Stockhausen's Spaceship

Started by Cato, September 21, 2007, 06:24:19 AM

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Brünnhilde forever

After listenig to his Gruppen a few times, I put it aside for later contemplation, which was many months ago!

This week I was surprised by the lucid essay by our - all too often absent - member Alex Ross in The New Yorker, October 13 2008 issue. NOW it makes much more sense, thank you, Alex Ross!

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/10/13/081013crmu_music_ross

Symphonien

#141
Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on October 11, 2008, 04:04:15 PM
Nice. Hardly sounds like Stockhausen to me, though. Must be a later style thing.

Indeed, I was very fascinated and surprised by hearing that too. Nothing like what I expected at all. I will have to get to know some more of his later works. I remember listening to the BBC radio program on him shortly after his death which included an excerpt of Freude for two harps. I was extremely surprised by hearing that one as well and could hardly believe that Stockhausen had written it.

gomro

Quote from: Symphonien on October 13, 2008, 10:00:42 PM
Indeed, I was very fascinated and surprised by hearing that too. Nothing like what I expected at all. I will have to get to know some more of his later works. I remember listening to the BBC radio program on him shortly after his death which included an excerpt of Freude for two harps. I was extremely surprised by hearing that one as well and could hardly believe that Stockhausen had written it.

Have you, then, heard Freude in its entirety? I can't recommend it highly enough.  In fact, as I get to know the Klang pieces, I'm almost about to declare that Stockhausen was at his lifetime best in these works for solo instruments/small ensembles.

Ugh!

What is the music of his son Markus Stockhausen like?

gomro

Quote from: Ugh! on November 07, 2008, 10:23:46 PM
What is the music of his son Markus Stockhausen like?

NOTHING like his father's: modern jazz, not unlike some of the stuff ECM put out in its early days. You can hear some samples of the latest Markus release HERE:
http://mp3.de/musik/genre/band/100000/270399/32_212199

snyprrr

you all know he died in december, right?

(1928-2008)

or is he just outside....looking in?

HELIKOPTER QUARTET ....aaaarrrrgh  an infinitely better idea JUST came to me (no doubt from stockhausen himself since we all cohabit the same flux constant)....

and i am copyrighting this now.......gather a collection of birds and animals with the most interesting voices, and make the arditti quartet "communicate" with them,
                                                            and between the creatures and the quartet could be some third kagel/lucier/crumb/stockhausen-type intermediating
                                                                    performance type factor (like water bowls, or resonating something, or a piece of kryptonite...)


HMMM???


but i have always enjoyed his piano music, and i seem to be one of the few who finds GRUPPEN jolly.

reminds me of strangelove + klaus kinski

gomro

Quote from: James on January 17, 2009, 09:59:52 AM
Up next on BBC Radio 3's Hear & Now programme ...

Robert Worby and Sara Mohr-Pietsch introduce coverage of the 2008 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. The programme features the UK premiere of Hope - the 9th hour of Stockhausen's KLANG and Outer Nothingness by Sun Ra, alongside music from John Cage: Concert Reclaimed which closed the 2008 festival.

Plus the UK premiere of Knochen by Enno Poppe, who also discusses the work.

>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gnr86

For my money, the Stockhausen was far and away the most substantial piece on that program. I was expecting some pretty good things from the Poppe, whose brief interview before the performance piqued my interest, but the work itself was dull. The show had a sudden ending, as it were; one would expect some audience reaction, commentary or something thereafter, but it wasn't forthcoming.

gomro

#147
Been playing Freude today, the beautiful piece for 2 harps from KLANG; like Gruppen above, I've "painted" my impressions of the work. I received some new art tech for Christmas, so the images are a little less crudely chiseled, at least:


Hoffnung, the string trio from KLANG, is also very beautiful; looking forward to the Stockhausen-Verlag release of that one.

Ugh!

Quote from: snyprrr on January 17, 2009, 10:48:59 AM
you all know he died in december, right?

(1928-2008)

or is he just outside....looking in?

HELIKOPTER QUARTET ....aaaarrrrgh  an infinitely better idea JUST came to me (no doubt from stockhausen himself since we all cohabit the same flux constant)....

and i am copyrighting this now.......gather a collection of birds and animals with the most interesting voices, and make the arditti quartet "communicate" with them,
                                                            and between the creatures and the quartet could be some third kagel/lucier/crumb/stockhausen-type intermediating
                                                                    performance type factor (like water bowls, or resonating something, or a piece of kryptonite...)


Dali once proposed a performance in which it was required to throw priests and birds out of a plane onto a small village. You might be the person to finally complete it ;)


MDL

#149
Quote from: James on January 25, 2009, 08:52:10 AM
BBC Radio 3's Hear & Now
Stockhausen: Inori for large orchestra, Nr. 38


>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gsp1y

Synopsis: In a performance given at London's Barbican as part of the Stockhausen Composer Day, Robert Worby presents the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Stockhausen's meditative work Inori.

Written in 1973-74, Inori is based on prayer-like gestures interpreted on stage by a mime and a dancer. The expressive movements, performed by the two silent soloists and drawn from a variety of religious practices, are mirrored in the response of two orchestral groups.

Robert is also joined by Stockhausen authority Robin Maconie to discuss the piece.


I thought Robin Maconie's comments about Inori were fascinating and spot on. When I first heard it back in the early '80s, I thought it was too soft and tuneful compared to the works that I loved, such as Trans, Carré and Momente. But over the years, I've really warmed to it. Hearing it live was, as Maconie stated, a deeply moving experience. Not "moving" as in a Mahler 9 / Tchaikovsky 6 sobfest. I left the concert feeling quietly elated and oddly comforted. I can't really put it into words.

bhodges

Thanks to The Rambler, here is Stockhausen's Aus den sieben Tagen (1968), from the 2008 Cut and Splice Festival. 

--Bruce

gomro

Quote from: bhodges on February 19, 2009, 12:43:57 PM
Thanks to The Rambler, here is Stockhausen's Aus den sieben Tagen (1968), from the 2008 Cut and Splice Festival. 

--Bruce

I couldn't find any way to download/play the thing. Is there, in fact, a link on that page to the concert recordings?

Guido

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

Not sure if this has been posted before - Stockhausen is interviewed for the BBC (in 1995), then gives young pop musicians advice on their compositions, with hilarious results. The young composers then give their retorts with equally hilarious results... This bit starts about half way down the page.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

Cato

Recently I have been reaqding some of the Father Brown mysteries by G.K. Chesterton.

In one of the stories I came across a comment by the detective-priest that a crime, even a murderous one, was like a work of art!   :o

Obviously I was reminded immediately of Stockhausen's (in)famous comment of the September 11th attacks as being one of the greatest artworks of all time.

But it seems the Catholic Chesterton, or at least his alter ego, might have agreed!
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

bhodges

Quote from: gomro on February 21, 2009, 05:03:55 PM
I couldn't find any way to download/play the thing. Is there, in fact, a link on that page to the concert recordings?

Sorry, I missed this post.  The Rambler leads to this page below on Classical in the Air, and if you look in the "Comments" you'll see RapidShare links (not sure if they still work). 

http://classicalintheair.blogspot.com/2009/02/karlheinz-stockhausen-aus-den-sieben_15.html

--Bruce

Cato

The quote mentioned above from the G.K. Chesterton Father Brown mystery The Queer Feet is as follows:

"A crime," he (i.e. Father Brown) said slowly, "is like any other work of art.  Don't look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop.  But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark - I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated."

p. 42 of the Everyman paperback of The Best Of Father Brown.

I wonder if Stockhausen knew of this remark, but I suspect it is a case of parallel genius.


"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Moldyoldie

#156
(Pasted from "What Are You Listening To?")

Stockhausen: Hymnen (Anthems for Electronic and Concrete Sounds)
Electronic Realization from WDR - Cologne, West Germany
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON (2 LPs)

Avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (d. 2007) had his fifteen minutes of quasi-fame in the late-'60s/early-'70s during the height of Cold War tensions and the Vietnam War.  It's difficult to fathom how his musique concrète struck a chord with listeners of serious music at the time since much of it comes off today sounding kitschy and contrived.  One could probably look to the prevailing Zeitgeist which also spawned Dark Side of the Moon and its various offshoots.  I have to say, however, that I was always held spellbound by two of his lengthy works first heard on late-night public radio, Hymnen being one. It combines samplings of several familiar national anthems with the random sounds from shortwave radios and intermittent studio voices to make for a fascinating two-hour journey into the Zen of worldwide electronic communication (or near instantaneous travel) via various electronic filters, mixers, and potentiometers -- it's quite a trip!  I like to think it's metaphorical to a sort of "world anthem".  I hadn't heard this for many years until recently, but even today it fascinates - there's a surprise around every corner!

The work is divided into four "regions" centered around a specific national anthem or conglomeration of anthems. Around these "centers" are juxtaposed electronically generated sounds and voiced multi-lingual phrases; i.e., a commingling of the "known" with the abstract and unknown.  From the composer's notes:  "When one integrates in a composition known music with unknown new music, one can hear especially well how it was integrated: untransformed, more or less transformed, transposed, modulated, etc.  The more self-evident the WHAT, the more attentive the listener becomes to the HOW. Naturally, national anthems are more than that: they are "loaded" with time, with history - with past, present, and future.  They accentuate the subjectivity of peoples in a time when uniformity is all too often mistaken for universality.  One must also make a clear distinction between subjectivity - and correspondence between subjective musical objects - and individualistic isolation and separation.  The composition Hymnen is not a collage" 

However arcane the methodology of its composition, I was personally mesmerized and "attentive" throughout.  Perhaps it's my lifelong fascination with broadcasting which is responsible -- those shortwave band passes are "music" to my ears!

A detailed online discussion of Hymnen can be found beginning here and continuing here.

For the curious, the great bulk of Stockhausen's '60s/'70s discography is no longer available commercially (Deutsche Grammophon dropped its entire Stockhausen discography in the '80s), but recordings of several other works, including my other "spellbound" favorite Stimmung, are available through various online retail sources.  There's one work called the Helicopter String Quartet where each musician goes up in one of four helicopters and their playing is piped back into the concert hall!  :o One can still order CD transfers of the entire large discography directly through Stockhausen's own website, but at outrageously expensive prices and only pre-paid by check plus an exorbitant handling fee. 

By the way, Stockhausen is fifth from the left in the back row on the cover of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the one leaning with chin in palm.
"I think the problem with technology is that people use it because it's around.  That is disgusting and stupid!  Please quote me."
- Steve Reich

Novi

Quote from: James on March 10, 2009, 10:06:09 AM
Speakin' of this Lucifer character, KS wrote a whole Opera exploring him (& his specially designed melody or melodic "formula"), Samstag aus Licht.


Thanks for posting these clips. I heard Klavierstücke XIII in a recital recently. Terribly strange but also strangely compelling. It was great until the pianist played a glissando with his bottom and I burst out laughing :D :-[.

(I did enjoy the recital, honest!)
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraum
Ein leiser Ton gezogen
Für den der heimlich lauschet.

gomro

This link leads to some incredible stills (5 pages worth!) from musikFabrik's take on Stockhausen's "trumpet concerto" Michael's Journey Around the Earth from the opera Donnerstag aus LICHT

Dig out your CD and play it as you peruse these peculiar pictures.  Yes, he is mounted in a crane; yes, that crane is going to be flying him around the stage while he's playing. You bet.   (And if you don't have a Donnerstag CD, these pictures may well remind you why:))

I notice that just before Michael leaves New York -- and encounters Lucifer, judging from the threatening red light -- there is a simulation of the World Trade Center attack projected on the big globe. Interesting choice of staging, considering Stockhausen's own comment about that matter. 

Apparently the staff at the Verlag are happy and cooperative about this setting, too, which is a good thing.  I know Stockhausen had his own ideas about staging, but there must be room for development if LICHT is to ever get a fair shake.

http://tabledog.at/taschenoper/michael/

Moldyoldie

[Pasted from "What Are You Listening To?"]

Stockhausen: Stimmung
Collegium Vocale Köln
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON (LP)

First heard by these virgin ears in its entirety on late night public radio sometime in the early '70s, Karlheinz Stockhausen's a capella classic Stimmung still teases the intellect and delights the aural senses. (I hesitate using the term a capella lest I be scolded and reminded that the work is scored for six voices and six microphones!) That there've been at least three succeeding commercial recordings of Stimmung since this original DG release from 1969 (I'm doubting such is the case for any of Stockhausen's myriad other works) certainly attests to the work's continuing fascination among venturesome listeners and performers.  Whatever its composer's influences or inspirations, several of which he imparts in the notes, I'm left smiling by its simple and seemingly inevitable conception -- exploring the artistic possibilities inherent in the merest overtones of the human voice -- brilliant!  What could possibly be more fundamental, more primal, more natural? (Eh, fellow Sibelians?)  I believe even certain Stockhausen naysayers can delight in Stimmung's simple (and often erotic!) vocal ruminations.

The only other recording of Stimmung I've heard is that of Singcircle on the Hyperion label; it's more confident and forthright in its execution; but hardly as intimate, exploratory, and charmingly naive as this original.  However, if one's German is as challenged as mine, Hyperion's text translation is appreciated.
"I think the problem with technology is that people use it because it's around.  That is disgusting and stupid!  Please quote me."
- Steve Reich