Spiel für Orchester [Game for orchestra] (1952, revised 1973)two movements for orchestra
Duration: 16'
Spiel was originally planned as second and third movements of a three-movement work, with
Formel, but having completed all three, Stockhausen became dissatisfied with what he felt to be the imbalance of a thematic orientated opening followed by two pieces of a more pointillistic tendency and on a larger scale. The three pieces form a set nevertheless, each being a formulation of a relationship of a central instrument embodying light and brilliance, and the orchestra which seems to circulate around it like a planetary system and draw energy from it. In
Formel and
Spiel I this radiant sonority is represented by the vibraphone and glockenspiel, timbres that glisten rather than glow hot; in
Spiel II Stockhausen introduces a real crystal goblet with the idea of producing a stronger and more lasting ringing tone at the work's climax. It is interesting once again to recognize the composer's attachment to imagery of a generated and reflected light at this early stage in his career.
Both pieces display a greater sense of physical energy and texture after the relative coolness of
Kreuzspiel; even
Formel is more lyrical, despite the extreme registers. In his layout of the orchestra, Stockhausen follows
Kreuzspiel in locating the bass instruments to the bass register side of the piano, and the higher instruments to the treble. The arrangement is once again reminiscent of baroque music, and Stockhausen's primary purpose seems to be for the orchestra to be perceived as fractionated timbres of an extended keyboard.
This is Stockhausen's first unambiguously pointillistic work. Like Messiaen's
Mode de valeurs et d'intensités, it can be appreciated and studied as a test case for serial practice, with the difference that Messiaen's modes are designed for the piano, and the series of
Spiel for a much larger and less homogenous ensemble. A piano is a chamber instrument and also an acoustic environment defined as a uniform pitch-space, within which the performer at the keyboard can control a range of dynamic and other distinctions considerably greater than can be heard in a concert hall. An orchestra by contrast is a "broken consort": a collection of timbres defining a nonuniform pitch domain, and occupying rather than defining a much larger acoustic enclosure.
Messiaen's mode of attacks for
Mode de valeurs is a rough and ready affair, even in terms of the piano, through it is worth noting how carefully he distributes dynamics and attacks through the three pitch and duration registers in the layering of the three modes. Stockhausen expended an enormous effort in selecting percussion instruments to improve on Messiaen's mode of attacks (so many revisions, in fact, that even today they are not specified in the publisher's catalogue). His attention to attacks is telling, given that Stockhausen makes no other change to
Formel's textbook orchestra of 4 x 3 winds, 4 x 3 keyboard registers, and 4 x 3 strings--and with the same hole in the middle too: no violas. In
Kreuzspiel, the ultimate function of the "complementary zone" percussion is limited to imitating the sound of the piano action and the hissed intake of breath of the wind instruments; for
Spiel I Stockhausen reverts to an earlier plan to create a vocabulary of attack possibilities based on spoken consonants. From the 1952 manuscript of
Spiel I the percussion listed consists of 6 unpitched metal resonators, one for each of the six octave registers, and 4 x 3 ancillary groups: pitched metal, wood "click," wood and drum "trill," and low drums, each of the latter centered in a defined register. For
Spiel II in 1952 this formidable array of attack instruments is reduced to the glistening sounds of eleven cymbals (the glass making twelve), and four low drums (with the addition of an extra tom-tom).
The combination of a more pointillistic texture and added percussion puts
Spiel already some distance ahead of
Formel. Stockhausen has clearly taken on board some of Messiaen's ideas about "attack" and "resonance," and organization of register and dynamics, from
Mode de valeurs.
Spiel I, of 100 measures, depicts a gradual accretion of melodic chains from atomistic "points." The tempo is a brisk 12/8 at MM 96, later altered to 120. It is a music of high contrasts between the brilliant flashes of percussion and the muted glow of the sustaining instruments: a nocturne with exploding shells. Out of a hovering background of sustained strings and ringing keyboards, one by one the wind instruments appear as if picked out by the searchlight of the vibraphone. A rising inflection in the opening measure recalls a similar gesture in
Formel, but here the dynamic range
ppp-
ff is more extreme. In fact, extreme dynamics prove to be the rule, with the vibraphone struggling to reach
sfff from the very start. Periodic repeating sixths on d#/b enter very quietly from measure 2 at both extremes of range and continue to the end. The middle ground is occupied by percussion alternating sharp attacks and pop ringing or tremolo resonances. High and low pairs predominate. A suggestion of a theme from the oboe at 21, in unison with the vibraphone, is taken up by violins at 31; gradually more links are added to the chain until at 42 the vibraphone articulates a complete series minus the b natural, which continues to ring on celesta and piano. At 40 strings sustain high and low pitches, and at 49 the vibraphone begins a statement of the series in two-note groups, provoking a full entry of percussion in their different periodicities. At 56 the vibraphone is more "pointed" and sharp
fff pitches on strings and woodwinds begin a process that leads to gradually more sustained pitches collecting in the mid-range, restoring uneasy calm.
Spiel II, of 114 measures, is visibly a leap ahead technically. In 4/2, with a given tempo of MM 48 (altered in performance to MM 40), this movement begins quietly with sustained ppp pitched and unpitched percussion in three parts at extremes of high and low register, a resonant background out of which point and group formations condense and are transferred to wind and strings. The distribution of elements within the pitch space reaches a maximum at measure 56, the midpoint in the original score, where the clear crystalline tone of the glass was originally due to ring out, a moment of climax after which the music would decline to a calm ending. For the premiere performance under Hans Rosbaud the valuable crystal goblet donated for the purpose was struck rather too vigorously with a metal beater and shattered. That the premiere ended in confusion at this point is a story that has passed into myth; according to Stockhausen, he and Rosbaud had already decided to curtail the performance there, though it had not been their intention to mark the conditional ending so unexpectedly.
(from Robin Maconie,
Other planets)