”Behind The Mirror” Perception och tolkning av Blutengel hos deras fans

Abstract

This paper strives to answer ”What happens to the experience of diehard fans when a group changes an original song?” and the musical example for this are the German group Blutengel and their songs Behind The Mirror and Reich mir die Hand, which they first performed as symphonic versions at 2012’s Gothic meets Klassik in Leipzig, Germany. Theoretically this paper is built on the idea that musical meaning conjures not only from the music itself, but also from the perceiver and the situation. Through five interviews this paper answers who the informants are, what music means for them and specifically, what the music of Blutengel means for them. The result shows that the informants were acceptant to the musical change, but for some disappointment would occur if the band continued with orchestral instrumentation. The limit for acceptance seems not to lie in musical rearrangement but instead in changed artistic identity.