The short version
- Irrlicht was Klaus Schulze's first solo album, released on the West German label Ohr in August 1972. Its subtitle calls it a "quadrophonic symphony for orchestra and electronic machines".
- In November 1973 the New York weekly The Village Voice wrote about it, and in December the French monthly Best. The quotes come from the page of period reviews on Schulze's official website.
- The New York critic brought it up in a piece about new German music. The Paris critic took this one record as proof that Schulze was a once-a-decade genius.
- The two reviews did not even agree on what was in the record. Later reviews could not agree on how big the orchestra was.
On 8 November 1973, Frank Rose's piece in the New York weekly The Village Voice opens with Germany. "Let's face it, Germany has never been known as a breeding ground for rock music." The Beatles were in Hamburg, Rose goes on, but they had to go back to England to get famous. Even the Germans ignored their own bands in favour of British and American chart hits. That, he writes, had all changed over the past couple of years.
What we read
Schulze's official website keeps a page of period reviews for each album. The Irrlicht page has seven: three from 1973, two from 1975, one from 1977 and a look back from 1990. The first of the 1973 reviews ran in August in the Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger. This piece reads the other two from that year. The site gives excerpts, with dots where it has cut.
New York: not AM radio material
In Rose's article Schulze is one of several new things coming out of Germany. Rose introduces him as the man who used to play drums in Tangerine Dream and then in Ash Ra Tempel. He gives the record its full name, "Irrlicht: Quadrophonische Symphonie für Orchester und E-Maschinen", and notes that it is available separately. If you are interested in electronic music, he says, you have to check it out. Then he adds a line:
"None of it is exactly the kind of stuff you're likely to hear on AM radio."
The excerpt on the site ends with praise. Much of this music is really remarkable, Rose writes, especially the way it uses the synthesizer to produce sounds that are not synthesized, original sounds, as the basis for long and complex compositions.
Rose said synthesizer. The record's subtitle says electronic machines instead, and the first pressing lists its orchestra instrument by instrument. On this record, the original, unsynthesized sound is that orchestra.
Paris: once a decade
A month later, in December 1973, Hervé Picart wrote in the French monthly Best in a completely different key. For Picart, Schulze was the soul of Berlin's cosmic music: once in Tangerine Dream, then a founder of Ash Ra Tempel, now out on his own. He played drums, percussion, organs and synthesizers, and he was a musical researcher living twenty years ahead of everyone else. Geniuses of his kind, Picart wrote, turn up once every ten years.
This is the Irrlicht Picart heard: "une stupéfiante symphonie pour orchestre et machines electroniques", a stunning symphony for orchestra and electronic machines. He had taken the subtitle almost word for word. The music was so beautiful, he said, that you forgot how new it was. He ended on a revolutionary music being born on the other side of the Rhine.
Faced with the same record, New York recommended it to anyone interested in electronic music, and Paris declared a genius. New York said you would not hear it on the radio; Paris said its beauty made you forget its novelty. Both heard orchestra and machines mixed together. New York was struck by the method, Paris by the result.
The reviews that came later
In April 1975, in the Italian Nuovo Sound, Luigi Romagnoli wrote that Schulze had filtered a 25-piece orchestra and laid other sounds over it. The first pressing lists 27 players: eight violins, three violas, eight cellos, one double bass, two horns, two flutes and three oboes. In June that year the Spanish Vibraciones called Schulze the Chopin of electronic music.
In November 1977, in the American magazine Trouser Press, Allen Gunnison called the album technically quite simple. Looking back in 1990, the British magazine Audion said it had no actual synths at all, only electronic organ, oscillators and recordings of an orchestra conducted by Schulze himself. The first pressing thanks the orchestra, its Kapellmeister and its conductor. Whether there was a synthesizer went back and forth from critic to critic, and the size of the orchestra and who conducted it shifted a little from one piece to the next.
How to listen
Listen twice. The first time, play side one through without knowing anything, like a New York reader in 1973. It runs 29 minutes. The second time, put side two, "Exil Sils Maria", on with the first pressing's list of instruments beside you. As you listen for the eight cellos, your breathing slows by itself. If Schulze is new to you, our Schulze guide sets out the order.
If you send a friend one track, make it "Exil Sils Maria", a little over 21 minutes. It takes up the whole of side two of the record the New York and Paris critics heard in 1973.
Headphones, not AM radio. The long notes of 27 players fill the room.
Where to get it
Irrlicht first came out as Ohr OMM 556.022 in 1972. From the 1975 Brain reissue on, the cover is a painting by Urs Amann, and the 2006 Revisited Records CD adds "Dungeon", 24 minutes long.