Der Aktionnär

Van der Graaf Generator were one of the most original and inspiring bands of the 1970s. This boxed set celebrates this second era of Van der Graaf Generator with all of the albums issued by the band between 2005 and 2016. Including the albums Present, Real Time, Trisector, Live At The Paradiso, A Grounding In Numbers, Alt, Merlin Atmos and the long deleted live double album and concert DVD ‘Live At Paradiso’ and the rare additional live CD previously issued only on the limited Japanese release of ‘Real Time’.

The foreboding crawl of the Hammond organ is what made Van Der Graaf Generator one of the darkest and most engrossing of all the early progressive bands. On H to He Who Am the Only One, the brooding tones of synthesizer and oscillator along with Peter Hammil's distinct and overly ominous voice make it one of this British band's best efforts…

Van Der Graaf Generator's third album, Pawn Hearts was also its second most popular; at one time this record was a major King Crimson cult item due to the presence of Robert Fripp on guitar, but Pawn Hearts has more to offer than that. The opening track, "Lemmings," calls to mind early Gentle Giant, with its eerie vocal passages (including harmonies) set up against extended sax, keyboard, and guitar-driven instrumental passages, and also with its weird keyboard and percussion interlude, though this band is also much more contemporary in its focus than Gentle Giant…

Van Der Graaf Generator is an English eclectic progressive rock band with front man Peter Hammill from 'the classic period' that has proven be one of the most important bands of the progressive genre. An eye-opening trip to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the summer of 1967 inspired British-born drummer Chris Judge Smith to compose a list of possible names for the rock group he wished to form. Upon his return to Manchester University, he began performing with singer/songwriter Peter Hammill and keyboardist Nick Peame; employing one of the names from Judge Smith's list, the band dubbed itself Van der Graaf Generator (after a machine that creates static electricity), eventually earning an intense cult following as one of the era's preeminent art rock groups…

The Mass in B Minor, hailed in 1818 as the “greatest musical composition of all times and all cultures” by its first publisher, Hans-Georg Nägeli of Zurich, is today revered as one of the greatest works in the history of classical music. Not only has the composition substantially shaped the contemporary relevance of Johann Sebastian Bach, but it also underpins his standing as a pre-eminent artist of universal appeal.

Peter Hammill has always had an abiding interest, it seems, in the blurred boundary between the mystical and the scientific, and between the rational and magical mind; this is certainly evident on the debut Van Der Graaf Generator album, even though Hammill had yet to really begin focusing himself on what it was that was driving him (despite the fact that the band's very name referenced a device that resembles a bastard mix of scientific apparatus and shamanic totem)…

Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, my desire), BWV 32, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the dialogue cantata (Concerto in Dialogo) in Leipzig for the first Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it on 13 January 1726 as part of his third cantata cycle.