Stockhausen's Spaceship

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

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Uatu

Yes, but it's on youtube, just search stockhausen kontakte

Uatu

Kathinka mentioned ROTARY and MANKIND HEAR currently being prepared for recording.  I shouldn't get too greedy tho, I still have a good dozen already released CDs I need to eventually get. 

Does anybody have Ellen Corver's Klavierstucke set.  I'm wondering if I need that since I already have multiple versions of those...they'd have to be jaw-dropping for me to buy yet another set.

I just ordered the DIENSTAG DVD as well as the INORI full orchestra DVD.  I believe those are single camera, but at least they don't cost an arm and a leg.

Uatu

Here's a really wonderfully played (and recorded) version of KONTAKTE (CONTACT)

http://vimeo.com/59003784

I keep forgetting that Vimeo has some great content.

Uatu

#883
Nasenflügeltanz for percussion and synth here as well, same team:

http://vimeo.com/59121329

Uatu

Quote from: James on July 20, 2014, 07:44:24 AM
I had to minimize the vid on this one and just listen to the audio for the music. Very controlled, clear, clinical performance .. like a microscopic look at the music within the music from which it came. It misses the intensity and fury in this rendition.

intensity & fury coming right up...

http://vimeo.com/18886685

Uatu

Yesterday I made a very satisfying mix: Himmels-Tur multitracked with Montags Gruss.  It's a perfect match, especially if you add a minute or 2 of silence before the cymbal entrance in Himmels-Tur.  Since Montags Gruss is woodwind-derived, the wood percussion of Himmels-Tur feels very organic.  On their own, Himmels-Tur and Montags Gruss are fine for live performance (or as ambient music in Montags Gruss' case) but at home they get a bit too single-minded for my tastes.

Himmels Tur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0WzTcKhTHA

Uatu

New blog post on Stockhausen's EUROPE GREETING for 8 to 250 brass players.

http://stockhausenspace.blogspot.com/2014/07/opus-72-europa-gruss.html

Not a "major" work like MOMENTE or GRUPPEN but still some fine writing for winds and synths, and unlike some of the other works with modern synths, doesn't sound dated.

Uatu

Quote from: James on July 24, 2014, 08:21:12 AM
Pushing music boundaries
By ANDI YU July 22, 2014, 6:35 p.m.

Program highlights for BIFEM 2014 include the Australian premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Sirius, an 8-channel surround, 95-minute 'modern mystery play wrapped in a science fiction fantasy' featuring long-time Stockhausen collaborator Nicholas Isherwood in his Australian début.

Details: http://www.bifem.com.au/festival-guide/music-theatre-sirius

Lecture
Richard Toop
8.00PM SATURDAY
September 6
FREE EVENTBanquet Room
This public lecture is possible thanks to BIFEM patron Commissioner Leigh Johns.

Musicologist Richard Toop will reflect on his close relationship with Stockhausen and his work (especially the later pieces), as well as touching on Stockhausen's continuing appeal to some younger composers. His free public lecture will also look at some favourite new compositional practices in a sector increasingly connected through technology, despite its geo-fragmentary nature. With rare intelligence and insight, Richard Toop has maintained peerless respect across a career spanning several decades. He is indeed a very special guest of BIFEM in 2014.


http://www.bifem.com.au/#


Ah I would have loved to attend this - but Australia is a pretty long flight...
I consider SIRIUS to be Stockhausen's "third-stream jazz" piece.  I wonder of he was aware of Sun-Ra at this time?

Uatu

My latest write-up:  STIMMUNG
I'll be doing STERNKLANG next since that is basically STIMMUNG times 5.

http://stockhausenspace.blogspot.com/2014/07/opus-24-stimmung.html

     It's fascinating to hear each vocal Model enter and then absorb the sound space.  Depending on the recording, the overtones can be very clearly heard and the vocal textures reveal a unique sound world as fresh and unexplored as the sounds created in works like KONTAKTE and MIKROPHONIE I (among innumerable other Stockhausen works).  In later years these phonetic overtones would even make an appearance in the LICHT super-formula.  As usual, Stockhausen creates a strict sound "gestalt", but is not afraid to enhance the work with "inserts" and deviations from the initial formula according to his own tastes.  However, these Magic Names and erotic texts are sometimes a little bit distracting for me personally.  I guess I'm glad the text is in German at least, since in English these erotic passages might come out a little bit too over the top, at least for my tastes.  Possibly after repeated listening the "enhanced content" will feel more natural to me.


Uatu

STERNKLANG is up:

http://stockhausenspace.blogspot.com/2014/07/opus-34-sternklang.html

STERNKLANG was a bit more involved than I thought!  I was hoping I could just leave it as 5 groups doing STIMMUNG in a park but it actually gets a bit more involved:


kishnevi

Thanks.  I think I got the gist of it.  But I am not sure I have seen a score before which looked like an engineering diagram of electrical circuits

EigenUser

Quote from: Uatu on July 31, 2014, 04:09:01 PM
STERNKLANG is up:

http://stockhausenspace.blogspot.com/2014/07/opus-34-sternklang.html

STERNKLANG was a bit more involved than I thought!  I was hoping I could just leave it as 5 groups doing STIMMUNG in a park but it actually gets a bit more involved:


Very nice! Thanks, I really enjoyed reading.

Your blog is really turning out to have some of the best explanations on Stockhausen's works that I've seen. I'm sure that it wouldn't be sufficient for a detailed technical musical analysis by a PhD music theory student, and for this, I thank you (because I wouldn't be able to understand it if this were the case :D). I think it is much harder to write in a way that properly conveys information to beginners. Do I want to listen to Sternklang now? Well, no -- but I'm happy to know about it and to keep an open mind in the future.

Keep it up! 8)

Do you have the scores for these works? Where are the score clips from? I'd like to get the score for his Tierkreis (orchestra version) sometime in the future.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

Uatu

#892
Quote from: EigenUser on August 01, 2014, 01:31:37 AM
Very nice! Thanks, I really enjoyed reading.

Your blog is really turning out to have some of the best explanations on Stockhausen's works that I've seen. I'm sure that it wouldn't be sufficient for a detailed technical musical analysis by a PhD music theory student, and for this, I thank you (because I wouldn't be able to understand it if this were the case :D). I think it is much harder to write in a way that properly conveys information to beginners. Do I want to listen to Sternklang now? Well, no -- but I'm happy to know about it and to keep an open mind in the future.

Keep it up! 8)

Do you have the scores for these works? Where are the score clips from? I'd like to get the score for his Tierkreis (orchestra version) sometime in the future.

Thanks!  Yeah, these articles are written for non-academics (but who know a little something about reading music).  When I first got into Stockhausen it was very difficult trying to figure out what was going on, and even now in the internet age there's not as much clear, concise explanation as I would prefer.  Also the very long pieces like this one (at 2 hours) really tend to make one "drift off" without having roadsigns to point out where one is arriving at.  So these are written as listening guides for myself as much as anything else.  (Of course if Stockhausen's label would start sending me free CDs to cover that would be pretty nice!)

I've read a few PhD dissertations on Stockhausen's music and what I've done so far is just take the useful bits.  All the stuff about ratios and statistical distribution etc...  it's good to hit a page count for a thesis, but doesn't help me enjoy listening to the music whatsoever, which is my main criteria for the blog

The scores are available at my public library (New York Public Library).  Unfortunately you cannot take them home, but they allow you to take snapshots of the pages.  The clips I used are also printed in the CD booklet.

The orchestral score for Tierkreis is not at my library, I think it's pretty new.  Stockhausen died after revising the score for those just the night before.  I assume it may be possible to buy the score at Stockhausen's site.

Uatu

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on July 31, 2014, 07:23:54 PM
Thanks.  I think I got the gist of it.  But I am not sure I have seen a score before which looked like an engineering diagram of electrical circuits

:laugh:
Yeah, I didn't notice that!  I imagine that would make an interesting circuit for a synthesizer...

Uatu

I'm actually more interested in writing articles on the works I don't listen to very much myself.  It's a good opportunity to get into them deeper, and usually by the time I'm done I have a greater appreciation for them.  Works like KONTAKTE and GRUPPEN may not be done for awhile since those are almost over-familiar.  I could just write "awesome" 40 times and leave it at that for those ;) .

Uatu


Uatu

Quote from: James on August 08, 2014, 01:56:18 AM
Robin Maconie likened what occurs with Kontra-punkte to one of Haydn's symphonies. I posted about it a few years back.

In 2007 Boulez called the work a "manifesto for the time".


I read the Maconie thing, he compares it to Haydn's Farewell Symphony where each of the musicians sneaks out of the room during the performance.  Actually it also has a fascinating relation to Ylem, where sound explodes and then spreads out (and then back, etc).

The Boulez quote is spot on.  In fact I was just joking with a friend that KONTRA-PUNKTE is every post-war contemporary classical cliche in one piece.  Except of course that it's not cliched at all since it came first!  Well, maybe second, after Webern....

So I dug this out of the library, another Stockhausen charming moment where he interacts with his fans... ;)



Uatu

Yeah, I totally agree.  Even Aus Den Sieben Tagen, that's one of those that I tend not to listen to very much, which makes it ideal to write about, but it's kind of a chore to get through - 7 CDs of apparently "not rubbish".  And even then, what is there to say about them?  Anyways, I'll think of something.  The easiest thing would be just to post the scores, which would probably be less text than my usual analysis....

Mandryka

#898
Was there much 20th century music with a strong contrapuntal element prior to Kontrapunkte? And subsequently - I mean, I know that Stockhausen wrote some contrapuntal music much much later,  like in Himmelfahrt, but who else apart from Carter? I wonder what Carter and Stockhausen thought of each other.  Do we know why he decided to write Kontrapunkte? Was he interested in pre-classical style, in baroque music? Or is that a red herring?

In fact, I find the contrapuntal side to Kontrapunkte quite hard to follow - quite hard to follow what one instrument is doing, how the instruments are relating and responding to each other. Maybe I need to give it more time, or find a new performance. Or maybe it's more about punkte that contrapunkte, and the idea of interacting simultaneous voices isn't primary.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#899
I expect that what you say is correct about Stockhausen, I'm going to try to listen out from now on to the way he makes contemporaneous musical lines interact.


Tell me, apart from Stockhausen and Carter, which other composers have made counterpoint an major part of their thing?  Somehow I've always thought of Stockhausen's music primarily in terms of timbre. Actually one that interests me is Shapey, in the concertantes. But I'm not so sure you find contrapuntal thinking so prominently elsewhere in his work. And now that I think about it, I think contrapuntal ideas have been pretty central in some more recent Ferneyhough, like the 6th quartet. And maybe in Boulez too, and Birtwistle - I need to think about good examples there.

It looks like counterpoint more or less died when baroque finished, despite one or two good fugues composers weren't really interested in it. And then it emerged again as one strand of post-war music. I'm not sure how present it is in 21st century music.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen