''Nummer 5 met zuivere tonen'' (Number 5 with Pure Tones) is a musical work by the Belgian composer

Karel Goeyvaerts Karel August Goeyvaerts (8 June 1923 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian composer. Life Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory; he later studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analys ...

, realized at the WDR Studio for Electronic Music in 1953 and one of the earliest pieces of

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electro ...

History

A first version of the work was written by March 1953, but it was only after his friend

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...

had finished his ''

Studie I ''Studie I'' (English: Study I) is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1953. It lasts 9 minutes 42 seconds and, together with his '' Studie II'', comprises his work number ("opus") 3. History The composition was ...

'' in November that Goeyvaerts was able to come to Cologne to realise his work. In the meantime, Goeyvaerts made a revised version of his score, probably in the Autumn, with a much more complex web of proportions over the entire composition that appears to have been influenced by Stockhausen's ''Studie''. Goeyvaerts was given technical assistance by Stockhausen in realising his work. The premiere of Goeyvarts's composition was given on 19 October 1954 on the inaugural concert of works produced in the WDR studio, together with the first performances of six other pieces: Stockhausen's ''Studie I'' and ''

Studie II ''Studie II'' () is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1954 and, together with his '' Studie I'', comprises his work number ("opus") 3. It is serially organized on all musical levels and was the first published ...

'', Herbert Eimert's ''Glockenspiel'' and ''Etüde über Tongemische'',

Paul Gredinger Paul Gredinger (27 July 1927 – 6 October 2013) was a Swiss architect. Gredinger was one of the leading figures in the German advertising scene.

's ''Formanten I/II'', and

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 ...

's ''Seismogramme''. Eimert emphatically titled these pieces "Die sieben Stücke" (The Seven Pieces), and long maintained that this was the first concert of electronic music. In retrospect, Goeyvaerts was unhappy with ''Nummer 5'' as a finished product, because it demonstrated that absolute certainty lay outside his grasp.

Analysis

The "pure tones" of the subtitle refer to sine tones, from which the various sounds used in the piece are compounded. The work is characterised by stillness, possessing a non-

dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

al mode of proceeding so that its harmonic proportions need not exclude an equilibrium of elements. A second force is responsible for the piece’s form: it is ''exactly'' symmetrical: not only does each event in the second half of the piece occur according to an axis of symmetry at the exact centre, but each event itself is reversed. It is a perfect example of Goeyvaerts's aesthetics, the perfect example of the imperfection of perfection. All the relations among the parametric values are derived from the arithmetic series of the integers from 1 to 11. This series defines not only the numbers of elements, but also the relations between the values of these elements. Within the individual composite tones this applies not only to the relations between the component tones but also to the relations between the various composite sounds.

Discography

* Goeyvaerts, Karel. ''The Serial Works 1–7''. Champ d'Action. Megadisc MDC 7845. Gent: Megadisc Classics, 1998. * ''Early Electronic Music: Cologne—WDR''. CD recording BVHAAST 9106. Amsterdam : BV HAAST Records, 1999. Herbert Eimert and Robert Beyer, ''Klang im unbegrenzten Raum'' and ''Klangstudie II''; Herbert Eimert, ''Klangstudie I'', and ''Glockenspiel''; Karel Goeyvaerts, ''Nr 5'' and ''Nr 7''; Paul Gredinger, ''Formaten I und II''; Gottfried Michael Koenig, ''Klangfiguren I'';

, ''Seismogramme I–II'';

Bengt Hambraeus Bengt Hambraeus (Stockholm, Sweden, January 29, 1928 – Glen Roy, Ontario, (in Glengarry County), near Montreal, Quebec, Canada, September 21, 2000) was a Swedish-Canadian organist, composer and musicologist. Biography Hambreaus studied organ wi ...

, ''Doppelrohr II''; Franco Evangelisti, ''Incontri di fasce sonore'';

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century ...

, ''Glissandi'' and ''Artikulation'';

Giselher Klebe Giselher Wolfgang Klebe (28 June 19255 October 2009) was a German composer, and an academic teacher. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, all based on literary works, eight symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano work ...

, ''Interferenzen''; Herbert Brün, ''Anepigraphe''.

References

Sources * * * * *

and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. * Delaere, Mark, Maarten Beirens, and Hilary Staples. 2004. "Minimal Music in the Low Countries". ''Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis'' 54, no. 1:31–78. * Goeyvaerts, Karel. 2010. ''Selbstlose Musik: Texte, Briefe, Gespräche'', edited by Mark Delaere. Cologne: Edition MusikTexte. . * Moelants, Dirk. "Statistical Analysis of Written and Performed Music: A Study of Compositional Principles and Problems of Coordination and Expression in 'Punctual' Serial Music." '' Journal of New Music Research'' 29, no. 1 (March): 37–60. * . 1972. "Das Musikdenken von Karel Goeyvaerts in Bezug auf das Schaffen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der frühseriellen und elektronischen Musik 1950–1956". ''Interface'' 2:101–113. * Sabbe, Herman. 1994. "Goeyvaerts and the Beginnings of 'Punctual' Serialism and Electronic Music." ''Revue Belge de Musicologie'' / ''Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap'' 48:55–94. * Sabbe, Herman. 2005. "A Paradigm of 'Absolute Music': Goeyvaerts's N°. 4 as ''Numerus Sonorus''". ''Revue Belge de Musicologie'' / ''Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap'' 59:243–251. *

Toop, Richard Richard Toop (1945 – 19 June 2017) was a British-Australian musicologist. Toop was born in Chichester, England, in 1945. He studied at Hull University, where his teachers included Denis Arnold. In 1973 he became Karlheinz Stockhausen's teac ...

. 1979. "Stockhausen and the Sine-Wave: The Story of an Ambiguous Relationship." ''

The Musical Quarterly ''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including Ca ...

'' 65, no. 3, 379–391. {{Authority control Compositions by Karel Goeyvaerts 1953 compositions Electronic compositions Serial compositions Process music pieces

History

Analysis

Discography

References

Further reading