say wha? note-based vs. object-based?
Note-based as in being fully notated like with a piano and restricted to what you can do with a keyboard: Press key x with velocity y and perhaps wiggle the pitch bend and the modulation wheel; all notes on the keyboard sound basically the same with a simple shift in frequency along the keyboard.
Object-based as in the Pierre Schaeffer sense. In other words, without the restrictions of note-based sound production: For example, splicing of tape to expand the timbral evolution and frequency or amplitude contours, which is not easily reproducible by pressing key x with velocity y (unless, of course you are using a sampler, but then that is sort of the same as using tape).
They are simply 2 entirely different works with different goals & characteristics ...
(a good thing)
Fair enough. Regardless, I find one vastly more interesting and engaging than the other.
I like Kontakte but quite frankly I don't agree with you that the clean electronic surface timbres that he uses are "bland" ... they work quite well with what he was doing & I like them a lot and the music itself has a lot of variety.
I agree that
Paradies sounds interesting, and definitely better than
Havona and
Urantia even from that very small extract. However, the electronic sounds are not much more than a synthesizer with a dry bell-like sound, and a lot of glissandi and tremolandi. And this is what bothers me to no end; it seems that the flute writing might compensate for the lack of interest of the electronic sounds, but there's a whole lot out there having richer, more engaging electronic sounds. I absolutely don't see how could Stockhausen devolve into this use of electronics after so many wonderful, breathtaking masterpieces (
Kontakte,
Hymnen, etc). Stockhausen in the 2000s is using simple, common place pseudo-preset sounds that have been there since the DX7 hit the market in the early 80s. They
are bland; they're lifeless. Compare for example with the collage and computer-generated sounds of Wolfgang Mitterer's
Music for checking emails--here's a link to the first movement:
http://www.col-legno.com/pics_db/hallo_mr_bruckner.mp3