"Poor little orphan boy alone and starving among the ruins," you mean. How very Victorian!

But this thread is drifting off course. We still await a response to our number 298 in defence of serious-minded discrimination and analysis!

Richard,

while I share your skepticism regarding the frantic tempo with which the prayer gestures constantly change in the "Polyphony" section of Inori, I love the music of that section. What you describe in a later post as clumsy and crude is to me powerful and exciting in its high-voltage energy – to each their own taste I guess. I also like the strong impression of ecstasy that is conveyed.

Michaels Reise: Yes, the second half is more intimate than the first half with its visceral excitement, but this fits the operatic plot and I enjoy the melodic beauty of the textures. There is nothing wrong with a more intimate and/or subdued final section when it is introduced for valid reasons, as is also the case for the final section in your Tract, the beauty of which I enjoy as well (this is not to insinuate a perception that the musical aims and expression of these two works are in any way comparable – they aren’t).

Oktophonie: Do you mean the gorgeous flood of music towards the end, which appears to more and more build up to a climax, until at some point you realize that this flood wave is the climax itself – to me the high point of the entire work?

Luzifers Tanz: What about the Tip-of the-Tongue Dance which features one of Stockhausen’s most brilliant solos (piccolo flute)? Or what about the closing sections with their fantastic abduction of the final phrase of the Michael formula into the instrumental realm of Lucifer (low brass), and its subsequent being “finished off” in a spectacular manner (see my essay)?

The last act of Donnerstag: I have to admit that Michaels Heimkehr is not my particular favorite either, even though upon repeated listening it has made an ever stronger impression (the appreciation is not exactly made easier by the somewhat diffuse recording), but the following Vision definitely is a favorite. The power and authority of its vocal expression (ironically, often it is rather quiet) makes quite a few attempts at that by other contemporary composers sound stale to my ears. Also, the spectacularly subtle trumpet playing there should not be forgotten.

In Sonntag I like Hoch-Zeiten the least, but this is only the penultimate scene. The final scene, Licht-Bilder, on the other hand, must count among my Top-10 Stockhausen works (which probably puts it for me in the illustrious company of Piano Piece X as well, after all, and also in the one of the entire Inori). Its polyphony is utterly original, and to my mind, it is a polyphonic masterpiece with a capital M.

So no, I don’t see a systematic “second-half problem”. One “problem” that I see is that the works tend to be so long, which certainly amounts to a physiological challenge when it comes to keep being concentrated in the “second half” (maybe this is not an issue for you, for me it is at times). Where has the compact 20-25 minute piece gone? (Just kidding.)

I do share the experience though, mentioned by Biroc, that Musik im Bauch (which is really not that long) tends to lose me about half-way through.

I wasn't seeking to do either, actually; I was merely inviting you (and whilst I do indeed concede that getting to it from IL is not the easiest of things to do, I had nnot appreciated that this is where you are located).

Is that the royal "we", the Grew "we" or some other "we"? Not guilty personally, in any event...

Best,

Alistair

Yes, CD, sit over here with me in the peanut gallery.  Although Rhode Island is closer than Illinois... the flight's a couple hours shorter, at least, although I doubt I'll be able to hear much of the concert from here, what with the lawnmower next door.

Pretty weird places from what I've seen.

To-day we turn our attention to the Seventh of Heinz Stockhausen's Eleven Curious Little Piano Pieces. This one came into being in 1955 and lasts six minutes forty seconds; but may we from the outset warn Members that the work is a frightful failure! Let us here examine the reasons.

For the first minute and a half we hear a kind of perverted passacaglia - a single C sharp is slowly repeated about fifteen times, and after each repetition there is a kind of flourish of single notes from all parts of the keyboard - but only about five chords; "Oh dear!" we cannot help thinking, "it's another of  those self-styled 'composers' with absolutely no sense of harmony!" (It is also something like Sylvestreff is it not? but he came ten years later.)

There are two things wrong with this section: 1) instead of the single note repeated fifteen times we should have an interesting motif or passage repeated fifteen times. One of the first laws of æsthetics is the old rule which governs repetition; if something is going to be repeated, that is, it should be something which tasks the sensitive man's power of recognition to its limit - it must fill and almost overtax the mind, in such a way that the  recognition of its return will be quite difficult of achievement and nevertheless once accomplished all the more pleasurable precisely because it is complex and full of interest. In other words, it is just an insult to the listener to repeat something that is too simple, and easy to remember. As always, we may ask "What would Brahms have done?"

The second defect of Stockhausen's plan is that the decorative flourishes or rather flurries seem designed to be as confusing and instantly forgettable as possible. They contain no melody, no harmony, no counterpoint, no rhythm, no aim, and no Art; for the most part they are isolated notes which jump all over the range of the keyboard in the most confusing way possible. Few composers set out with the intention of writing pieces which the auditor will find as confusing unmemorable and unmusical as possible, but this was clearly the case here.

By the bye, apart from the idea of a dud passacaglia, Members might consider and compare Sibelius's well-known oboe melody on one note from the trio of his Second Symphony. What a world of difference is there!

Eventually the repetitions cease but the piece continues; the "composer" finds another way in which to bewilder his auditors. We can in fact imagine him thinking "What can I do next to annoy them?"

Well what follows is a minute of entirely nondescript music, except that at two minutes ten seconds we are almost certain that we hear again a hint of that old German nursery tune!

Then between the two minutes thirty seconds mark and the three minute mark all we hear is two single notes (a low B flat and a low C sharp) repeated many times one after the other bare of any accompaniment or sense of rhythm. It is entirely absurd of course; has the "composer" ever attempted to explain any of this we wonder? We doubt he could.

Next, between three minutes and four minutes, we must endure a passage very similar to the first, except that this time the single passacaglia note is an A instead of a C sharp.

There is no point in describing how the rest of it goes - it is very much the same and Members may imagine. Perhaps the work's only achievement in the end is that it is all of a piece. But its "composition" cannot have taken longer than half an hour. It must be the most unpleasant piano piece we have ever heard!

Perhaps Stockhausen imagined himself in an U-Boot in the North Atlantic. The repeated notes represent the Royal Navy SONAR, and the fast flourishes fish large and small flashing by. It's an idea, isn't it?

We thank the Member for giving us his interesting and indeed somewhat enlightening alternative viewpoint.


We suppose so; but we shall try to restrict our remarks to positive aspects of Pieces 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Is number six an especially good one? Perhaps the Member would be good enough to warn us off anything aleatoric. We believe we have some of Roger Smalley's performances of these things stashed away somewhere. Whatever became of him we wonder?