Karlheinz Stockhausen

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Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22 1928) is a composer. He is often considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century, but is also controversial, as discussed below.

1 Life and work
2 September 11, 2001 terrorist attack statement controversy
3 Stockhausen in literature
4 Stockhausen in popular culture
5 Criticism
6 External links
- 6.1 Listening

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Life and work

Born in Burg Mödrath, near Cologne (German: Köln), he studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule and the University of Cologne (1947-51), at Darmstadt in 1951, with Olivier Messiaen and (for a very short time) with Darius Milhaud in Paris (1952-53). From 1954 to 1956, at the University of Bonn, he studied phonetics, acoustics, and information theory with Werner Meyer-Eppler. After lecturing at the contemporary music seminars at Darmstadt (1957), Stockhausen gave lectures and concerts in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Stockhausen has worked with a form of serial composition that rejects the twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg, and electronic procedures, with spatial placements of sound sources (for example in his noted work Gesang der Jünglinge), and with graphical notation. Stockhausen sometimes departs radically from musical tradition and his work is influenced by Messiaen and Anton Webern, as well as by painters such as Mondrian and Klee. He claims that he explores fundamental psychological and acoustic aspects of music. His work with electronic music and its utter fixity led him to explore modes of instrumental and vocal music in which performers' individual capabilities and the circumstances of a particular performance (e.g., hall acoustics) may determine certain aspects of a composition. He calls this "variable form." In other cases, a work may be presented from a number of different perspectives. In Zyklus for example, the score is written so that the performance can start on any page, and it may be read upside down, or from right to left, or not, as the performer chooses. Still other works permit different routes through the constituent parts. Stockhausen calls both of these possibilities "polyvalent form," which may be either "open form" (essentially incomplete, pointing beyond its frame), as with Klavierstück XI (1956), or "closed form" (complete and self-contained) as with Momente (1962-64/69).

In most of his works, elements are played off against one another, simultaneously and successively: in Kontra-Punkte ("Against Points", 1952-53), a process leading from an initial "point" texture of isolated notes toward a florid, ornamental ending is opposed by a tendency from diversity (six timbres, dynamics, and durations) toward uniformity (timbre of solo piano, a nearly constant soft dynamic, and fairly even durations); in Gruppen (1955-7) fanfares and passages of varying speed (superimposed durations based on the harmonic series) are occasionally flung between three full orchestras, giving the impression of movement in space.

In his Kontakte for electronic sounds, piano and percussion (1959-60) he achieved for the first time an isomorphism of the four parameters of pitch, duration, dynamics, and timbre. He pioneered live electronics in "Mixtur" (1964) for orchestra and electronics, Mikrophonie I (1964) for tam-tam, two microphones, two filters with potentiometers (6 players) and Mikrophonie II (1965) for choir, Hammond organ, and four ring modulators.

Through the 1960s, Stockhausen explored the possibilities of "process composition" in works for live performance, such as "Prozession" (1967), "Kurzwellen" and "Spiral" (both 1968), culminating in the verbally described "intuitive music" compositions of "Aus den sieben Tagen" (1968) and "Für kommende Zeiten" (1968-70).

Since Mantra (1970) Stockhausen has concentrated almost exclusively on formula composition, a compositional technique which involves the rotation and expansion of a single melody-formula, usually stated at the outset.

Stockhausen has written over 200 individual works. Between 1977 to 2003 he composed a cycle of seven operas called Licht. The Licht cycle deals with the relationships between three characters; Lucifer, Michael and Eve. Stockhausen's conception of opera is based significantly on ceremony and ritual and his approach to characterisation shows the influence of Artaud in its rejection of psychological perspective. Similarly, his approach to voice and text suggests a change from the traditional emphasis: a few parts of Licht are written in simulated languages. Since completing Licht, Stockhausen has embarked on a new cycle of compositions, based on the hours of the day, titled "Klang" ("Sound"). In the early 1990s Stockhausen gained access to all the recordings of his music he had made to that point, and began his own record company to make this music permanently available on compact disc. He also designs and prints his own musical scores. The score for his piece Refrain, for instance, is a circular (refrain).

Stockhausen is one of the few major twentieth-century composers to write a large amount of music for the trumpet, inspired by his son Markus Stockhausen, a trumpeter.

The dream of flying has accompanied Karlheinz Stockhausen's career since the very beginning. Back in the early 1950s, when he was enthralling some and infuriating others in the avant-garde community around the Darmstadt Summer Courses in New Music with his first works Punkte, Kontra-Punkte and Kreuzspiel he was already developing his first ideas for liberating musicians from the constraints of gravity. With his studio technicians he discussed ways of positioning instrumentalists on chairs that could be swung through the room on ropes.

This interest came to a head with the Helikopter-Streichquartett, completed in 1993. In this, the four members of a string quartet each perform from their own helicopter flying above the concert hall. The sounds they play are mixed together with the sounds of the helicopters and played through speakers to the audience in the hall. Videos of the performers are also transmitted back to the concert hall. The performers are kept in synchronicity with the aid of a click-track. Despite its extremely unusual nature, the piece has been given several performances, including one on 22nd August 2003 as part of the Salzburg Festival to open the Hangar-7 venue. The work has also been recorded by the Arditti Quartet.

Stockhausen and his music have been extremely controversial and influential. The influence of his Kontra-Punkte, "Zeitmasse" and Gruppen may be seen in Igor Stravinsky's "Threni" (1957-58) and "Movements" for piano and orchestra (1958-59), and other works, up to the "Variations: Aldous Huxley In Memoriam" (1963-64). Disparate musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Can, The Beatles, Kraftwerk, Coil, Björk, Sonic Youth, Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, and Herbie Hancock cite Stockhausen as an influence. It is also arguable that various movements in electronic music such as the development of techno or even hip hop (in the use of sampling) could not have happened without Stockhausen's influence. Stockhausen, himself, has incorporated most recent musical innovations he did not originate himself, such as in the LaMonte Young influenced Stimmung.

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September 11, 2001 terrorist attack statement controversy

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, Stockhausen was alleged to have made the statement that the attacks were works of art. In a subsequent message, he stated that the press had hideously misinterpreted his meaning, and clarified as follows:

At the press conference in Hamburg, I was asked if Michael, Eve and Lucifer were historical figures of the past and I answered that they exist now, for example Lucifer in New York. In my work, I have defined Lucifer as the cosmic spirit of rebellion, of anarchy. He uses his high degree of intelligence to destroy creation. He does not know love. After further questions about the events in America, I said that such a plan appeared to be Lucifer's greatest work of art. Of course I used the designation "work of art" to mean the work of destruction personified in Lucifer. In the context of my other comments this was unequivocal. (http://www.stockhausen.org/message_from_karlheinz.html)

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Stockhausen in literature

Stockhausen was referred to in Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49.

In Alexander McCall Smith's mystery The Sunday Philosophy Club the main character attends a concert of the Reykjavík Symphony and is unpleasantly surprised to find them playing a Stockhausen work. ("It was impossible music, really and it wasn't something a visiting orchestra should inflict on its hosts.")

From Jerzy Kosinski's novel Pinball: "To Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose electronic compositions so clearly influenced Godard, a musical event was without a determined beginning or an inevitable end; it was neither a consequence of anything that preceded it nor a cause of anything to follow; it was eternity, attainable at any moment, not at the end of time. Whether one liked it or not, weren't life's events like that too?"

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Stockhausen in popular culture

Stockhausen is among the figures on the cover of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Stockhausen is cited as an influence in the liner notes of Frank Zappa's first album, Freak Out!.

Track #2 on the Mysteries of Science 1995 album, Erotic Nature of Automated Universes, is called "Guten tag, Herr Stockhausen", certainly a reference to Stockhausen himself.

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Criticism

The most famous remark about Stockhausen was made by Sir Thomas Beecham. Asked if he had ever conducted any Stockhausen, he said "No, but I once trod in some".[1][2]

Igor Stravinsky is quoted in Druskin's biography as finding Stockhausen "more boring than the most boring of 18th century music". This is extremely odd, given that in Stravinsky's conversation books with Robert Craft (e.g., Memories and Commentaries, 1960, p. 118) he expresses great enthusiasm for Stockhausen's music, and for years organised private listening sessions with friends in his home where he played tapes of Stockhausen's latest works (Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence, 1984, vol. 2, p. 356; Robert Craft, An Improbable Life: Memoires, 2002, p. 141).

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