Stockhausen's Spaceship

[chadfeldheimer]

Story is that KS wept seeing this .. something to do with it conjuring up deep memories of his mother.

"The surprising thing is that when Stockhausen saw the film at an avant-premiere he was moved to tears. We only later learned that his mother was imprisoned by the Nazis in an asylum, where she later died. Even for us this was a very moving moment, especially because we directed the film without knowing any of this." http://offscreen.com/view/brothers_quay

I read about the fate of his mother. What a coincidence that the only movie I know of, that uses Stockhausen's music as a soundtrack, has such parallels to it. That must indeed have been very moving for him.

Also .. the film score itself, KS entitled "Two Couples" .. shows up on CD64[/font]

More on CD49 .. in this earlier post of mine ..

Ok - thanks.

[chadfeldheimer]

I sympathise with that, Chad. I think I've said so before; after being very impressed with Donnerstag and Samstag, I found Montag to be a significant letdown...tedious and, at points, silly (verging on the ridiculous)...I should, after a hiatus of about a year, move on to the next installment, though...

Yes Donnerstag and Samstag also to me seem to be the best operas in the cycle. Also I somehow agree with a statement of Harrison Birtwistle I read somewhere. He analogously said (being a huge fan of early Stockhausen), that in his later years Stockhausen had partially lost the ability to distinguish between good and bad musical ideas. My impression is that the weight of this giant Licht project might have been a tad too huge for him, especially if one considers his relatively high age at the composition-date of most parts of the cycle.

[ritter]

For me, the operas-whole get sequentially better as the cycle progresses. And my experience is strictly via disc .. so extremely narrow, as these are huge challenging staged things. But at the core of it all though is the music, that is paramount focus to everything else .. and Montag (though indulgent & overlong) is very exotic, original, rich & beautiful on that end .. and you can take or leave what you like from it too, as that is the way they are designed.

Thanks for that, James. Curiously, some friends of mine who are passionate about Stockhausen have expressed the inverse view; that the interest of the Licht operas declines from the initial to the later ones... One way or another, I should find out for myself  ...I should prepare my next order to the Foundation sometime soon..

Also I somehow agree with a statement of Harrison Birtwistle I read somewhere. He analogously said (being a huge fan of early Stockhausen), that in his later years Stockhausen had partially lost the ability to distinguish between good and bad musical ideas.

Or, as Boulez once said: "Stockhausen was far more adventurous than me", to then immediately add "I said 'adventurous', not 'self-critical' " 

Regards,

[chadfeldheimer]

Thanks for that, James. Curiously, some friends of mine who are passionate about Stockhausen have expressed the inverse view; that the interest of the Licht operas declines from the initial to the later ones... One way or another, I should find out for myself  ...I should prepare my next order to the Foundation sometime soon..
Or, as Boulez once said: "Stockhausen was far more adventurous than me", to then immediately add "I said 'adventurous', not 'self-critical' " 

Regards,

Well, Boulez is known for being a bit too critical to himself and others. Till Licht Stockhausen's self-critic and quality control worked pretty well  imo. I don't know one weak work of him from that period.

[chadfeldheimer]

I like some Birtwistle (i.e. Secret Theatre) but I don't think he was at all intimately familiar with LICHT, because what he says doesn't really ring true. And the world-premieres of Sonntag & Mittwoch in recent years were very well received - vastly better received than the earlier operas. Conversely, another major British composer Jonathan Harvey (R.I.P.) was much more optimistic and called LICHT extraordinary. Even John Tavener (R.I.P.) in his final years admired LICHT a lot saying KS was really onto something .. And Boulez shortly after KS's death said he mainly had issues with the Libretti ("you really have to be a writer"}, but said that the music itself is "often very striking" and has no major issues on that end. I agree with him, while the narrative is a "complex" puzzle of sorts (especially trying to decipher it on disc) .. but the music is beautiful. This massive crazy, radical, beautiful work will endure as Lachenmann said.

Seems like I'm not yet ready for Licht. Parts are good to great, but as a whole? Maybe one day ...

[chadfeldheimer]

I can think of plenty of pre-LICHT works that don't do much for me .. one of the reasons I lost interest in him, until re-discovering him in 2007 after his death.

Well - I guess you know nearly all of his works, but I still have to hear works like Chöre for Doris, Ylem and others. Then there are works that imo pale in comparison to others, like e.g. Punkte, Pole or the first electronic studies, but that I would not consider weak.

[Uatu]

Stockhausen's first piano pieces.

Opus 2 - KLAVIERSTÜCKE I–IV

http://stockhausenspace.blogspot.com/2014/11/opus-2-klavierstucke-iiv.html

[kishnevi]

[Re: your avatar]
You under counted.  Six dynamic markings.
And nine accidentals, too.


And good article too.

[Uatu]

Oh awesome - glad you got that James.  Please give us a review are done.  I'm especially interested if KONTAKTE is represented well in surround channels. 

MIKROPHONE I - wow.  I hope it's better than the ones I've seen on Youtube.  I may have to get this....tho I wish they could've chosen a better cover image.

This was an old fav...

[Uatu]

[Re: your avatar]
You under counted.  Six dynamic markings.
And nine accidentals, too.


And good article too.

oops.  Full disclosure, I got that out out of Jonathan Harvey's book on Stockhausen and he said 5 dynamics.  I never actually bothered to check...  perhaps he was talking about "Stackhausen"

[petrarch]

Is that recording essentially the Verlag issue?

I think so, the recordings appear to be the same as issued here:

[asin]B002MHA3Q0[/asin]

...which happen to be the same as released on SV CD9.

[petrarch]

oops.  Full disclosure, I got that out out of Jonathan Harvey's book on Stockhausen and he said 5 dynamics.  I never actually bothered to check...  perhaps he was talking about "Stackhausen"

5 different dynamic markings out of a total of 7, not 6.

[kishnevi]

5 different dynamic markings out of a total of 7, not 6.

So it is.  I missed the p hiding under the bass staff.

[Uatu]

So it is.  I missed the p hiding under the bass staff.

I take back everything I said on the previous page.  I NEVER make mistakes! 

[North Star]

I take back everything I said on the previous page.  I NEVER make mistakes! 

You thought you made one, but you were wrong. 

[EigenUser]

I've never had piano lessons so my technique is very poor (so the following might be wrong), but I find that multiple dynamic levels in a single hand can be played by adjusting fingers to different relative heights and placing my hand on the piano keys while keeping these relative heights the same. For instance, if my pointer is far ahead and aimed for a 'C' and my pinky is lagging behind and aimed for a 'G', then the 'C' will be louder relative to the 'G'. I don't think I've seen this for more than two dynamics, though.

[Uatu]

I had time last nite to view the first 2 items on the menu. Solar plexus works - Zyklus & Kontakte. Having being inundated with high definition blu rays in the last few years .. sitting down and watching a DVD is a little underwhelming. So the visual clarity/definition was little bit of a letdown, as were a few video edits/cuts .. but this isn't a big Hollywood affair .. and so far .. that is my only qualm - and it is a minor one. The performance & sound is fabulous .. rich and detailed, musical. The performers are so in tune with the otherworldly electronic music of Kontakte, like they have certainly lived it and breathed it .. they make contacts with it so naturally & musically, that it feels like a trio, like the electronic sounds are a performer. And Schick's Zyklus performance is very beautiful, and flows between all the various timbres so well .. capturing an air of excitement, mystery and power.

[asin]B00MQSCJJE[/asin]

Does it feel like it's coming from 4 directions?  Do you have a surround system?

[Uatu]

LICHT-BILDER (Light Pictures)
3rd Scene of SONNTAG AUS LICHT/SUNDAY from LIGHT
for tenor vocalist, trumpet with ring-modulation, basset-horn, and flute/alto flute with ring-modulation
(accompanied by video projection)
2002/2003 [~42']

http://stockhausenspace.blogspot.com/2014/11/opus-77-licht-bilder.html



     There are several ways to listen to LICHT-BILDER, but I personally like to hear it primarily as a dialogue
between the tenor vocal and the bassett horn, with the slightly ring-modulated trumpet and flute being the Greek chorus (not to
diminish their roles of course!).  The tenor and bassett horn seem to "con-verse" using the melodies of EVE and MICHAEL as language
phrases, with each soloist learning and then later practicing his partner's language (this concept of meeting through language
exchange extends as far back as the first LICHT opera, DONNERSTAG AUS LICHT).  The trumpet and flute re-learn and re-translate
from the tenor and bassett horn.

[Uatu]

One of my favorites. I listen to it as if it were a SQ.

Yeah, that works.  In fact I would love to hear a SQ version of this.  That would be cool.

[Uatu]

Another interesting thing here is that this scene actually encapsulates the 7 days of a week in a very true way.  Every day-section basically traverses the same retrograded MICHAEL and EVE melodic formulas from beginning to end, but each is also very different in the details.  A couple days like Thursday and Friday are "special days".  This is a good parallel with real life on a daily basis -  get up, go to work, have lunch, dinner, nightlife, sleep, enjoy a weekend break...  But every day is still different in the details (at least, hopefully!).