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time_is_now
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« Reply #675 on: 19:30:10, 03-01-2008 » |
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Some rumours seem to have been circulating the internet since the initial somewhat obscure announcement, but I was reliably informed last week that Stockhausen died of heart failure on the morning of the day in question. There had been no 'kurze schwere Krankheit'. Also, members in or around Holland might be interested in the following, which I've just received by email (I can't translate it but the gist is more or less obvious I think): Donderdag 10 januari, 20.30 uur Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ Inleiding met Uitzicht, 19.30 uur Asko Ensemble & Schönberg Ensemble dirigent Stefan Asbury trompet Marco Blaauw klarinet/bassethoorn Fie Schouten klarinet Michel Marang bassethoorn Erin Simmons Michaels Reise um die Erde Geheel onverwacht overleed op 5 december 2007 Karlheinz Stockhausen. Als hommage aan deze Duitse componist, spelen het Asko Ensemble en het Schönberg Ensemble een tweetal werken. Met Gesang der Jünglinge, het gebed tot Onze Heer van drie knaapjes in het hellevuur (uit het boek Daniël in het Oude Testament), wilde de jonge Stockhausen een bijdrage leveren aan de rooms-katholieke eredienst. Een lofzang op de Schepper, met de modernste middelen die de muziek - op dat moment - ten dienst stonden, bedoeld om afgespeeld te worden in dat ene baken dat was blijven staan in een verder geheel platgebombardeerde stad: de Keulse Dom. Michaels Reise um die Erde vormt de tweede akte uit Donnerstag, het vierde deel van zijn monumentale operacyclus Licht. Hoofdpersonen in Licht zijn Lucifer, Eva en de aartsengel Michael. In deze tweede akte, die in het teken staat van zijn strijd met Lucifer, gaan Michael en zijn trompet met zeven dempers op muzikale wereldreis en laten zich daarbij inspireren door tradities uit alle windstreken. Bespot door twee clowneske klarinettisten en gekruisigd door pauken, tuba's en hoorns vaart Michael uiteindelijk, in een staat van verlichting, ten hemel. Programma Karlheinz Stockhausen Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-1956) Michaels Reise um die Erde (1978) Inleiding met Uitzicht De 'Inleiding met Uitzicht' wordt verzorgd door componist Richard Rijnvos en Stockhausen-kenner, Eric Verbugt. Voor meer informatie www.promsaanhetij.nl, www.muziekgebouw.nl, www.schoenberg-ensemble.nl, info@promsaanhetij.nl Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ – Piet Heinkade 1, Amsterdam kaarten reserveren: 020 – 7882000 - € 22,00 / € 17,50 / € 10,- |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Al Moritz
Posts: 57
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« Reply #676 on: 23:10:46, 03-01-2008 » |
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Some rumours seem to have been circulating the internet since the initial somewhat obscure announcement, but I was reliably informed last week that Stockhausen died of heart failure on the morning of the day in question.
Yes, I have heard this from reliable sources as well. |
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stuart macrae
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« Reply #677 on: 00:29:31, 04-01-2008 » |
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Ich auch. I heard he woke up, felt his breathing was different and that a completely new time was beginning, and collapsed more or less upon getting up. I'm sure that's been published somewhere, but I heard it through just one intermediary. As well as the fact that he had been working right up until the night before, as normal, which is a nice thing I feel.
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...trj...
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« Reply #680 on: 11:30:15, 18-04-2008 » |
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Yum!
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time_is_now
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« Reply #681 on: 12:28:12, 18-04-2008 » |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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stuart macrae
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« Reply #682 on: 16:45:40, 18-04-2008 » |
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Wow. I really can't wait. Brilliant!
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #684 on: 11:28:09, 26-04-2008 » |
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Michaels Reise um die Erde is basically a kind of 1970s Ein Heldenleben, isn't it?
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richard barrett
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« Reply #685 on: 21:39:17, 08-06-2008 » |
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I've just been spinning Cosmic Pulses, Stockhausen's last electronic composition, completed in 2007. It consists of 24 layers, each of which consists of a melodic "loop" of between one and 24 pitches, repeating constantly with independent variations in tempo, pitch (glissandi) and movement through a circular array of 8 speakers. (This material was also used, three layers at a time, as the accompaniment to the 8 solo-instrumental/vocal pieces which follow Cosmic Pulses in Stockhausen's unfinished KLANG cycle.)
Stockhausen remarks in the liner notes that he isn't sure whether all of the layers can really be heard (they certainly can't at a first hearing on a stereo CD, but after the piece itself the CD ontains the first 90 seconds or so of each layer in turn, acquaintance with which will probably help) but that it was a fascinating experiment, which I find a beautiful statement coming from a composer who was 78 at the time. My impression was of something massively chaotic, made up from the kind of synthetic timbres which Stockhausen favoured in his later works (but which often sound to me somewhat thin and clinical). I would imagine though that a performance at high volume in a large enough space with eight speakers would still be quite impressive.
It's interesting, I think, that in the KLANG pieces Stockhausen often uses a much simpler, almost didactic kind of serial structuring than is found in most of his earlier work (Am Himmel wandre ich being an exception maybe), and that most of these pieces are focused much more on "Tonhöhe" rather than "Klang" ("pitch" rather than "sound"). Even so, Cosmic Pulses does come across to me as the work of someone who until the very end of his life was committed to expanding the limits of musical perception, which could be said of very few other composers of his generation or since.
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Al Moritz
Posts: 57
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« Reply #686 on: 01:31:51, 10-06-2008 » |
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Richard,
while I enjoy the timbres of the work much more than you apparently do, I wholeheartedly agree when you say:
"Cosmic Pulses does come across to me as the work of someone who until the very end of his life was committed to expanding the limits of musical perception, which could be said of very few other composers of his generation or since."
Quite extraordinary indeed.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #687 on: 12:09:48, 10-06-2008 » |
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Hello Al,
My "thin and clinical" comment wasn't specifically aimed at Cosmic Pulses, actually, but at the synthetic version of Himmelfahrt which must be somewhat pale in comparison to the version for organ, which I haven't heard. Having said that, and having in the meantime listened to the snippets of each layer in turn, I have the impression that the distinctive timbres of the individual layers tend to lose their identity somewhat when they're all put together, so that the upper partials of all the different sounds merge into a generalised high-frequency mass. I am pretty sure this wouldn't happen to anything like the same extent when listening in 8 channels rather than two. I also had the impression that many of the timbres are extremely similar to those used in the electronic music of Freitag (which I've heard in multichannel form both in concert and in the opera house), although of course every composer has his/her preferences in that sort of area.
I think in fact that all the layers can indeed be heard, with careful listening and a bit of goodwill.
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Al Moritz
Posts: 57
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« Reply #688 on: 21:27:33, 10-06-2008 » |
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Hello Al,
My "thin and clinical" comment wasn't specifically aimed at Cosmic Pulses, actually, but at the synthetic version of Himmelfahrt which must be somewhat pale in comparison to the version for organ, which I haven't heard.
Ah, I see. I had similar reservations about the version of Himmelfahrt with synthesizer, and even personally "confronted" Antonio, the synth player, during the Kuerten summer courses about that. In the meantime my perception has changed: http://home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/himmelfahrt.htm(Heading: The sound – tempo melodies) I have seen the video of the version for organ during the courses, but the sound quality was so bad that I can hardly compare with the version for synthesizer. It sounded like organ, what can I say? |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #689 on: 12:04:57, 11-06-2008 » |
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What I miss in those synthetic sounds of Stockhausen's electronic-keyboard parts is the sense of every sound evolving individually within itself, as is the case for example in Weltraum where each sound in each layer is subject to constant subtle "hand-made" adjustments so that they retain an internal life and attraction even at those immensely slowed-down tempi. This is not to mention Stockhausen's earlier "analogue" electronic music up to and including Sirius, or of course any acoustic instrument or voice, where that quality exists as a matter of course. That's what I mean by "clinical". The trouble is that the commercial synthesizers that Stockhausen and his collaborators used are geared to the kind of precise "industrial" reproduction demanded by most pop musicians, who of course represent the vast majority of users and whose priorities are therefore hard-wired into these devices. I may be mistaking Stockhausen's priorities, but once you've heard one sound using a particular timbre, every other sound using that timbre sounds precisely the same as it and evolves in time in exactly the same way, and this quality I find reduces rather than increases my attention to the musical processes.
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