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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > 21st Century > cosmic pulses
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Author Topic: cosmic pulses  (Read 528 times)
richard barrett
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« on: 12:00:44, 30-03-2007 »
The countdown has begun...

http://www.stockhausen.org/cosmic_pulses.html

I wonder what that will be like.
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stuart macrae
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« Reply #1 on: 18:14:52, 31-03-2007 »
I'm afraid I've stopped holding my breath for good new Stockhausen pieces. The last two new pieces I heard were Wednesday's Greeting and Wednesday's Farewell, and while there were a few interesting moments in each, and the sound diffusion was quite impressive, there wasn't really enough material of interest here to sustain my interest for nearly 2 hours - in fact, it would have been much better if he'd concentrated his ideas into one piece of, say, 20 minutes (the way he used to...) - IMHO of course.

Having said that, I heaven't heard anything from KLANG yet and maybe it'll be different. But as I said, I'm not holding my breath any more.

Presumably the 13th hour if KLANG is composed out-of-sequence, and he hasn't already done the first 12 hours?!
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #2 on: 18:47:49, 31-03-2007 »
Stuart
There are some little clips of Klang on his website that are well worth a listen.
They still have some aspects of which I dubious (his take on the speaking performer, for instance) but the overall soundworld (from what you can gather from these little mini-soundbites) sounds more coherent and compelling than a lot of Licht. Mittwoch (apart from the Helicopters) seems to have been a low point in Licht. I saw Orchestral Soloists (with that stupid mummy with that gong) and some other bits from it at Huddersfield in 1996, and, even with inexperienced ears, heard the disparity in quality between the earlier work and the Helicopter quartet, and the other parts of Mittwoch. Hope that's not too strident... Veronika will have to slap my legs if it is...

From what I have read of the website (although in some places, cosmic pulses, has been referred to as the sixth hour of KLANG), it has been composed out of sequence. Which presumably means that he has more of an idea of how the whole thing is going to work than he did last year.
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'is this all we can do?'
anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965)
http://www.myspace.com/itensemble
richard barrett
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« Reply #3 on: 20:10:57, 01-04-2007 »
Veronika tells me you're spot on there. From what I've heard too Mittwoch seems to be the most musically problematic of the seven, and KLANG seems to benefit enormously from not being based on the same material he'd been using since the end of the 1970s, especially the harp duo.
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #4 on: 23:02:55, 01-04-2007 »
Does Veronika have any comments on Sonntag? I haven't heard any of it.
I've just been reading the Wikipedia article on the Urantia Book, which informed Stockhausen's nascent cosmology and is referenced in Licht. Blimey.
I suppose I'm a bit disappointed that Stockhausen's vision of Sonntag is so, well, conventional and Christian (and by Christian, I'm including all of the myths and stuff that come with churches). Luzifer isn't invited to the transcendent moment, meanwhile there's some kind of Oedipal conjoinment as the grand climax of the whole project. Please tell me it's all a bit more complex than that.
Quote from: richard barrett on 20:10:57, 01-04-2007
KLANG seems to benefit enormously from not being based on the same material he'd been using since the end of the 1970s
Well that has got to do something odd to you.
Also, thinking about it, it's probably the longest that Stockhausen has ever stuck to one project. Significantly longer. I suppose it's not really surprising that it goes off the boil at the end.
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'is this all we can do?'
anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965)
http://www.myspace.com/itensemble
richard barrett
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« Reply #5 on: 23:51:56, 01-04-2007 »
What I know of Sonntag, which isn't very much (the chamber-orchestra piece with voices Lichter-Wasser),  impressed me much more than anything I've heard from Mittwoch. I don't know anything about the conceptual/dramatic concept of it though. I try not to think too much about that side of things with Stockhausen...
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