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The Week in Germany: Culture December 14, 2007 Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen Dead at 79
One of the most influential European composers in the post-WWII era, Karlheinz Stockhausen died at the age of 79 on December 5, 2007. Widely recognized as a pioneer of electronic music, Stockhausen’s compositional techniques were based not only on the organization of familiar musical sounds, but on the synthesis of sound itself. His influence remains present not just within the avant garde, but in decades of rock, jazz and electronic music as well. While studying to become a music teacher at the Cologne Musikhochschule from 1947-1951, Stockhausen developed an interest in composition that led him to study under Olivier Messiaen in Paris in the early fifties. In early works composed in Paris, he applied Arnold Schönberg’s serial techniques not just to the pitch, but also to the duration, timbre and dynamics of notes, creating new and exciting combinations of sound through a unique blend of chance and design. After returning to Germany to take a position at the new NWDR studio for electronic music in 1953, Stockhausen continued to apply rigorous formal principles to all of the basic elements of sound, but now he was using the most advanced electronic musical equipment of the day. In “Gesang der Jünglinge” (Song of the Youths (1955-56) he manipulated electronic tones and a recording of a boy singing such that intelligible speech appears to arise seamlessly out of apparently chaotic bursts of electronic noise. While that piece reflected Stockhausen’s interest in the way that people perceive sound and space, the biblical text (from the Book of Daniel) also reveals a deep interest in the metaphysical. A devout Roman Catholic, Stockhausen gradually adopted mystical ideas that would increasingly inform his music and his public persona until his death. In the late 1960’s, he pursued the idea that musicians could tap into music that existed outside of them and reduced his scores to verbal descriptions of the music or texts upon which to meditate while improvising. Beginning in the 1970’s, Stockhausen devoted much of his time to “LICHT” (Light), a monumental cycle of seven operas based on the seven days of the week. Drawing on Biblical and mystical traditions, the opera focuses on the archetypal characters Michael Lucifer, and Eve, often portrayed by instrumentalists or dancers rather than singers. The operas, over 29 hours long, recall the formalism of his earlier work on a much grander scale. Melodic phrases associated with each character are applied to create an overarching structure for each scene and each day, creating a virtual matryoshka doll of overlapping structures. Including sometimes impossibly elaborate scenic and technical instructions – one scene calls for a live audio feed from a helicopter above the opera house – only five operas in the cycle have been performed. In the years before his death, Stockhausen had embarked on a similarly ambitious project, composing an opera for each hour of the day. Even before these grand undertakings, Stockhausen’s early electronic and serial pieces had earned him the respect of elder statesmen like Igor Stravinsky and contemporaries like Kagel, Cage, and Ligeti. By the late 1960’s, his sonic and formal experimentation had seeped into the avant garde jazz of Anthony Braxton, the electrified funk of Miles Davis and the psychedelic pop of the Beatles. He also influenced generations of musicians through teaching and mentoring, including members of the German rock band Can and the American minimalist composer La Monte Young. Links: |
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