In Sintra a bookshop with Hölderlin in German and Portuguese: Elegias. In his poems again the Portuguese saudade very strong. In the village Janas the beautiful circular church Sao Mamede, unfortunately closed. The village Gouveia with its streets that have poems instead of names. In the evening in the Museu Arqueologico in Odrinhas - Roman sarcophags, stones, wisigothic stones, estelas discoideas, Templaric tomb stones. Walking in the moonlight. The village Eugaria - here the houses have no numbers but names. Searching for the Tholos de Monge, close to the Convento dos Capuchos.

Hölderlin reminding me of Alto Douro: "Und des heiligen Tranks sind voll im Strome die Schiffe, Städte und Inseln, sie sind trunken von Weinen."/"E os barcos que navegom vao carregados da bebida sagrada, cidades e ilhas estao ebrias de vinhos." And: "Warme Berge mit  Wein"/"Cheia do vinho dos montes calidos."

Early in the morning the train to Lisboa. The ferryboat over the Tejo which was full of fog to Barreiro. The train to Lagos. The sea. The black sea ravens, corvos do mar. An iron rune on the coast. The white menhir Aspadrantes close to Raposeira. The nocturnal sea in Hortas do Tabual. The milky way very clear. The lighthouse Cabo de Sao Vicente - a lot of dolphins in the sea, around two-hundred metres away. Black paramilitary troops of dolphins heading towards North. Like a secret mission. My mission: art. The Templaric church Nossa Senhora de Guadelupe. The Necropole megalitica de Alcalar, unfortunately closed.

The train back to Lisboa and Sintra. The Convento dos Capuchos. A very earthy place, a lot of little cells for the monks, almost like caves. In some way a subterranean sanctuary. A beautiful place where the sun is said to shine at the two solstices through the round hole above the door of the chapel close to the well. Finally the Tholos de Monge, like the remainings of a megalithic tower. A bosque encantado in the twilight, a very beautiful magical wood, the branches with a fur of moss. Branches like green or black flames. Moss, ivy. Like paintings by Ivan Bilibin.

The chapel Santa Eufemia. The Parque de Pena - very much granite, very much wood. Beautiful. Many caves, for example the Gruta do Monge. The temple Alto de Santo Antonio with its twelve columns and the red Templars´ cross. Stormy weather. The Cruz Alta. Again at the Tholos of Monge. The church of Pedenha. The beach of Praia da Adraga, the storm throwing huge amounts of spuma branca, white foam, on the land - like a snow storm. Visiting again Azenha do Mar. Having dinner in a great restaurant. Fish. Great wine. Cor rubi, ruby colour. The poems of Fernando Pessoa. Portugal as Port-do-Gral.

The Casa da Alentejo in Lisboa. Leaving for Austria. The sunset glowing-red like Luzifers Hofgesind, a book which I saw various times in Portuguese in some houses in Portugal.

Gerhard, 31.III.MMIV

 

Knowing beforehand that this concert in particular would take place next to an ancient roman necropolis, and that the artist is quite appropriately called Allerseelen (which is in perfect consonance with the scheduled date), then one should be so sure that everything was set for a magical evening. For the ones familiar with the “private” concerts taking place in these shores for some ten years now, an old ritual is slowly revealed, as if in slow motion before our eyes.. When we listened to “Abenteuerliches Herz”, we gathered the instant perception of his lively and dynamic coherence, hence the evening’s celebration seeming of absolute interest to us. The introductory visit paid to the Archaeological Museum of São Miguel de Odrinhas came as the most adequate appetizer to Allerseelen – the fleeting minutes that made us travel in time from Etruscan Italy to the major Templar influence in our country, rehashed our interest in actually witnessing Gerhard’s live set. The first task of the night’s operation was successfully accomplished. The impeccable hosts showed their sincere kindness by offering everyone an elegantly packed 3-track cd/ep, “Pedra” by Allerseelen, which starts off the Terra Fria label, plus a three-folded leaflet filled with precious historical info about the monolithic necropolises outside the area of Sintra. When everybody had already filled the auditorium’s seats, there came in quick but confident step, Gerhard’s slim and dashing figure, as if politely taking the diminutive niche-like stage by storm. “Olá! Boa-noite!” he greeted in a Spanish-tainted Portuguese, quickly announcing the evening’s starter: “Pedra” (and here the German accent could not be softened - “Pedrrra”…). In all the many albums by Allerseelen, minimalism is only apparent, because merely physical – in reality, that is, within the inner dimension that binds both narrator and listener, a swirling staircase of indoctrinating perception is built, step by step, to the chambers of ultimate instinctive communion – and, remarkably enough, did he manage to repeat it live, this evening! Yes, why not just like the climbing of a philosophical initiatory well? Gerhard himself, poet of Europa’s “petrimundum”, is one sober and discreet host. The drummer-boys had been recruited among Hekate’s hordes, something of a sure credit for a demolishing percussive pulse for the evening. A swift and cunning selection from recent material, including a majority of numbers from the double-gatefold-album “Flamme” (a very pleasant release, somehow strangely reminding the back of our minds of things such as “The world that summer”), a few tracks from “Abenteuerliches Herz” and the ones featured in “Pedra”, performed with metronome-like precision, unfortunately with little to no verbal communication whatsoever on behalf of Gerhard in-between songs, something which could bring a little more clarity to the audience understanding, since the lyrics are mostly in German. Through Allerseelen’s hour-and-half performance, Gerhard and his acolytes, “Axel-und-Mario”, kept the hundred attending souls as if suspended in rapture, from the lyrics in German and Spanish, sitting but dreaming to the combination of sounds and rhythms, coming out of the main desk, out of the drum skins and the cymbals’ steel – poetry + voice + acoustic percussion + electronics, standing for a magical equation of highly suggestive powers, born of the long march of time in Europa’s Imagery, making Allerseelen’s visit to Portugal an unforgettable rendition. In the end, All Souls applauded enthusiastically, but the musicians did not return to the stage carved in white in the vast wall of the Auditorium – concerts without encores are best engraved in one’s memory (just think of Death in June’s, in Lisbon, January 97), for one is more likely to remember best what is, in itself, unique. Joaa Carlos Silva, Radio Aveiro FM (96.5 Mhz) (North-Atlantic Portugal) – programme “4 Luas” (Four Moons). http://allerseelen.dagaz-music.com/