Stockhausen's Spaceship

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

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petrarch

CD 54 on SV is out! Finally a release with Michaelion. Should show up soon on the online store.

//p
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 03, 2013, 11:20:23 AM
Very cool .. where did you find this? The official-site doesn't mention a thing yet.

It was Kathinka on Facebook.
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 04, 2013, 05:30:31 AM
Can't find her facebook pg. They're advertising it on the main site now, price is pretty steep for a single disc .. ?

MICHAELION (4th scene of WEDNESDAY from LIGHT)
for choir / bass with short-wave receiver / flute, basset-horn, trumpet, trombone /
a synthesizer player, tape / 2 dancers / sound projectionist
29 € / $42


That is the price she announced on her page. If you search for her name on Facebook you should find her page.
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San Antone

I guess I am about ready to buy some of the recordings from Stockhausen Verlag.  I would prefer buying downloads but all I see are the CDs for purchase.

petrarch

Quote from: sanantonio on January 04, 2013, 11:18:21 AM
I guess I am about ready to buy some of the recordings from Stockhausen Verlag.  I would prefer buying downloads but all I see are the CDs for purchase.

The CDs are worth it as they come with extensive notes. I will be making a purchase soon also, to fill some of the remaining gaps in my collection and get the latest releases (e.g. Michaelion, Jubiläum and the orchestral version of Tierkreis).
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 04, 2013, 06:01:06 PM
Just curious .. I'm not a "facebook" person but do you to have an account in order to search for her? I tried Google & Bing and nothing.

Yes, you do. If you decide to join, Antonio Pérez Abellán is also there and posts updates frequently.
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 05, 2013, 12:11:41 PM
petrarch .. i noticed on KS's site within this new pdf http://www.stockhausen.org/new_scores_cd.pdf

They list CD103 will be POLE for 2 (integral version) .. you said you have CD46 SPIRAL (integral) any indication in the liners there as to why these works are prone to such expansions etc.?


I'm still on vacation in Europe and will be back home by end of next week--will check then.
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 05, 2013, 12:11:41 PM
petrarch .. i noticed on KS's site within this new pdf http://www.stockhausen.org/new_scores_cd.pdf

They list CD103 will be POLE for 2 (integral version) .. you said you have CD46 SPIRAL (integral) any indication in the liners there as to why these works are prone to such expansions etc.?


As promised, from the liner notes of CD46:

Quote
In the Stockhausen Complete Edition series, three versions of Spiral for a soloist had been released until 1995: on CD 15 there are two recordings made in 1971 with Péter Eötvös (electrochord with synthesizer, short-wave radio) and Harald Bojé (electronic, short-wave radio); on CD 45 is a recording of Cathy Milliken (oboe, didjeridoo, voice, short-wave radio).

All performances of Spiral until 1995 were partial performances. In the score, 10 sections are indicated by a dividing line. It is possible to individually perform a part of the work from one dividing line to one of the following lines. Earlier performances included one or two sections, with durations varying between 15 to 25 minutes.

The first performance of the entire work was realized by Michael Vetter on November 22nd 1995 at the Ballhorn Tonstudio in Odenthal: it is reproduced on the two CDs 46 A-B with the duration of 138 minutes.
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snyprrr

Quote from: petrarch on January 11, 2013, 05:38:25 AM
As promised, from the liner notes of CD46:

Uh...'Spiral' does not seem like the most exciting piece I've ever heard (ran through some of the Eotvos on YT). 2cds??? Over two hours of 'composing' with short-wave? petrarch... you're a fan here? I don't understand the appeal. (I know, I'm setting myself up for a smartass answer, haha)

Cato

Quote from: snyprrr on January 11, 2013, 08:17:19 AM
Uh...'Spiral' does not seem like the most exciting piece I've ever heard (ran through some of the Eotvos on YT). 2cds??? Over two hours of 'composing' with short-wave? petrarch... you're a fan here? I don't understand the appeal. (I know, I'm setting myself up for a smartass answer, haha)

Augenmusik is German for a composition which looks impressive on paper, but the aural result does not meet the level of anticipation.

Some compositions - or ideas for compositions - might sound better on paper!   0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

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

San Antone

Quote from: Cato on January 11, 2013, 09:16:09 AM
Augenmusik is German for a composition which looks impressive on paper, but the aural result does not meet the level of anticipation.

Some compositions - or ideas for compositions - might sound better on paper!   0:)

Which reminds me of the Mark Twain quip: Wagner's music is better than it sounds.

Listening to Spiral I as I type.

San Antone

Spiral is one of a series of works dating from the 1960s which Stockhausen designated as "process" compositions. These works in effect separate the "form" from the "content" by presenting the performers with a series of transformation signs which are to be applied to material that may vary considerably from one performance to the next. In Spiral and three companion works (Kurzwellen for six performers, Pole for two, and Expo for three), this material is to be drawn spontaneously during the performance from short-wave radio broadcasts (Kohl 1981, 192–93). The processes, indicated primarily by plus, minus, and equal signs, constitute the composition and, despite the unpredictability of the materials, these processes can be heard from one performance to another as being "the same" (Kohl 2010, 137).

Sounds like something John Cage might have done.

;)

petrarch

Quote from: sanantonio on January 11, 2013, 09:34:26 AM
Sounds like something John Cage might have done.

If you search GMG carefully enough, you'll see we've been there before and I have made that exact same remark.
//p
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petrarch

Quote from: Cato on January 11, 2013, 09:16:09 AM
Augenmusik is German for a composition which looks impressive on paper, but the aural result does not meet the level of anticipation.

Some compositions - or ideas for compositions - might sound better on paper!   0:)

This. It took me a while to adjust, having devoured most of the literature more than a decade before I was able to listen to what I was reading about. Still, I feel I gained a lot from that ingrained learning about the processes--especially how arbitrary they are below that veneer of "unassailable logic and intent" (Cage was a revelation here).
//p
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petrarch

Quote from: snyprrr on January 11, 2013, 08:17:19 AM
Uh...'Spiral' does not seem like the most exciting piece I've ever heard (ran through some of the Eotvos on YT). 2cds??? Over two hours of 'composing' with short-wave? petrarch... you're a fan here? I don't understand the appeal. (I know, I'm setting myself up for a smartass answer, haha)

It's like a system of guided improvisation. Stimuli occur that cause side-effects. There is a series of arcs, roughly following what's on paper. Just let your ears guide your imagination, and leave any prior expectations at the door. This is Stockhausen at his freest--well, as free as he managed to be, excepting the ultimate implosion in Aus den Sieben Tagen from the same turning point year... 
//p
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petrarch

#575
Quote from: James on January 11, 2013, 07:10:15 PM
Nah .. Stockhausen is enjoying setting his performer an impossible task .. there are relationships, live electronic things, the soloist accompanying, reacting, imitating, repeating, expanding, contracting, transforming, playing off of what he dials in on the short-wave receiver which acts as a 'harmonic instrument' .. Heinz Holliger made a virtuosic recording of Spiral (DG) which is also one of the funniest, with magical imitations of short-wave static and some wonderful slapstick humour at the expense of an unfortunate piece of light music that's dialed in on the receiver by the soloist. If the player doesn't have his shit together though, the musical result produces rubbish .. the weight is all on the player's shoulders. Stockhausen is calling for a different kind of musician in these pieces ..

Nah, Stockhausen is simply exploring freer structures and leveraging an age-old tradition of expecting the musician to contribute to the performance of the work above and beyond just mechanically following directions on paper. It's as arbitrary as it gets, he turned the page and moved on a few years later, arguably when he exhausted his own resources in that aesthetic.
//p
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snyprrr

Sometimes it feels like Borg vs. Connors around here, haha!! ;)

petrarch

Quote from: James on January 12, 2013, 06:49:21 AM
What I said earlier is the gist of it my friend. Interpretation isn't mechanical, it can be ..  but it depends on the musician. And anything that calls for improvisation, intuition, & spontaniety will seem freer.. but musicians have did these sorts of things since the beginning in writing & playing, it's nothing new & it's apart of KS's thing too .. all the way through. The only twist here is that KS is using a radio receiver to pull his musical material and the musicians play along (imitate, transform, transpose, repeat etc.) And the radio receiver features repeatedly in his work. I wouldn't mind hearing that integral version that he recorded in the 90s with Vetter, and I'm curious about this new CD103 .. is Vetter on CD54 of Michaelion, playing the Operator character .. bass with short-wave?

I know how the short-wave receiver is used in this piece. The point was that the guided improvisation is not that specifically innovative in it, nor was it specifically asking "for the impossible" from the performer, even though it is a very elegant example of bringing the short-wave sound-world into the world of instrumental music. There are unique aspects, like the diagrammatic notation in the score (though it is also a piece of its time, when graphical notation was en vogue) and the interesting specification of "more of x"/"less of x" with x being a musical parameter for the performer to freely choose while playing. Essentially, this is not at all unlike the procedures used by Cage (and many others, for that matter), in the heyday of aleatory and chance music.

I don't know who the performers in CD54 are. Read something in passing recently about CD103 but can't remember at all what it was.
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 12, 2013, 11:05:23 AM
There isn't much 'focused' improv being guided like this outside of Stockhausen, dial it in & be able, be ready, balance it ,, in front of an audience. It is a bit dangerous and dares the player/interpreter

Well, I can think of a number of examples of such controlled improvisation outside of Stockhausen... Check e.g. Kagel's Sonant; the directions in the score are reminiscent of some of the pieces in Aus den Sieben Tagen. Overall, that movement started around 1950, with a huge variety of degrees of participation from the performers.

The "special type of player" required is not unique to Stockhausen--musicians need to have some affinity with the sound world and musical aesthetics of each composer to be able to truly pull it off. Anecdotally, Stockhausen avoided musicians outside his own circle after he was sorely disappointed with performances of his freer works by "untrained" musicians.

Quote from: James on January 12, 2013, 11:05:23 AM
Do you play? Have you tried playing it?

Yes, I play the piano. No, I haven't tried playing that piece.
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petrarch

Quote from: James on January 12, 2013, 11:05:23 AM
I'm curious about the Vetter recording, it sounds like he went to town with this one. Just curious.

Of the four versions I have (on SV CDs 15, 45 and 46), I definitely prefer those with the instruments. To me, the "translation layer" between performer and instrument adds a dimension of challenge that simply using the voice doesn't. That said, the scale of the integral version is positively alluring.
//p
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The hi-fi system: Esoteric X-03SE -> Pathos Logos -> Analysis Audio Amphitryon.
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