Topic: Stockhausen's Spaceship

[petrarch]

Respect! Have you won the lottery or something? You're going to have to retire to have the time to catch up on all that music. Or at least throw the mother of all sickies.

I already had some of the stuff in there on the computer, so it's not like it's all new to me. But yes, I'll be spending the next few months going through those CDs (and some other recent purchases).

[petrarch]

That's the right spirit!  Good to know that there are Stockhausen enthusiasts who are not Taste Nazis ; )

One man's Stockhausen is another's Henning.

[petrarch]

I notice some interesting choices (for you at least) considering you don't really dig his choral/vocal bag a whole lot...

-CD 23 Atmen Gibt Das Leben choir opera with orchestra (i've never heard this one yet)
-CD 80 Momente for soprano, four choir groups and thirteen instrumentalists Version 1998 (2 CDs)

Atmen Gibt Das Leben is in that grey area of vocal works that, like Stimmung and Weltparlament, are texturally interesting and worth listening. Despite what I said the other day about Weltparlament, it is quite listenable.

Momente is... Momente, what else can be said? I really want to compare it with CD7 and check the "totally different dramatic effect".

On the topic of vocal works, I'll probably also get Litanei 97 sometime in the future. Preliminary listens suggest the piece is worthwhile. One I definitely won't get is Sirius... I have the FLAC and it is just unlistenable, even if it does have the odd interesting (instrumental + electronic music) segment. Heard it live 20 years ago last month and haven't warmed up to it at all; the pre-concert conference about it was more interesting than the work.

[MDL]

Atmen Gibt Das Leben is in that grey area of vocal works that, like Stimmung and Weltparlament, are texturally interesting and worth listening.

I like the original version of Atem (the short choral work coupled on vinyl with Punkte). I never really got on with the extended version, which simply carries on where the original finished, adding an orchestra and developing in quite a different style. Having said that, I haven't heard it for a decade if not longer; I must dig out my record player and give it another go.

[MDL]

Watched a performance of Gruppen on DVD.  Piece is all right, but does not IMO rise to the level of the unctuous hype.

Interesting opinion! If nothing else, though, Gruppen seems to be one of the few works of the period to have captured the public's imagination. It must be one of the avant-garde's greatest hits, along with Berio's Sinfonia, Penderecki's St Luke Passion and a few bits of Messiaen and Ligeti.

[petrarch]

Just curious what do you think of the group improvisational stuff like Aus Den Sieben Tagen or Für kommende Zeiten? Or stuff you hear generated in performances of Kurzwellen, Spiral, Pole, Prozession, Ylem and works like this from that period ...

I like all of those, some more than others of course. I enjoy pointillistic avant-garde music quite a bit, so it helps that the "vocabulary" of the ensembles playing those works is colored by Webernian/post-1945 serialism.

[petrarch]

I'm so thankful that he himself realized this & got back to more highly focused & thoughtful writing ... starting with Mantra & others.

"Realized" is probably too strong a word. The music is still highly focused and thoughtful, it is just that it was written/specified differently. Stockhausen has written on the subject of intuitive music, and his moving on to other idioms is just natural progression.

[petrarch]

Speaking of which, I've finally heard the 2 Klavierstucke from Freitag.

And what did you think? In my opinion the synthesizer Klavierstücke I have (XV-XVIII) sound a bit weak and flat. The version of XV with electronic music is slightly better than without; the alternate version of XVIII for percussion is much "richer" and "engaging" to my ears than the original synthesizer version.

[petrarch]

Momente is... Momente, what else can be said? I really want to compare it with CD7 and check the "totally different dramatic effect".

So I spent some time listening to CD80. The switch of moments does indeed change the overall flow of the piece. I'm not a fan of moment I(k) at all, so its move to the second "half" was a very welcome change and makes the new recording immediately gripping--it is one of those that when you start listening to it you just can't stop. The new opening is quite striking.

Sonically, there is some improvement (which is natural since it was done 25 years after the original on CD7), with a clearer and less diffuse sound, which helps in defining the soundstage better. The replacement of the organs with synthesizers works quite well which, with the clearer sound, gives the piece a more refined overall timbre, even if it sounds less "organic" than the 1972 version. I also prefer the new soprano, whose "lightness of touch" better integrates with the whole.

[karlhenning]

BTW, I've decided I do need to reel Mantra back in.  It may wind up being the only Stockhausen I ever need.  We shall see : )

[karlhenning]

I thought that you were already familar with this one ...

I am, used to own the disc.  My sense of adventure is lively and regularly exercised, BTW.

[karlhenning]

Life must be a constant source of irritation to you, James.  Look at you, complaining that I want to resume listening to Stockhausen!

[karlhenning]

Yea but you choose to return to familar ground here, typical ....

Honi soit qui mal y pense.
 
(And since you repeated the post — mysteriously deleting the first instance — your sustained efforts give the lie to supposedly "not caring." Pity you have no higher ambition than to be a turd in the punchbowl.  Glad it's not my punchbowl, though.)
 

Edit :: corrected italics

[Cato]

Check out this review of a performance of Mantra:

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-06-30-courageous-presentation-of-a-mammoth-task

An excerpt, and I really have to admire a newspaper which openly publishes such turgid sentences:

Arnold Schoenberg’s grundgestalt thematicism, the evolution of serialism and twelve tone writing, later total serialistic developments (Boulez and Messiaen), electronic music experimentation and aleatoric philosophy merge into a macro-configuration of sound and musical ideas in Stockhausen’s Mantra.

Formed around a thirteen note mantra – so named so as to avoid terminology with technical associations such as theme, row or subject – the variation compositional principle of this generating simultaneity is at the centre of this work’s construction and organisation.

[karlhenning]

Thank goodness the piece is better than that advert appears to promise ; )

[snyprrr]

Would anyone like to ejumecate me on Mantra recordings? I used to have the New Albion, but I do believe I need something more subtle, or more integrated, or more organic sounding. If the piece really sounds like it does on the New Albion, I might not make it, but, I think my main objections were to the technical side of things. That Naxos looks interesting. What else do we have?

[petrarch]

Would anyone like to ejumecate me on Mantra recordings? I used to have the New Albion, but I do believe I need something more subtle, or more integrated, or more organic sounding. If the piece really sounds like it does on the New Albion, I might not make it, but, I think my main objections were to the technical side of things. That Naxos looks interesting. What else do we have?

I only have and listen to the Stockhausen-Verlag CD16 recording, though a long time ago I had a different one (can't remember which or how it sounded though). The SV release, being the one that has the Kontarsky brothers and close supervision by the composer is probably as faithful as it gets to the original vision.

Here's what's available:

Stockhausen-Verlag CD16


TMD 950601


New Albion NA 025 CD


Wergo WER 6267-2


Accord 202252

[karlhenning]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but I thought he might have written the piece for Yvar, one of the pianists on the New Albion recording. Well, if not Mantra,  he wrote something else for Yvar.

[petrarch]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but I thought he might have written the piece for Yvar, one of the pianists on the New Albion recording. Well, if not Mantra,  he wrote something else for Yvar.

Checked the score and notes and there is no mention of a dedicatee. The booklet indicates the piece was premiered by the Kontarskys.

[snyprrr]

It struck me, reading James' cool "review" above, that a whole lot of brain time has been spent on 30secs of music. I am disturbed. All of a sudden I picture politicians debating US in like manner!!