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All Music Guide:
A German pagan folk band, Faun incorporate medieval instruments and themes along with a contemporary electronic musical sheen. Founded in 2002 in Munich, the band is comprised of Oliver Sa Tyr (vocals, nyckelharpa, Celtic harp, bouzouki, lute, percussion), Fiona Rüggeberg (vocals, bagpipes, dombra, rebab, oud, flutes, chalmeux, pommer), Sandra Elflein (vocals, violin, flute), Rüdiger Maul (darabouka, davul, bendir, tamborello, riq, berimbao, percussion), and Niel Mitra (programming, sampler, synthesizer); former members include Lisa Pawelke (vocals, hurdy-gurdy). The band made its recording debut in 2002 on the German pagan folk label Curzweyhl with Zaubersprüche (2002), followed by Licht (2004), Renaissance (2005), and Totem (2007), the latter of which was their first to break into the German Top 100 album chart. In addition to Faun's affiliation with Curzweyhl, the band was also affiliated with the American label Noir Records, which released Renaissance and Totem stateside. In 2008 the band released its first live album, Faun & the Pagan Folk Festival (2008), and welcomed Sandra Elflein into its ranks in the place of departed bandmember Lisa Pawelke.
Wikipedia:
The faun (Latin: faunus, Ancient Greek: φαῦνος, phaunos, pronounced [pʰaynos]) is a rustic forest god or goddess (genii) of Roman mythology often associated with enchanted woods and the Greek god Pan and his satyrs.
Origins [edit]
The faun is a half human–half goat (from the head to the waist being human, but with the addition of goat horns) manifestation of forest and animal spirits that would help or hinder humans at whim. Romans believed fauns inspired fear in men traveling in lonely, remote or wild places. They were also capable of guiding humans in need, as in the fable of The Satyr and the Traveller, in the title of which Latin authors substituted the word Faunus. Fauns and satyrs were originally quite different creatures: whereas fauns are half-man and half-goat, satyrs originally were depicted as stocky, hairy, ugly dwarfs or woodwoses with the ears and tails of horses or asses. Satyrs also were more woman-loving than fauns, and fauns were rather foolish where satyrs had more knowledge.
Ancient Roman mythological belief also included a god named Faunus and a goddess named Fauna who were goat people.
Fauns in art [edit]
The Barberini Faun (located in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany) is a Hellenistic marble statue from about 200 BCE, found in the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian (the Castel Sant'Angelo) and installed at Palazzo Barberini by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII). Gian Lorenzo Bernini restored and refinished the statue.
The House of the Faun in Pompei, dating from the 2nd century BCE, was so named because of the dancing faun statue that was the centerpiece of the large garden. The original now resides in the National Museum in Naples and a copy stands in its place.
The French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé's famous masterpiece L'après-midi d'un faune (published in 1876) describes the sensual experiences of a faun who has just woken up from his afternoon sleep and discusses his encounters with several nymphs during the morning in a dreamlike monologue. The composer Claude Debussy based his symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894) on the poem.
