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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 20 (twenty; Roman numeral XX) is the natural number following 19 and preceding 21. A group of twenty units may also be referred to as a score. In mathematics *20 is a pronic number. *20 is a tetrahedral number as 1, 4, 10, 20. *20 is the ba ...
and early
21st 21 (twenty-one) is the natural number following 20 and preceding 22. The current century is the 21st century AD, under the Gregorian calendar. In mathematics 21 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 3 and 7, and a defici ...
centuries. He is known for his groundbreaking work in
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 ...
, for introducing controlled chance ( aleatory techniques) into serial composition, and for musical
spatialization Spatialization (or spatialisation) is the spatial forms that social activities and material things, phenomena or processes take on in geography, sociology, urban planning and cultural studies. Generally the term refers to an overall sense of soc ...
. He was educated at the
Hochschule für Musik Köln ' (, plural: ') is the generic term in German for institutions of higher education, corresponding to ''universities'' and ''colleges'' in English. The term ''Universität'' (plural: ''Universitäten'') is reserved for institutions with the right to ...
and the
University of Cologne The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university to ...
, later studying with
Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century. His m ...
in Paris and with
Werner Meyer-Eppler Werner Meyer-Eppler (30 April 1913 – 8 July 1960), was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist. Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, ...
at the
University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
. One of the leading figures of the
Darmstadt School Darmstadt School refers to a group of composers who were associated with the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music (Darmstädter Ferienkurse) from the early 1950s to the early 1960s in Darmstadt, Germany, and who shared some aesthe ...
, his compositions and theories were and remain widely influential, not only on composers of
art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...
, but also on
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
and
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
. His works, composed over a period of nearly sixty years, eschew traditional forms. In addition to electronic music—both with and without live performers—they range from miniatures for
musical box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...
es through works for solo instruments, songs,
chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small nu ...
,
choral A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...
and orchestral music, to a cycle of seven full-length operas. His
theoretical A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...
and other writings comprise ten large volumes. He received numerous prizes and distinctions for his compositions, recordings, and for the scores produced by his publishing company. His notable compositions include the series of nineteen '' Klavierstücke'' (Piano Pieces), '' Kontra-Punkte'' for ten instruments, the electronic/ musique-concrète ''
Gesang der Jünglinge ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' (literally "Song of the Youths") is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog. The v ...
'', '' Gruppen'' for three orchestras, the percussion solo '' Zyklus'', '' Kontakte'', the cantata '' Momente'', the live-electronic '' Mikrophonie I'', ''
Hymnen ''Hymnen'' (German for "Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22. The extended work is ...
'', '' Stimmung'' for six vocalists, ''
Aus den sieben Tagen ''Aus den sieben Tagen'' (From the Seven Days) is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as " Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the i ...
'', ''
Mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...
'' for two pianos and electronics, '' Tierkreis'', '' Inori'' for soloists and orchestra, and the gigantic opera cycle '' Licht''. He died of sudden heart failure at the age of 79, on 5 December 2007 at his home in Kürten, Germany.


Biography


Childhood

Stockhausen was born in Burg Mödrath, the "castle" of the village of Mödrath. The village, located near
Kerpen Kerpen (; Ripuarian: ''Kerpe'') is the most populated town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). It is located about 20 kilometres southwest from Cologne. Division of the town The town of Kerpen was created in 1975, whe ...
in the
Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
region, was displaced in 1956 to make way for
lignite Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...
strip mining, but the castle itself still stands. Despite its name, the building is more a manor house than a castle. Built in 1830 by a local businessman named Arend, it was called by locals ''Burg Mödrath''. From 1925 to 1932 it was the maternity home of the Bergheim district, and after the war it served for a time as a shelter for war refugees. In 1950, the owners, the Düsseldorf chapter of the
Knights of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta ( it, Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta; ...
, turned it into an orphanage, but it was subsequently returned to private ownership and became a private residence again. In 2017, an anonymous patron purchased the house and opened it in April 2017 as an exhibition space for modern art, with the first floor to be used as the permanent home of the museum of the WDR Electronic Music Studio, where Stockhausen had worked from 1953 until shortly before WDR closed the studio in 2000. His father, Simon Stockhausen, was a
schoolteacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
, and his mother Gertrud (née Stupp) was the daughter of a prosperous family of farmers in Neurath in the
Cologne Bight The Cologne Lowland,Dickinson 1953, 35, 461–64, 466–73.Elkins 1968, 229. also called the Cologne Bay or, less commonly, the Cologne Bight (german: Kölner Bucht), is a densely populated area of Germany lying between the cities of Bonn, Aache ...
. A daughter, Katherina, was born the year after Karlheinz, and a second son, Hermann-Josef ("Hermännchen") followed in 1932. Gertrud played the piano and accompanied her own singing but, after three pregnancies in as many years, experienced a mental breakdown and was institutionalized in December 1932, followed a few months later by the death of her younger son, Hermann. From the age of seven, Stockhausen lived in Altenberg, where he received his first piano lessons from the Protestant
organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational ...
of the
Altenberger Dom The Altenberger Dom (or Bergischer Dom) is the former abbey church of Altenberg Abbey which was built from 1259 in Gothic style by Cistercians. Listed as a cultural heritage, it is located in Altenberg, now part of Odenthal in the Rheinisch-Berg ...
, Franz-Josef Kloth. In 1938 his father remarried. His new wife, Luzia, had been the family's housekeeper. The couple had two daughters. Because his relationship with his new stepmother was less than happy, in January 1942 Karlheinz became a boarder at the teachers' training college in
Xanten Xanten (, Low Rhenish: ''Santen'') is a town in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the district of Wesel. Xanten is known for the Archaeological Park, one of the largest archaeological open air museums in the wo ...
, where he continued his piano training and also studied oboe and violin. In 1941 he learned that his mother had died, ostensibly from leukemia, although everyone at the same hospital had supposedly died of the same disease. It was generally understood that she had been a victim of the Nazi policy of killing " useless eaters". The official letter to the family falsely claimed she had died 16 June 1941, but recent research by Lisa Quernes, a student at the Landesmusikgymnasium in
Montabaur Montabaur () is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to w ...
, has determined that she was murdered in the gas chamber, along with 89 other people, at the
Hadamar Killing Facility The Hadamar killing centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hadamar) was a killing facility involved in the Nazi "involuntary euthanasia" programme known as ''Aktion T4''. It was housed within a psychiatric hospital located in the German town of Had ...
in Hesse-Nassau on 27 May 1941. Stockhausen dramatized his mother's death in hospital by lethal injection, in Act 1 scene 2 (" Mondeva") of the opera Donnerstag aus Licht. In late 1944, Stockhausen was conscripted to serve as a stretcher bearer in
Bedburg Bedburg () is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia of Germany with 25,000 residents. Since 2014, Sascha Solbach is the mayor of Bedburg. The town is documented as existing as early as 893. Climate Notable people Sons ...
. In February 1945, he met his father for the last time in Altenberg. Simon, who was on leave from the front, told his son, "I'm not coming back. Look after things." By the end of the war, his father was regarded as missing in action, and may have been killed in Hungary. A comrade later reported to Karlheinz that he saw his father wounded in action. Fifty-five years after the fact, a journalist writing for the ''Guardian'' stated that Simon Stockhausen was killed in Hungary in 1945.


Education

From 1947 to 1951, Stockhausen studied music
pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
and piano at the
Hochschule für Musik Köln ' (, plural: ') is the generic term in German for institutions of higher education, corresponding to ''universities'' and ''colleges'' in English. The term ''Universität'' (plural: ''Universitäten'') is reserved for institutions with the right to ...
(Cologne Conservatory of Music) and
musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...
, philosophy, and
German studies German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, Germa ...
at the
University of Cologne The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university to ...
. He had training in
harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...
and
counterpoint In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tra ...
, the latter with
Hermann Schroeder Hermann Schroeder (26 March 1904 – 7 October 1984) was a German composer and a Catholic church musician. Life Schroeder was born in Bernkastel and spent the greatest part of his life’s work in the Rheinland. His mother's family had common a ...
, but he did not develop a real interest in
composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
until 1950. He was admitted at the end of that year to the class of Swiss composer Frank Martin, who had just begun a seven-year tenure in Cologne. At the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1951, Stockhausen met 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 ...
, who had just completed studies with
Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century. His m ...
(analysis) and
Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...
(composition) in Paris, and Stockhausen resolved to do likewise. He arrived in Paris on 8 January 1952 and began attending Messiaen's courses in aesthetics and analysis, as well as Milhaud's composition classes. He continued with Messiaen for a year, but he was disappointed with Milhaud and abandoned his lessons after a few weeks. In March 1953, he left Paris to take up a position as assistant to Herbert Eimert at the newly established Electronic Music Studio of
Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR; ''Northwest German Broadcasting'') was the organization responsible for public broadcasting in the German Länder of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia from 22 September 1945 to ...
(NWDR) (from 1 January 1955,
Westdeutscher Rundfunk Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (''West German Broadcasting Cologne''; WDR, ) is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a constituent member of the conso ...
, or WDR) in Cologne. In 1963, he succeeded Eimert as director of the studio. From 1954 to 1956, he studied phonetics, acoustics, and information theory with
Werner Meyer-Eppler Werner Meyer-Eppler (30 April 1913 – 8 July 1960), was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist. Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, ...
at the
University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
. Together with Eimert, Stockhausen edited the journal '' Die Reihe'' from 1955 to 1962.


Career and adult life


Family and home

On 29 December 1951, in Hamburg, Stockhausen married Doris Andreae. Together they had four children: Suja (b. 1953), Christel (b. 1956), Markus (b. 1957), and Majella (b. 1961). They were divorced in 1965. On 3 April 1967, in San Francisco, he married
Mary Bauermeister Mary Hilde Ruth Bauermeister (born 7 September 1934) is a German artist who works in sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and music. Influenced by Fluxus artists and Nouveau Réalisme, her work addresses esoteric issues of how informat ...
, with whom he had two children: Julika (b. 22 January 1966) and Simon (b. 1967). They were divorced in 1972. Four of Stockhausen's children became professional musicians (Kurtz 1992, 202), and he composed some of his works specifically for them. A large number of pieces for the trumpet—from ''Sirius'' (1975–77) to the trumpet version of '' In Freundschaft'' (1997)—were composed for and premièred by his son Markus. Markus, at the age of 4 years, had performed the part of The Child in the Cologne première of ''Originale'', alternating performances with his sister Christel. ''Klavierstück XII'' and ''Klavierstück XIII'' (and their versions as scenes from the operas ''Donnerstag aus Licht'' and '' Samstag aus Licht'') were written for his daughter Majella, and were first performed by her at the ages of 16 and 20, respectively. The saxophone duet in the second act of ''Donnerstag aus Licht'', and a number of synthesizer parts in the ''Licht'' operas, including ''Klavierstück XV'' ("Synthi-Fou") from '' Dienstag'', were composed for his son Simon, who also assisted his father in the production of the electronic music from ''Freitag aus Licht''. His daughter Christel is a flautist who performed and gave a course on interpretation of ''Tierkreis'' in 1977, later published as an article. In 1961, Stockhausen acquired a parcel of land in the vicinity of Kürten, a village east of Cologne, near
Bergisch Gladbach Bergisch Gladbach () is a city in the Cologne/Bonn Region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and capital of the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis (district). Geography Bergisch Gladbach is located east of the river Rhine, approx. 10 kilometers east o ...
in the
Bergisches Land The Bergisches Land (, ''Berg Country'') is a low mountain range region within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains ...
. He had a house built there, which was designed to his specifications by the architect Erich Schneider-Wessling, and he resided there from its completion in the autumn of 1965.


Teaching

After lecturing at the
Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik "The Internationale" (french: "L'Internationale", italic=no, ) is an international anthem used by various communist and socialist groups; currently, it serves as the official anthem of the Communist Party of China. It has been a standard of th ...
at Darmstadt (first in 1953), Stockhausen gave lectures and concerts in Europe, North America, and Asia. He was guest professor of composition at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
in 1965 and at the
University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...
in 1966–67. He founded and directed the Cologne Courses for New Music from 1963 to 1968, and was appointed Professor of Composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln in 1971, where he taught until 1977. In 1998, he founded the Stockhausen Courses, which are held annually in Kürten.


Publishing activities

From the mid-1950s onward, Stockhausen designed (and in some cases arranged to have printed) his own musical scores for his publisher,
Universal Edition Universal Edition (UE) is a classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, they originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market (which had until then been dominated by Leipzig-bas ...
, which often involved unconventional devices. The score for his piece ''Refrain'', for instance, includes a rotatable (
refrain A refrain (from Vulgar Latin ''refringere'', "to repeat", and later from Old French ''refraindre'') is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in poetry — the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the v ...
) on a transparent plastic strip. Early in the 1970s, he ended his agreement with Universal Edition and began publishing his own scores under the Stockhausen-Verlag imprint. This arrangement allowed him to extend his notational innovations (for example, dynamics in ''Weltparlament'' he_first_scene_of_''Mittwoch_aus_Licht''.html" ;"title="Mittwoch_aus_Licht.html" ;"title="he first scene of ''Mittwoch aus Licht">he first scene of ''Mittwoch aus Licht''">Mittwoch_aus_Licht.html" ;"title="he first scene of ''Mittwoch aus Licht">he first scene of ''Mittwoch aus Licht''are coded in colour) and resulted in eight German Music Publishers Society Awards between 1992 (''Luzifers Tanz'') and 2005 (''Hoch-Zeiten'', from ''Sonntag aus Licht''). The ''Momente'' score, published just before Stockhausen's death in 2007, won this prize for the ninth time. In the early 1990s, Stockhausen reacquired the licenses to most of the recordings of his music he had made to that point, and started his own record company to make this music permanently available on Compact Disc.


Death

Stockhausen died of sudden heart failure on the morning of 5 December 2007 in Kürten, North Rhine-Westphalia. The night before, he had finished a recently commissioned work for performance by the Mozart Orchestra of Bologna. He was 79 years old.


Compositions

Stockhausen wrote 370 individual works. He often departs radically from musical tradition and his work is influenced by
Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century. His m ...
,
Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coine ...
, and
Anton Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...
, as well as by film and by painters such as
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
and
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
.


1950s

Stockhausen began to compose in earnest only during his third year at the conservatory. His early student compositions remained out of the public eye until, in 1971, he published '' Chöre für Doris'', '' Drei Lieder'' for alto voice and chamber orchestra, ''Choral'' for a cappella choir (all three from 1950), and a Sonatine for violin and piano (1951). In August 1951, just after his first Darmstadt visit, Stockhausen began working with a form of
athematic In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel or from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and tho ...
serial composition that rejected the
twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
of
Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
. He characterized many of these earliest compositions (together with the music of other, like-minded composers of the period) as '' punktuelle Musik'', "punctual" or "pointist" music, commonly mistranslated as "pointillist", though one critic concluded after analysing several of these early works that Stockhausen "never really composed punctually". Compositions from this phase include '' Kreuzspiel'' (1951), the '' Klavierstücke I–IV'' (1952—the fourth of this first set of four ''Klavierstücke'', titled ''Klavierstück IV'', is specifically cited by Stockhausen as an example of "punctual music", and the first (unpublished) versions of '' Punkte'' and ''Kontra-Punkte'' (1952). However, several works from these same years show Stockhausen formulating his "first really ground-breaking contribution to the theory and, above all, practice of composition", that of "group composition", found in Stockhausen's works as early as 1952 and continuing throughout his compositional career. This principle was first publicly described by Stockhausen in a radio talk from December 1955, titled "Gruppenkomposition: '' Klavierstück I''". In December 1952, he composed a ''Konkrete Etüde'', realized in
Pierre Schaeffer Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...
's Paris
musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic, wit ...
studio. In March 1953, he moved to the NWDR studio in Cologne and turned to
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 ...
with two '' Electronic Studies'' (1953 and 1954), and then introducing spatial placements of sound sources with his mixed ''concrète'' and electronic work ''
Gesang der Jünglinge ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' (literally "Song of the Youths") is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog. The v ...
'' (1955–56). Experiences gained from the ''Studies'' made plain that it was an unacceptable oversimplification to regard timbres as stable entities. Reinforced by his studies with Meyer-Eppler, beginning in 1955, Stockhausen formulated new "statistical" criteria for composition, focussing attention on the
aleatoric Aleatoricism or aleatorism, the noun associated with the adjectival aleatory and aleatoric, is a term popularised by the musical composer Pierre Boulez, but also Witold Lutosławski and Franco Evangelisti, for compositions resulting from "action ...
, directional tendencies of sound movement, "the change from one state to another, with or without returning motion, as opposed to a fixed state". Stockhausen later wrote, describing this period in his compositional work, "The first revolution occurred from 1952/53 as ''musique concrète'', ''electronic tape music'', and ''space music'', entailing composition with transformers, generators, modulators, magnetophones, etc; the integration of concrete and abstract (synthetic) sound possibilities (also all noises), and the controlled projection of sound in space". His position as "the leading German composer of his generation" was established with ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' and three concurrently composed pieces in different media: ''
Zeitmaße ''Zeitmaße'' (; German for "Time Measures") is a chamber-music work for five woodwinds (flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, and bassoon) composed in 1955–1956 by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen; it is Number 5 in the composer's catalog. ...
'' for five woodwinds, ''Gruppen'' for three orchestras, and '' Klavierstück XI''. The principles underlying the latter three compositions are presented in Stockhausen's best-known theoretical article, "... wie die Zeit vergeht ..." ("... How Time Passes ..."), first published in 1957 in vol. 3 of '' Die Reihe''. 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 called this "variable form". In other cases, a work may be presented from a number of different perspectives. In '' Zyklus'' (1959), for example, he began using graphic notation for instrumental music. The
score Score or scorer may refer to: *Test score, the result of an exam or test Business * Score Digital, now part of Bauer Radio * Score Entertainment, a former American trading card design and manufacturing company * Score Media, a former Canadian ...
is written so that the performance can start on any page, and it may be read upside down, or from right to left, as the performer chooses. Still other works permit different routes through the constituent parts. Stockhausen called 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 many of his works, elements are played off against one another, simultaneously and successively: in ''Kontra-Punkte'' ("Against Points", 1952–53), which, in its revised form became his official "opus 1", 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'' (1955–57), 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 (optionally with piano and percussion) (1958–60), he achieved for the first time an
isomorphism In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word i ...
of the four parameters of pitch, duration, dynamics, and timbre.


1960s

In 1960, Stockhausen returned to the composition of vocal music (for the first time since ''Gesang der Jünglinge'') with '' Carré'' for four orchestras and four choirs. Two years later, he began an expansive
cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning o ...
titled ''Momente'' (1962–64/69), for solo soprano, four choir groups and thirteen instrumentalists. In 1963, Stockhausen created '' Plus-Minus'', "2 × 7 pages for realisation" containing basic note materials and a complex system of transformations to which those materials are to be subjected in order to produce an unlimited number of different compositions. Through the rest of the 1960s, he continued to explore such possibilities of " process composition" in works for live performance, such as ''Prozession'' (1967), ''
Kurzwellen ''Kurzwellen'' (Short Waves), for six players with shortwave radio receivers and live electronics, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 25 in the catalog of the composer's works. Conception ''Kurzwellen'' is ...
'', and ''
Spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. Helices Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:Aus den sieben Tagen ''Aus den sieben Tagen'' (From the Seven Days) is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as " Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the i ...
'' (1968) and ''
Für kommende Zeiten ''Für kommende Zeiten'' (For Times to Come) is a collection of seventeen text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed between August 1968 and July 1970. It is a successor to the similar collection titled ''Aus den sieben Tagen'', written ...
'' (1968–70). Some of his later works, such as ''
Ylem Ylem ( or ) is a hypothetical original substance or condensed state of matter, which became subatomic particles and elements as we understand them today. The term was used by George Gamow, his student Ralph Alpher, and their associates in the la ...
'' (1972) and the first three parts of ''
Herbstmusik ''Herbstmusik'' (Autumn Music) is a music-theatre work for four performers composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1974. It is Nr. 40 in his catalogue of works, and lasts a little over an hour in performance. History ''Herbstmusik'' was written in M ...
'' (1974), also fall under this rubric. Several of these process compositions were featured in the all-day programmes presented at Expo 70, for which Stockhausen composed two more similar pieces, ''Pole'' for two players, and ''Expo'' for three. In other compositions, such as ''Stop'' for orchestra (1965), '' Adieu'' for wind quintet (1966), and the ''Dr. K Sextett'', which was written in 1968–69 in honour of Alfred Kalmus of Universal Edition, he presented his performers with more restricted improvisational possibilities. He pioneered live electronics in '' Mixtur'' (1964/67/2003) for orchestra and electronics, '' Mikrophonie I'' (1964) for
tam-tam A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
, two microphones, two filters with
potentiometer A potentiometer is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding or rotating contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. The measuring instrum ...
s (6 players), '' Mikrophonie II'' (1965) for choir,
Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated ...
, and four ring modulators, and ''Solo'' for a melody instrument with feedback (1966). Improvisation also plays a part in all of these works, but especially in ''Solo''. He also composed two electronic works for tape, ''Telemusik'' (1966) and ''
Hymnen ''Hymnen'' (German for "Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22. The extended work is ...
'' (1966–67). The latter also exists in a version with partially improvising soloists, and the third of its four "regions" in a version with orchestra. At this time, Stockhausen also began to incorporate pre-existent music from world traditions into his compositions. ''Telemusik'' was the first overt example of this trend. In 1968, Stockhausen composed the vocal sextet '' Stimmung'', for the
Collegium Vocale Köln Collegium Vocale Köln is a German vocal ensemble, founded in 1966 as a quintet when its members were still students at the in Cologne. It is directed by Wolfgang Fromme, who also sings tenor in the ensemble. They are best known as the group for ...
, an hour-long work based entirely on the
overtone An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...
s of a low B-flat. In the following year, he created ''
Fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...
'' for four orchestral groups, a ''Wandelmusik'' ("foyer music") composition. This was intended to be played for about five hours in the foyers and grounds of the Beethovenhalle auditorium complex in
Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
, before, after, and during a group of (in part simultaneous) concerts of his music in the auditoriums of the facility. The overall project was given the title ''Musik für die Beethovenhalle''. This had precedents in two collective-composition seminar projects that Stockhausen gave at Darmstadt in 1967 and 1968: ''Ensemble'' and ''Musik für ein Haus'', and would have successors in the "park music" composition for five spatially separated groups, ''
Sternklang ''Sternklang'' (Star Sound), is "park music for five groups" composed in 1971 by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and bears the work number 34 in his catalogue of compositions. The score is dedicated to his spouse, Mary Bauermeister, and a performance of t ...
'' ("Star Sounds") of 1971, the orchestral work ''Trans'', composed in the same year and the thirteen simultaneous "musical scenes for soloists and duets" titled ''
Alphabet für Liège ''Alphabet für Liège'', for soloists and duos, is a composition (or a musical installation) by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Work Number 36 in the composer's catalog of works. A performance of it lasts four hours. The fundamental idea underly ...
'' (1972).


Space music and Expo '70

Since the mid-1950s, Stockhausen had been developing concepts of
spatialization Spatialization (or spatialisation) is the spatial forms that social activities and material things, phenomena or processes take on in geography, sociology, urban planning and cultural studies. Generally the term refers to an overall sense of soc ...
in his works, not only in electronic music, such as the 5-channel ''
Gesang der Jünglinge ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' (literally "Song of the Youths") is an electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog. The v ...
'' (1955–56) and ''
Telemusik ''Telemusik'' is an electronic composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is number 20 in his catalog of works. History Through his composition student, Makoto Shinohara, Stockhausen was invited by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation NHK to visit ...
'' (1966), and 4-channel '' Kontakte'' (1958–60) and ''
Hymnen ''Hymnen'' (German for "Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22. The extended work is ...
'' (1966–67). Instrumental/vocal works like ''Gruppen'' for three orchestras (1955–57) and ''Carré'' for four orchestras and four choirs (1959–60) also exhibit this trait. In lectures such as "Music in Space" from 1958, he called for new kinds of concert halls to be built, "suited to the requirements of spatial music". His idea was In 1968, the West German government invited Stockhausen to collaborate on the German Pavilion at the 1970 World Fair in
Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
and to create a joint multimedia project for it with artist
Otto Piene Otto Piene (pronounced PEE-nah, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; ...
. Other collaborators on the project included the pavilion's architect,
Fritz Bornemann Fritz Bornemann (12 February 1912 in Berlin – 28 May 2007 in Berlin) was a German architect. Life and works Bornemann studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. After graduating in 1936, he was Assistant Scenic Designer ...
, Fritz Winckel, director of the Electronic Music Studio at the
Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...
, and engineer Max Mengeringhausen. The pavilion theme was "gardens of music", in keeping with which Bornemann intended "planting" the exhibition halls beneath a broad lawn, with a connected auditorium "sprouting" above ground. Initially, Bornemann conceived this auditorium in the form of an
amphitheatre An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...
, with a central orchestra podium and surrounding audience space. In the summer of 1968, Stockhausen met with Bornemann and persuaded him to change this conception to a spherical space with the audience in the centre, surrounded by loudspeaker groups in seven rings at different "latitudes" around the interior walls of the sphere. Although Stockhausen and Piene's planned multimedia project, titled ''Hinab-Hinauf'', was developed in detail, the World Fair committee rejected their concept as too extravagant and instead asked Stockhausen to present daily five-hour programs of his music. Stockhausen's works were performed for 5½ hours every day over a period of 183 days to a total audience of about a million listeners. According to Stockhausen's biographer, Michael Kurtz, "Many visitors felt the spherical auditorium to be an oasis of calm amidst the general hubbub, and after a while it became one of the main attractions of Expo 1970".


1970s

Beginning with ''
Mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...
'' for two pianos and electronics (1970), Stockhausen turned to formula composition, a technique which involves the projection and multiplication of a single, double, or triple
melodic A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinat ...
-line formula. Sometimes, as in ''Mantra'' and the large orchestral composition with mime soloists, ''Inori'', the simple formula is stated at the outset as an introduction. He continued to use this technique (e.g., in the two related solo-clarinet pieces, ''Harlekin'' arlequinand ''Der kleine Harlekin'' he Little Harlequinof 1975, and the orchestral '' Jubiläum'' ubileeof 1977) through the completion of the opera-cycle ''Licht'' in 2003. Some works from the 1970s did not employ formula technique—e.g., the vocal duet " Am Himmel wandre ich" (In the Sky I am Walking, one of the 13 components of the multimedia ''Alphabet für Liège'', 1972, which Stockhausen developed in conversation with the British biophysicist and lecturer on mystical aspects of sound vibration
Jill Purce Jill Purce (born 1947) is a British voice teacher, Family Constellations therapist, and author. In the 1970s, Purce developed a new way of working with the voice, introducing the teaching of group overtone chanting, producing a single note whils ...
), "Laub und Regen" (Leaves and Rain, from the theatre piece ''Herbstmusik'' (1974), the unaccompanied-clarinet composition '' Amour'', and the choral opera ''
Atmen gibt das Leben ''Atmen gibt das Leben'' (''Breathing Gives Life''), is a choral opera with orchestra by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1974 and expanded in 1976–77. It is Number 39 in the catalogue of the composer's works, and lasts about 50 minutes in pe ...
'' (Breathing Gives Life, 1974/77)—but nevertheless share its simpler, melodically oriented style. Two such pieces, ''Tierkreis'' ("Zodiac", 1974–75) and '' In Freundschaft'' (In Friendship, 1977, a solo piece with versions for virtually every orchestral instrument), have become Stockhausen's most widely performed and recorded compositions. This dramatic simplification of style provided a model for a new generation of German composers, loosely associated under the label ''neue Einfachheit'' or
New Simplicity New Simplicity (in German, ''Neue Einfachheit'') was a stylistic tendency amongst some of the younger generation of German composers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, reacting against not only the European avant garde of the 1950s and 1960s, but al ...
. The best-known of these composers is
Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Rihm (born 13 March 1952) is a German composer and academic teacher. He is musical director of the Institute of New Music and Media at the University of Music Karlsruhe and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Sa ...
, who studied with Stockhausen in 1972–73. His orchestral composition ''Sub-Kontur'' (1974–75) quotes the formula of Stockhausen's ''Inori'' (1973–74), and he has also acknowledged the influence of ''Momente'' on this work. Other large works by Stockhausen from this decade include the orchestral ''
Trans Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of". Used alone, trans may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trans (festival), a former festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom * ''Trans'' (fil ...
'' (1971) and two music-theatre compositions utilizing the ''Tierkreis'' melodies: ''
Musik im Bauch ' (Music in the Belly) is a piece of scenic music for six percussionists and music boxes composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1975, and is Number 41 in his catalog of works. The world premiere was presented on 28 March 1975 as part of the Royan F ...
'' ("Music in the Belly") for six percussionists (1975), and the science-fiction "opera" ''
Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CM ...
'' (1975–77) for eight-channel electronic music with soprano, bass, trumpet, and bass clarinet, which has four different versions for the four seasons, each lasting over an hour and a half.


1977–2003

Between 1977 and 2003, Stockhausen composed seven operas in a cycle titled '' Licht: Die sieben Tage der Woche'' ("Light: The Seven Days of the Week"). The ''Licht'' cycle deals with the traits associated in various historical traditions with each weekday (Monday = birth and fertility, Tuesday = conflict and war, Wednesday = reconciliation and cooperation, Thursday = traveling and learning, etc.) and with the relationships between three archetypal characters:
Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...
,
Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passa ...
, and Eve. Each of these characters dominates one of the operas (''Donnerstag'' hursday ''Samstag'' aturday and ''Montag'' onday respectively), the three possible pairings are foregrounded in three others, and the equal combination of all three is featured in ''Mittwoch'' (Wednesday). Stockhausen's conception of opera was based significantly on ceremony and ritual, with influence from the Japanese Noh theatre, as well as
Judeo-Christian The term Judeo-Christian is used to group Christianity and Judaism together, either in reference to Christianity's derivation from Judaism, Christianity's borrowing of Jewish Scripture to constitute the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible, o ...
and
Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...
traditions. In 1968, at the time of the composition of ''Aus den sieben Tagen'', Stockhausen had read a biography by
Satprem Satprem (30 October 1923 – 9 April 2007) was a French author and a disciple of Mirra Alfassa. Early life Satprem was born Bernard Enginger in Paris and had a seafaring childhood and youth in Brittany. During World War II he was a member of th ...
about the Bengali guru
Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist. He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as ''Vande Mataram''. He joined the ...
, and subsequently he also read many of the published writings by Aurobindo himself. The title of ''Licht'' owes something to Aurobindo's theory of "
Agni Agni (English: , sa, अग्नि, translit=Agni) is a Sanskrit word meaning fire and connotes the Vedic fire deity of Hinduism. He is also the guardian deity of the southeast direction and is typically found in southeast corners of Hi ...
" (the Hindu and Vedic fire deity), developed from two basic premises of nuclear physics; Stockhausen's definition of a formula and, especially, his conception of the ''Licht'' superformula, also owes a great deal to Sri Aurobindo's category of the "supramental". Similarly, his approach to voice and text sometimes departed from traditional usage: Characters were as likely to be portrayed by instrumentalists or dancers as by singers, and a few parts of ''Licht'' (e.g., ''Luzifers Traum'' from ''Samstag'', ''Welt-Parlament'' from ''Mittwoch'', ''Lichter-Wasser'' and ''Hoch-Zeiten'' from ''Sonntag'') use written or improvised texts in simulated or invented languages. The seven operas were not composed in "weekday order" but rather starting (apart from ''Jahreslauf'' in 1977, which became the first act of ''Dienstag'') with the "solo" operas and working toward the more complex ones: ''Donnerstag'' (1978–80), ''Samstag'' (1981–83), ''Montag'' (1984–88), ''Dienstag'' (1977/1987–91), ''Freitag'' (1991–94), ''Mittwoch'' (1995–97), and finally ''Sonntag'' (1998–2003). Stockhausen had dreams of flying throughout his life, and these dreams are reflected in the ''
Helikopter-Streichquartett The ''Helikopter-Streichquartett'' ( en, Helicopter String Quartet) is one of Karlheinz Stockhausen's best-known pieces, and one of the most complex to perform. It involves a string quartet, four helicopters with pilots, as well as audio and vid ...
'' (the third scene of ''Mittwoch aus Licht''), completed in 1993. In it, the four members of a
string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...
perform in four
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...
s flying independent flight paths over the countryside near 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 synchronized with the aid of a
click track A click track is a series of audio cues used to synchronize sound recordings, sometimes for synchronization to a moving image. The click track originated in early sound movies, where optical marks were made on the film to indicate precise timi ...
, transmitted to them and heard over headphones. The first performance of the piece took place in Amsterdam on 26 June 1995, as part of the
Holland Festival The Holland Festival () is the oldest and largest performing arts festival in the Netherlands. It takes place every June in Amsterdam. It comprises theatre, music, opera and modern dance. In recent years, multimedia, visual arts, film and ...
. Despite its extremely unusual nature, the piece has been given several performances, including one on 22 August 2003 as part of the
Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Ama ...
to open the Hangar-7 venue, and the German première on 17 June 2007 in
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
as part of the Stadt der Wissenschaft 2007 Festival. The work has also been recorded by the
Arditti Quartet The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974 and led by the British violinist Irvine Arditti. The quartet is a globally recognized promoter of contemporary classical music and has a reputation for having a very wide repertoire. Th ...
. In 1999 he was invited by
Walter Fink Walter Fink (16 August 1930 – 13 April 2018) was a German entrepreneur and a patron of contemporary classical music. He is known for being a founding member, executive committee member and sponsor of the Rheingau Musik Festival, where he initi ...
to be the ninth composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival. In 1999, BBC producer Rodney Wilson asked Stockhausen to collaborate with Stephen and Timothy Quay on a film for the fourth series of Sound on Film International. Although Stockhausen's music had been used for films previously (most notably, parts of
Hymnen ''Hymnen'' (German for "Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22. The extended work is ...
in
Nicolas Roeg Nicolas Jack Roeg (; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance'' (1970), '' Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973), '' The Man Who Fell to Earth'' (1976 ...
's ''
Walkabout Walkabout is a rite of passage in Australian Aboriginal society, during which males undergo a journey during adolescence, typically ages 10 to 16, and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months to make the spiritual and traditiona ...
'' in 1971), this was the first time he had been asked to provide music specially for the purpose. He adapted 21 minutes of material taken from his electronic music for ''Freitag aus Licht'', calling the result ''Zwei Paare'' (Two Couples), and the Brothers Quay created their animated film, which they titled ''In Absentia'', based only on their reactions to the music and the simple suggestion that a window might be an idea to use. When, at a preview screening, Stockhausen saw the film, which shows a madwoman writing letters from a bleak asylum cell, he was moved to tears. The Brothers Quay were astonished to learn that his mother had been "imprisoned by the Nazis in an asylum, where she later died. ... This was a very moving moment for us as well, especially because we had made the film without knowing any of this".


2003–2007

After completing ''Licht'', Stockhausen embarked on a new cycle of compositions based on the hours of the day, '' Klang'' ("Sound"). Twenty-one of these pieces were completed before Stockhausen's death. The first four works from this cycle are First Hour: ''Himmelfahrt'' (Ascension), for organ or synthesizer, soprano and tenor (2004–2005); Second Hour: ''Freude'' (Joy) for two harps (2005); Third Hour: ''Natürliche Dauern'' (Natural Durations) for piano (2005–2006); and Fourth Hour: ''Himmels-Tür'' (Heaven's Door) for a percussionist and a little girl (2005). The Fifth Hour, ''Harmonien'' (Harmonies), is a solo in three versions for flute, bass clarinet, and trumpet (2006). The Sixth through Twelfth hours are chamber-music works based on the material from the Fifth Hour. The Thirteenth Hour, ''
Cosmic Pulses ''Cosmic Pulses'' is the last electronic composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and it is number 93 in his catalog of works. Its duration is 32 minutes. The piece has been described as "a sonic roller coaster", "a Copernican asylum", and a "tornado ...
'', is an electronic work made by superimposing 24 layers of sound, each having its own spatial motion, among eight loudspeakers placed around the concert hall. Hours 14 through 21 are solo pieces for bass voice, baritone voice, basset-horn, horn, tenor voice, soprano voice, soprano saxophone, and flute, respectively, each with electronic accompaniment of a different set of three layers from ''
Cosmic Pulses ''Cosmic Pulses'' is the last electronic composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and it is number 93 in his catalog of works. Its duration is 32 minutes. The piece has been described as "a sonic roller coaster", "a Copernican asylum", and a "tornado ...
''. The twenty-one completed pieces were first performed together as a cycle at the Festival MusikTriennale Köln on 8–9 May 2010, in 176 individual concerts.


Theories

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Stockhausen published a series of articles that established his importance in the area of music theory. Although these include analyses of music by
Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
,
Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...
, Bartók,
Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
, Goeyvaerts,
Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mon ...
, Nono,
Johannes Fritsch Johannes Georg Fritsch (27 July 1941 – 29 April 2010) was a German composer. At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Kna ...
, Michael von Biel, and, especially,
Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...
, the items on compositional theory directly related to his own work are regarded as the most important generally. "Indeed, the ''Texte'' come closer than anything else currently available to providing a general compositional theory for the postwar period". His most celebrated article is "... wie die Zeit vergeht ..." ("... How Time Passes ..."), first published in the third volume of '' Die Reihe'' (1957). In it, he expounds a number of temporal conceptions underlying his instrumental compositions ''Zeitmaße'', ''Gruppen'', and ''Klavierstück XI''. In particular, this article develops (1) a scale of twelve
tempo In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...
s analogous to the chromatic pitch scale, (2) a technique of building progressively smaller, integral subdivisions over a basic (fundamental) duration, analogous to the
overtone series A harmonic series (also overtone series) is the sequence of harmonics, musical tones, or pure tones whose frequency is an integer multiple of a ''fundamental frequency''. Pitched musical instruments are often based on an acoustic resonator suc ...
, (3) musical application of the concept of the partial field (time fields and field sizes) in both successive and simultaneous proportions, (4) methods of projecting large-scale
form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data * ...
from a series of proportions, (5) the concept of "statistical" composition, (6) the concept of "action duration" and the associated "variable form", and (7) the notion of the "directionless temporal field" and with it, "polyvalent form". Other important articles from this period include "Elektronische und Instrumentale Musik" ("Electronic and Instrumental Music", 1958), "Musik im Raum" ("Music in Space", 1958), "Musik und Graphik" ("Music and Graphics", 1959), " Momentform" (1960), "Die Einheit der musikalischen Zeit" ("The Unity of Musical Time", 1961), and "Erfindung und Entdeckung" ("Invention and Discovery", 1961), the last summing up the ideas developed up to 1961. Taken together, these temporal theories
suggested that the entire compositional structure could be conceived as "
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...
": since "the different experienced components such as colour,
harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...
and
melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...
,
meter The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...
and rhythm, dynamics, and form correspond to the different segmental ranges of this unified time", the total musical result at any given compositional level is simply the "
spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...
" of a more basic duration—i.e., its "timbre", perceived as the overall effect of the overtone structure of that duration, now taken to include not only the "rhythmic" subdivisions of the duration but also their relative "dynamic" strength, "envelope", etc.
...
Compositionally considered, this produced a change of focus from the individual tone to a whole complex of tones related to one another by virtue of their relation to a " fundamental"—a change that was probably the most important compositional development of the latter part of the 1950s, not only for Stockhausen's music but for "advanced" music in general.
Some of these ideas, considered from a purely theoretical point of view (divorced from their context as explanations of particular compositions) drew significant critical fire. For this reason, Stockhausen ceased publishing such articles for a number of years, as he felt that "many useless polemics" about these texts had arisen, and he preferred to concentrate his attention on composing. Through the 1960s, although he taught and lectured publicly, Stockhausen published little of an analytical or theoretical nature. Only in 1970 did he again begin publishing theoretical articles, with "Kriterien", the abstract for his six seminar lectures for the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. The seminars themselves, covering seven topics ("Micro- and Macro-Continuum", "Collage and Metacollage", "Expansion of the Scale of Tempos", "Feedback", "Spectral Harmony—Formant Modulation", "Expansion of Dynamics—A Principle of ''Mikrophonie I''", and "Space Music—Spatial Forming and Notation") were published only posthumously. His collected writings were published in ''Texte zur Musik'', including his compositional theories and analyses on music as a general phenomenon.


Reception


Musical influence

Stockhausen has been described as "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music". His two early ''Electronic Studies'' (especially the second) had a powerful influence on the subsequent development of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the work of the Italian Franco Evangelisti and the Poles
Andrzej Dobrowolski Andrzej Dobrowolski (September 9, 1921 – August 8, 1990) was a Polish composer and teacher. He studied at the Warsaw Conservatoire during the war and afterwards in the State High School of Music in Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the seco ...
and
Włodzimierz Kotoński Włodzimierz Kotoński (23 August 1925 – 4 September 2014) was a Polish composer. Biography Born in Warsaw, Kotoński studied there with Piotr Rytel and Tadeusz Szeligowski at the PWSM, graduating in 1951. In an initial period of activity he ...
. The influence of his ''Kontra-Punkte'', ''Zeitmasse'' and ''Gruppen'' may be seen in the work of many composers, including
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
's '' Threni'' (1957–58) and ''
Movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
'' for piano and orchestra (1958–59) and other works up to the ''Variations: Aldous Huxley in Memoriam'' (1963–64), whose rhythms "are likely to have been inspired, at least in part, by certain passages from Stockhausen's ''Gruppen''". Though music of Stockhausen's generation may seem an unlikely influence, Stravinsky said in a 1957 conversation:
I have all around me the spectacle of composers who, after their generation has had its decade of influence and fashion, seal themselves off from further development and from the next generation (as I say this, exceptions come to mind, Krenek, for instance). Of course, it requires greater effort to learn from one's juniors, and their manners are not invariably good. But when you are seventy-five and your generation has overlapped with four younger ones, it behooves you not to decide in advance "how far composers can go", but to try to discover whatever new thing it is makes the new generation new.
Amongst British composers,
Sir Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include ''Th ...
readily acknowledges the influence of Stockhausen's ''Zeitmaße'' (especially on his two wind quintets, ''Refrains and Choruses'' and ''Five Distances'') and ''Gruppen'' on his work more generally.
Brian Ferneyhough Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and t ...
says that, although the "technical and speculative innovations" of ''Klavierstücke I–IV'', ''Kreuzspiel'' and ''Kontra-Punkte'' escaped him on first encounter, they nevertheless produced a "sharp emotion, the result of a beneficial shock engendered by their boldness" and provided "an important source of motivation (rather than of imitation) for my own investigations". While still in school, he became fascinated upon hearing the British première of ''Gruppen'', and
listened many times to the recording of this performance, while trying to penetrate its secrets—how it always seemed to be about to explode, but managed nevertheless to escape unscathed in its core—but scarcely managed to grasp it. Retrospectively, it is clear that from this confusion was born my interest for the formal questions which remain until today.
Although it eventually evolved in a direction of its own, Ferneyhough's 1967 wind sextet, ''Prometheus'', began as a wind quintet with cor anglais, stemming directly from an encounter with Stockhausen's ''Zeitmaße''. With respect to Stockhausen's later work, he said,
I have never subscribed (whatever the inevitable personal distance) to the thesis according to which the many transformations of vocabulary characterizing Stockhausen's development are the obvious sign of his inability to carry out the early vision of strict order that he had in his youth. On the contrary, it seems to me that the constant reconsideration of his premises has led to the maintenance of a remarkably tough thread of historical consciousness which will become clearer with time. ... I doubt that there has been a single composer of the intervening generation who, even if for a short time, did not see the world of music differently thanks to the work of Stockhausen.
In a short essay describing Stockhausen's influence on his own work, Richard Barrett concludes that "Stockhausen remains the composer whose next work I look forward most to hearing, apart from myself of course" and names as works that have had particular impact on his musical thinking ''Mantra'', ''Gruppen'', ''Carré'', ''Klavierstück X'', ''Inori'', and ''Jubiläum''. French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez once declared, "Stockhausen is the greatest living composer, and the only one whom I recognize as my peer". Boulez also acknowledged the influence of performing Stockhausen's ''Zeitmaße'' on his subsequent development as a conductor. Another French composer, Jean-Claude Éloy, regards Stockhausen as the most important composer of the second half of the 20th century, and cites virtually "all his catalog of works" as "a powerful discoveration , and a true revelation". Dutch composer
Louis Andriessen Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Althoug ...
acknowledged the influence of Stockhausen's ''Momente'' in his pivotal work ''Contra tempus'' of 1968. German composer
Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Rihm (born 13 March 1952) is a German composer and academic teacher. He is musical director of the Institute of New Music and Media at the University of Music Karlsruhe and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Sa ...
, who studied with Stockhausen, was influenced by ''Momente'', ''Hymnen'', and ''Inori''. At the Cologne ISCM Festival in 1960, the Danish composer
Per Nørgård Per Nørgård (; born 13 July 1932) is a Danish composer and music theorist. Though his style has varied considerably throughout his career, his music has often included repeatedly evolving melodies—such as the infinity series—in the vein o ...
heard Stockhausen's ''Kontakte'' as well as pieces by Kagel, Boulez, and Berio. He was profoundly affected by what he heard and his music suddenly changed into "a far more discontinuous and disjunct style, involving elements of strict organization in all parameters, some degree of aleatoricism and controlled improvisation, together with an interest in collage from other musics". Jazz musicians such as
Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
,
Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians an ...
,
Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he hel ...
, Yusef Lateef, and
Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Ch ...
cite Stockhausen as an influence. Stockhausen was influential within pop and rock music as well.
Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of ...
acknowledges Stockhausen in the liner notes of ''
Freak Out! ''Freak Out!'' is the debut studio album by American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on June 27, 1966, by Verve Records. Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, it is a satirical expression of frontman Frank Zappa's ...
'', his 1966 debut with
The Mothers of Invention The Mothers of Invention (also known as The Mothers) was an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Originally an R&B ban ...
. On the back of
The Who The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
's second LP released in the US, " Happy Jack", their primary composer and guitarist
Pete Townshend Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s. Towns ...
, is said to have "an interest in Stockhausen". Rick Wright and
Roger Waters George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. In 1965, he co-founded the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Waters initially served as the bassist, but following the departure of singer-s ...
of
Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philosophical lyrics an ...
also acknowledge Stockhausen as an influence. San Francisco psychedelic groups
Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ach ...
and the
Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, world music, ...
are said to have done the same; Stockhausen said that the Grateful Dead were "well orientated toward new music". Founding members of Cologne-based experimental band Can,
Irmin Schmidt Irmin Schmidt (born 29 May 1937) is a German keyboardist and composer, best known as a founding member of the band Can. Biography Schmidt was born in Berlin, Germany, began his studies in music at the conservatorium in Dortmund, at the Folkwan ...
and
Holger Czukay Holger Schüring (24 March 1938 – 5 September 2017), known professionally as Holger Czukay (), was a German musician best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can. Described as "successfully bridg ngthe gap between pop and the avant-g ...
, both studied with Stockhausen at the Cologne Courses for New Music. German electronic pioneers
Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...
also say they studied with Stockhausen, and Icelandic vocalist
Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...
has acknowledged Stockhausen's influence.


Wider cultural renown

Stockhausen, along with
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...
, is one of the few avant-garde composers to have succeeded in penetrating the popular consciousness.
The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
included his face on the cover of ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composi ...
''. This reflects his influence on the band's own avant-garde experiments as well as the general fame and notoriety he had achieved by that time (1967). In particular, " A Day in the Life" (1967) and "
Revolution 9 "Revolution 9" is a sound collage from the Beatles' 1968 self-titled double album (also known as the "White Album"). The composition, credited to Lennon–McCartney, was created primarily by John Lennon with assistance from Yoko Ono and George ...
" (1968) were influenced by Stockhausen's electronic music. Stockhausen's name, and the perceived strangeness and supposed unlistenability of his music, was even a punchline in cartoons, as documented on a page on the official Stockhausen web site
Stockhausen Cartoons
. Perhaps the most caustic remark about Stockhausen was attributed to Sir
Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...
. Asked "Have you heard any Stockhausen?", he is alleged to have replied, "No, but I believe I have trodden in some". Stockhausen's fame is also reflected in works of literature. For example, he is mentioned in Philip K. Dick's 1974 novel ''
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said ''Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'' is a 1974 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The novel is set in a futuristic dystopia where the United States has become a police state in the aftermath of a Second American Civil Wa ...
'', and in
Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
's 1966 novel ''
The Crying of Lot 49 ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...
''. The Pynchon novel features "The Scope", a bar with "a strict electronic music policy". Protagonist Oedipa Maas asks "a hip graybeard" about a "sudden chorus of whoops and yibbles" coming out of "a kind of jukebox." He replies, "That's by Stockhausen... the early crowd tends to dig your Radio Cologne sound. Later on we really swing". The French writer
Michel Butor Michel Butor (; 14 September 1926 – 24 August 2016) was a French poet, novelist, teacher, essayist, art critic and translator. Life and work Michel Marie François Butor was born in Mons-en-Barœul, a suburb of Lille, the third of seven childr ...
acknowledges that Stockhausen's music "taught me a lot", mentioning in particular the electronic works ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' and ''Hymnen''. Later in his life, Stockhausen was portrayed by at least one journalist, John O'Mahony of the ''Guardian'' newspaper, as an eccentric, for example being alleged to live an effectively
polygamous Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is marri ...
lifestyle with two women, to whom O'Mahony referred as his "wives", while at the same time stating he was not married to either of them. In the same article, O'Mahony claims Stockhausen said he was born on a planet orbiting the star Sirius. In the German newspaper ''
Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History Th ...
'', Stockhausen stated that he was educated at Sirius (see
Controversy Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...
below). In 1995,
BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The sta ...
sent Stockhausen a package of recordings from contemporary
techno Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...
and
ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It ...
artists
Aphex Twin Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic styles such as techno, ambient, and jungle. Journalists from publicati ...
,
Richie Hawtin Richard "Richie" Hawtin (born June 4, 1970) is a British-Canadian electronic musician and DJ. He became involved with Detroit techno's second wave in the early 1990s, and has been a leading exponent of minimal techno since the mid-1990s. He beca ...
(Plastikman), Scanner and
Daniel Pemberton Daniel Pemberton (born 3 November 1977) is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning English composer and songwriter. Life and career In 1994, at the age of 16, Pemberton recorded his debut album, ''Bedroom'', on a multitrack cassette recor ...
, and asked him for his opinion on the music. In August of that year, Radio 3 reporter
Dick Witts Richard "Dick" Witts (born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire) is an English musicologist, music historian, and ex leader of 1980s band the Passage. He attended Clee Grammar School for Boys. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music an ...
interviewed Stockhausen about these pieces for a broadcast in October, called "The Technocrats" and asked what advice he would give these young musicians. Stockhausen made suggestions to each and they were then invited to respond. All but Plastikman obliged.


Criticism

Robin Maconie finds that, "Compared to the work of his contemporaries, Stockhausen's music has a depth and rational integrity that is quite outstanding... His researches, initially guided by Meyer-Eppler, have a coherence unlike any other composer then or since". Maconie also compares Stockhausen to
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
: "If a genius is someone whose ideas survive all attempts at explanation, then by that definition Stockhausen is the nearest thing to Beethoven this century has produced. Reason? His music lasts", and "As Stravinsky said, one never thinks of Beethoven as a superb orchestrator because the quality of invention transcends mere craftsmanship. It is the same with Stockhausen: the intensity of imagination gives rise to musical impressions of an elemental and seemingly unfathomable beauty, arising from necessity rather than conscious design". Christopher Ballantine, comparing the categories of
experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...
and
avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original eleme ...
, concludes that
Perhaps more than any other contemporary composer, Stockhausen exists at the point where the dialectic between experimental and avant-garde music becomes manifest; it is in him, more obviously than anywhere else, that these diverse approaches converge. This alone would seem to suggest his remarkable significance.
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
expressed great, but not uncritical, enthusiasm for Stockhausen's music in the conversation books with
Robert Craft Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. ...
, and for years organised private listening sessions with friends in his home where he played tapes of Stockhausen's latest works. In an interview published in March 1968, however, he says of an unidentified person,
I have been listening all week to the piano music of a composer now greatly esteemed for his ability to stay an hour or so ahead of his time, but I find the alternation of note-clumps and silences of which it consists more monotonous than the foursquares of the dullest eighteenth-century music.
The following October, a report in ''Sovetskaia Muzyka'' translated this sentence (and a few others from the same article) into Russian, substituting for the conjunction "but" the phrase "Ia imeiu v vidu Karlkheintsa Shtokkhauzena" ("I am referring to Karlheinz Stockhausen"). When this translation was quoted in Druskin's Stravinsky biography, the field was widened to ''all'' of Stockhausen's compositions and Druskin adds for good measure, "indeed, works he calls unnecessary, useless and uninteresting", again quoting from the same ''Sovetskaia Muzyka'' article, even though it had made plain that the characterization was of American "university composers".


Controversy

Throughout his career, Stockhausen excited controversy. One reason for this is that his music displays high expectations about "shaping and transforming the world, about the truth of life and of reality, about the creative departure into a future determined by spirit", so that Stockhausen's work "like no other in the history of new music, has a polarizing effect, arouses passion, and provokes drastic opposition, even hatred". Another reason was acknowledged by Stockhausen himself in a reply to a question during an interview on the Bavarian Radio on 4 September 1960, reprinted as a foreword to his first collection of writings: After the student revolts in 1968, musical life in Germany became highly politicized, and Stockhausen found himself a target for criticism, especially from the leftist camp who wanted music "in the service of the class struggle".
Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...
and Konrad Boehmer denounced their former teacher as a "servant of capitalism". In a climate where music mattered less than political ideology, some critics held that Stockhausen was too élitist, while others complained he was too mystical.


Scandal at the ''Fresco'' premiere

As reported in the German magazine ''
Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', the
première A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...
(and only performance to date) on 15 November 1969 of Stockhausen's work ''
Fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...
'' for four orchestral groups (playing in four different locations) was the scene of a scandal. The rehearsals were already marked by objections from the orchestral musicians questioning such directions as "glissandos no faster than one octave per minute" and others phoning the artists union to clarify whether they really had to perform the Stockhausen work as part of the orchestra. In the backstage warm-up room at the premiere a hand-lettered sign could be seen saying: "We're playing, otherwise we would be fired". During the première the parts on some music stands suddenly were replaced by placards reading things like "Stockhausen-Zoo. Please don't feed", that someone had planted. Some musicians, fed up with the monkeyshines, left after an hour, though the performance was planned for four to five hours. Stockhausen fans protested, while Stockhausen foes were needling the musicians asking: "How can you possibly participate in such crap?" ("Wie könnt ihr bloß so eine Scheiße machen!"). At one point someone managed to switch off the stand lights, leaving the musicians in the dark. After 260 minutes the performance ended with no-one participating any longer.


Sirius star system

In an obituary in the German newspaper ''
Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History Th ...
'', Karlheinz Stockhausen was quoted as having said: "I was educated at
Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CM ...
and want to return to there, although I am still living in Kürten near Cologne." On hearing about this, conductor
Michael Gielen Michael Andreas Gielen (20 July 19278 March 2019) was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aid ...
stated: "When he said he knew what was happening at Sirius, I turned away from him in horror. I haven't listened to a note since." He called Stockhausen's statements "hubris" and "nonsense", while at the same time defending his own belief in
astrology Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...
: "Why should these large celestial bodies exist if they do not stand for something? I cannot imagine that there is anything senseless in the universe. There is much we do not understand".


11 September attacks

In a press conference in
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
on 16 September 2001, Stockhausen was asked by a journalist whether the characters in ''Licht'' were for him "merely some figures out of a common cultural history" or rather "material appearances". Stockhausen replied, "I pray daily to Michael, but not to Lucifer. I have renounced him. But he is very much present, like in New York recently." The same journalist then asked how the events of 11 September had affected him, and how he viewed reports of the attack in connection with the harmony of humanity represented in ''
Hymnen ''Hymnen'' (German for "Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22. The extended work is ...
''. He answered:
Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. esitantly.And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. ..It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process."
As a result of the reaction to the press report of Stockhausen's comments, a four-day festival of his work in Hamburg was cancelled. In addition, his pianist daughter announced to the press that she would no longer appear under the name "Stockhausen". In a subsequent message, he stated that the press had published "false, defamatory reports" about his comments, and said:
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.


Honours

Amongst the numerous honours and distinctions that were bestowed upon Stockhausen are: * 1964 German gramophone critics award; * 1966 and 1972 SIMC award for orchestral works (Italy); * 1968 Grand Art Prize for Music of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia;
Grand Prix du Disque Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and commun ...
(France); Member of the Free Academy of the Arts, Hamburg; * 1968, 1969, and 1971 Edison Prize (Netherlands); * 1970 Member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Music The Royal Swedish Academy of Music ( sv, Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien), founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden. At the time of its foundation, only one of its co-founder was a professional musician, Ferdin ...
; * 1973 Member of the
Academy of Arts, Berlin The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...
; * 1974
Federal Cross of Merit The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...
, 1st class (Germany); * 1977 Member of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome; * 1979 Honorary Member of the
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headq ...
; * 1980 Member of the ; * 1981 Prize of the Italian music critics for ''Donnerstag aus Licht''; * 1982 German gramophone prize (German Phonograph Academy); * 1983 Diapason d'or (France) for ''Donnerstag aus Licht''; * 1985 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France); * 1986 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize; * 1987 Honorary Member of the
Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke ...
, London; * 1988 Honorary Citizen of the Kuerten community;Gemeinde Kürten website (archive from 10 December 2008; accessed 18 March 2016)
/ref> * 1989 Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
; * 1990
Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria). ...
, Linz, Austria; * 1991 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy of Music; Accademico Onorario of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Caecilia, Rome; Honorary Patron of Sound Projects Weimar; * 1992 IMC-UNESCO Picasso Medal; Distinguished Service Medal of the German state North Rhine-Westphalia; German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Luzifers Tanz'' (3rd scene of ''Saturday from Light''); * 1993 Patron of the European Flute Festival; Diapason d'or for ''Klavierstücke I–XI'' and ''Mikrophonie I'' and ''II''; * 1994 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score ''Jahreslauf'' (Act 1 of ''Tuesday from Light''); * 1995 Honorary Member of the German Society for Electro-Acoustic Music; Bach Award of the city of Hamburg; * 1996 Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h. c.) of the
Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
; Composer of the European Cultural Capital Copenhagen; Edison Prize (Netherlands) for ''Mantra''; Member of the Free Academy of the Arts Leipzig; Honorary Member of the Leipzig Opera; Cologne Culture Prize; * 1997 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Weltparlament'' (first scene of ''Wednesday from Light''); Honorary member of the music ensemble LIM (Laboratorio de Interpretación Musical), Madrid; * 1999 Entry in the Golden Book of the city of Cologne; * 2000 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Evas Erstgeburt'' (act 1 of ''Monday from Light''); * 2000–2001 The film ''In Absentia'' made by the
Quay Brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay ( ; born June 17, 1947) are American identical twin brothers and stop-motion animators who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They were also the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstandin ...
(England) to concrete and electronic music by Karlheinz Stockhausen won the Golden Dove (first prize) at the International Festival for Animated Film in Leipzig. More awards: Special Jury Mention, Montreal, FCMM 2000; Special Jury Award, Tampere 2000; Special Mention, Golden Prague Awards 2001; Honorary Diploma Award, Cracow 2001; Best Animated Short Film, 50th Melbourne International Film Festival 2001; Grand Prix, Turku Finland 2001; * 2001 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score ''Helicopter String Quartet'' (third scene of ''Wednesday from Light'');
Polar Music Prize The Polar Music Prize is a Swedish international award founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, best known as the manager of the Swedish band ABBA, with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The award is annually given to one contemporar ...
of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Arts; * 2002 Honorary Patron of the Sonic Arts Network, England; * 2003 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Michaelion'' (4th scene of ''Wednesday from Light''); * 2004 Associated member of the Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres & des Beaux-arts (Belgium); Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h. c.) of the Queen's University in Belfast; German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Stop and Start'' for 6 instrumental groups; * 2005 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Hoch-Zeiten'' for choir (fifth scene of ''Sunday from Light''); * 2006 Honorary member of the
Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna The Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna ("philharmonic academy of Bologna"; sometimes known in English as the Bologna Academy of Music) is a music education institution in Bologna, Italy. The Accademia de' Filarmonici was founded as an associ ...
; * 2008 On 22 August, Stockhausen's birthday, the Rathausplatz in his home town of Kürten was renamed Karlheinz-Stockhausen-Platz in his honour; * 2008 On 10 October, the Studio for Electronic Music of the
Royal Conservatory of The Hague The Royal Conservatoire ( nl, Koninklijk Conservatorium, KC) is a conservatoire in The Hague, providing higher education in music and dance. The conservatoire was founded by King William I in 1826, making it the oldest conservatoire in the Nether ...
in the Netherlands changed its name to Karlheinz Stockhausen Studio; * 2009 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of ''Momente'' for solo soprano, four choral groups, and 13 instrumentalists; * 2010 The municipality of Kürten adopts the designation "Stockhausengemeinde" (Stockhausen municipality) in honour of the late composer.


Notable students


References


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Davies, Hugh. 1968. "Working with Stockhausen." ''The Composer'' no. 27:8–11. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * via
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Adamenko, Victoria. 2007. ''Neo-mythologism in Music: From Scriabin and Schoenberg to Schnittke and Crumb''. Interplay Series 5. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press. . * Anon. 2008. "Karlheinz Stockhausen—a Romantic Discovering the Universe"
adio transcript Adio may refer to: Business *Adio (company), the former skateboard footwear and apparel company Music Songs *Adio (song), "Adio" (song), a song by Montenegrin recording artist Knez that represented Montenegro at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 * ...
In ''Talking to Kinky and Karlheinz—170 musicians get vocal on The Music Show'', edited by Anni Heino, 283–291. Sydney: ABC Books. . * Assis, Gustavo Oliveira Alfaix. 2011. ''Em busca do som: A música de Karlheinz Stockhausen nos anos 1950''. São Paulo: Editora UNESP. . * Barrett, Richard. 2012.
Stockhausen Today and Tomorrow
. Revised version of a paper presented at the Festival of Light, University of Birmingham/Birmingham Conservatoire/mac Birmingham (20 August). Richardbarrettmusic.com (Accessed 11 September 2012). * Bauer, Christian. 2008. ''Sacrificium intellectus: Das Opfer des Verstandes in der Kunst von Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Botho Strauß Botho Strauß (; born 2 December 1944) is a German playwright, novelist and essayist. Biography Botho Strauß's father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauß studied German, History of the Theatre and Sociology in Co ...
und
Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...
''. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. . * Bauermeister, Mary. 2011. ''Ich hänge im Triolengitter: Mein Leben mit Karlheinz Stockhausen''. Munich: Edition
Elke Heidenreich Elke Heidenreich (née Riegert; born 15 February 1943) is a German author, TV presenter, literary critic and journalist. She has written audio plays, a magazine column, scripts for television plays and books. Heidenreich is known as the ''Kabarett ...
bei C. Bertelsmann. . * Beaucage, Réjean. 2005.
Contact avec


, English translation by
Jane Brierley Jane Brierley (born 1935) is a Canadian translator, translating from French to English. She received a B.A. from Bishop's University in 1956. During the early 1960s, while her husband was completing a degree at the University of Paris, Brierley ...

''La Scena Musicale'' 11, no. 3
(November): 18–25. * Beer, Roland de. 2008. "Magistraal klinkend in memoriam". ''
De Volkskrant ''de Volkskrant'' (; ''The People's Paper'') is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium-sized c ...
'' (21 June). *Betsill, Daniel Joseph. 2007
The Construction of Stockhausen's Heaven's Door
* Blumröder, Christoph von. 1993. ''Die Grundlegung der Musik Karlheinz Stockhausens''. Supplement to the ''
Archiv für Musikwissenschaft The ''Archiv für Musikwissenschaft'' is a quarterly German-English-speaking trade magazine devoted to music history and historical musicology, which publishes articles by well-known academics and young scholars. It was founded in 1918 as the s ...
'' 32, ed.
Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (5 January 1919 – 30 August 1999) was a German musicologist and professor of historical musicology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg. Life Eggebrecht was born in Dresden. His father was a Protestant mi ...
. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. *Blumröder, Christoph von. 2017. ''Die elektroakustische Musik: Eine kompositorische Revolution und ihre Folgen''. Signale aus Köln: Beiträge zur Musik der Zeit 22. Vienna; Verlag Der Apfel. . *Bos, Christian. 2007.
Synthesizer sind etwas Sinnliches
, ''
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger The ''Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger'' (KStA) is a German daily newspaper published in Cologne, and has the largest circulation in the Cologne–Bonn Metropolitan Region. ''Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger'' has a base of over 100 contributing editors and a wi ...
'' (28 November; accessed 5 April 2017). * Bridoux-Michel, Séverine. 2006. "Architecture et musique: croisements de pensées après 1950 (la collaboration de l'architecte et du musicien, de la conception à l'oeuvre)". PhD diss., l'Université Charles de Gaulle–Lille. * Brümmer, Ludger. 2008. "Stockhausen on Electronics, 2004". ''
Computer Music Journal ''Computer Music Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers a wide range of topics related to digital audio signal processing and electroacoustic music. It is published on-line and in hard copy by MIT Press. The journal is accompani ...
'' 32, no. 4:10–16. * Cardew, Cornelius. 1974. ''Stockhausen Serves Imperialism''. London: Latimer New Directions. Reprinted in ''Cornelius Cardew (1936–1981) – A Reader'', edited by E Prévost. Harlow: Copula, 2006. * Chaplygina, Marina. 1993. Карлхайнц Штокхаузен: когда-нибудь речь станет пением Karlheinz Stockhausen: Some Day Speech Will Become Singing" (interview) ''Музыкальная жизнь'' usical Life nos. 15–16:24–26. * Côté, Michel F. 2009. "Considérations en provenance de Sirius". ''Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines'' 19, no. 2:57–62. *Covell, Grant Chu. 2000.
Stockhausen Is Invisible
". ''La Folia'' 3/1 (November). *Covell, Grant Chu. 2007.

". ''La Folia'' (April). * Custodis, Michael. 2004. ''Die soziale Isolation der neuen Musik: Zum Kölner Musikleben nach 1945''. Supplement to the ''Archiv für Musikwissenschaft'' 54, edited by
Albrecht Riethmüller Albrecht Riethmüller (born 21 January 1947) is a German musicologist. Life Born in 1947 in Stuttgart, Riethmüller studied musicology, philosophy and modern German literature at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, where he received his do ...
, with Reinhold Brinkmann,
Ludwig Finscher Ludwig Finscher (14 March 193030 June 2020) was a German musicologist. He was a professor of music history at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1995 and editor of the encyclopedia '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. He is respect ...
,
Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (born 21 August 1952) has been holding the chair for musicology at the University of Zurich since 1999. Career Born in Westerland on Sylt, Hinrichsen studied Germanistic and History at the Free University of Berlin. The ...
, Wolfgang Osthoff, and
Wolfram Steinbeck Wolfram Steinbeck (born 5 October 1945) is a German musicologist. Life Steinbeck was born in Hagen. He studied musicology, philosophy and modern German literature at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Albert-Ludwigs-Uni ...
. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. . * Dirmeikis, Paul. 1999. ''Le Souffle du temps: Quodlibet pour Karlheinz Stockhausen''. a Seyne-sur-Mer Éditions Telo Martius. *Dousson, Lambert. 2020. ''« La plus grande œuvre d'art pour le cosmos tout entier ». Stockhausen et le 11 septembre (Essai sur la musique et la violence)'', Paris, éditions MF, coll. « Répercussions », 2020, 240 p. *Essl, Karlheinz. 1989.
Aspekte des Seriellen bei Karlheinz Stockhausen
. First appeared in Lothar Knessl (Ed.) ''WIEN MODERN '89'': 90–97. Vienna. * Feß, Eike. 2004. "Die Wirkung der Informationstheorie auf das Werk Karlheinz Stockhausens". In ''Kompositorische Stationen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Debussy, Webern, Messiaen, Boulez, Cage, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Höller, Bayle''. Signale aus Köln. Beiträge zur Musik der Zeit 7, edited by Christoph von Blumröder, 116–128. Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2004. . *Föllmer, Golo. .d.br>Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Spherical Concert Hall"
(Osaka World Expo, 1970). Medien Kunst Net / Media Art Net. *Fox, Edward. 1993.
Licht Fantastic
. ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'', Melbourne (9 October): 173. via
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* Frisius, Rudolf. 1996. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen I: Einführung in das Gesamtwerk; Gespräche mit Karlheinz Stockhausen''. Mainz: Schott Musik International. . * Frisius, Rudolf. 2008. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen II: Die Werke 1950–1977; Gespräch mit Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Es geht aufwärts"''. Mainz, London, Berlin, Madrid, New York, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, Toronto: Schott Musik International. . * Frisius, Rudolf. 2013. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen III: Die Werkzyklen 1977–2007''. Mainz, London, Berlin, Madrid, New York, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, Toronto: Schott Music. . * Fritsch, Johannes, with
Richard Toop 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 teach ...
. 2008. "Versuch, eine Grenze zu überschreiten ... Johannes Fritsch im Gespräch über die Aufführungspraxis von Werken Karlheinz Stockhausens". ''MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für neue Musik'', no. 116 (February): 31–40. * Hattenstone, Simon. 2001.
Listen without Prejudice
. ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', London (6 October): 62. via
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* Gather, John Philipp. 2003. "The Origins of Synthetic Timbre Serialism and the Parisian Confluence, 1949–52". PhD diss. Buffalo: State University of New York, Buffalo. * Gilmore, Bob. 2009. "Claude Vivier and Karlheinz Stockhausen: Moments from a Double Portrait". ''Circuit: musiques contemporaines'' 19, no. 2:35–49. * Grant, M ragJ sephine and Imke Misch (eds.). 2016. ''The Musical Legacy of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Looking Back and Forward''. Hofheim: Wolke Verlag. . * Grohmann, Katerina. 2010. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen: Oper MITTWOCH aus LICHT''. Kölner Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 12, edited by Christoph von Blumröder,
Wolfram Steinbeck Wolfram Steinbeck (born 5 October 1945) is a German musicologist. Life Steinbeck was born in Hagen. He studied musicology, philosophy and modern German literature at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Albert-Ludwigs-Uni ...
. Kassel: Bosse Verlag. . * Gutkin, David. 2012.
Drastic or Plastic? Threads from Karlheinz Stockhausen's 'Musik und Graphik', 1959
. ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 255–305. * Habib, André. 15 January 2002.
Through a Glass Darkly: Interview with the Quay Brothers
. ''Senses of Cinema'' (February) (archive from 18 May 2011; accessed 18 March 2016). French translation previously published in the Montreal-based online journal ''Hors Champ''. * Hänggi, Christian. 2011
Stockhausen at Ground Zero.
'' Fillip''. . * Hartwell, Robin. 2012. "Threats and Promises: Lucifer, Hell, and Stockhausen's ''Sunday from Light''". ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 393–424. * Heikinheimo, Seppo. 1972. ''The Electronic Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Studies on the Esthetical and Formal Problems of Its First Phase'', translated by Brad Absetz. Acta Musicologica Fennica 6 (). Helsinki: Suomen Musiikkitieteellinen Seura / Musikvetenskapliga Sällskapet i Finland. (Doctoral thesis, Helsinki University.) * Henkel, Georg. 2012. ''Kosmisches Lachen: Synthi-Fou und der närrische Humor in Karlheinz Stockhausens Opernzyklus Licht''. Hamburg: Tredition GmbH. . * Harvey, Jonathan. 1975a. ''The Music of Stockhausen: An Introduction''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. . * Heyworth, Peter. 1971.
Composer-Prophet
. ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'', London (25 April): 9. via
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* Heyworth, Peter. 1985.
Alchemist of the avant-garde
and
Thursday's child goes far
. ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'', London (22 September): 9, 23. via
Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...
* Holbein, Ulrich. 2008. "Karlheinz Stockhausen: Elektroniker, Neutöner, Klang-Avantgardist, Lichtgestalt, Mythenverdünner". In his ''Narratorium: 255 Lebensbilder'', 916–920. Zürich: Ammann Verlag. . * Hollings, Ken. May 1999.
Lost in the Stars
Karlheinz Stockhausen in Conversation with Ken Hollings, Kürten, Germany, 12 March 1999". ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
'', no. 184. * Hopp, Winrich. 1998. ''Kurzwellen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Konzeption und musikalische Poiesis''. Kölner Schriften zur neuen Musik 6. With CD recording. Mainz and New York: Schott. . * Howland, Patricia L. 2010. "Formal Processes in Post-Tonal Music: A Study of Selected Works by Babbitt, Stockhausen, and Carter". PhD diss. New York: City University of New York. * Schonberg, Harlold C.. 1971.
Stockhausen Does the Twist
. ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by T ...
'' (7 March): 96. via
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* Ingram, James, and Paul Roberts. 2008. "Über das Unsichtbarsein: Ein E-mail Interview mit James Ingram zu seiner Tätigkeit als Stockhausens Notenkopist", translated by Gisela Gronemeyer. ''MusikTexte'', no. 117 (May): 43–52. Expanded English text, as
On Being Invisible
(April 2009). James Ingram: Act Two website. Accessed 27 July 2010. * Jones, Stephen. 2004. " Philippa Cullen: Dancing the Music". ''
Leonardo Music Journal ''Leonardo Music Journal'' is an annual multimedia peer-reviewed academic journal (print and audio CD) published by the MIT Press on behalf of Leonardo, The International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology. The journal was establishe ...
'' 14 (Composers Inside Electronics: Music After David Tudor): 64–73. * . 2005. "Eötvös und Stockhausen". In ''Identitäten: Der Komponist und Dirigent Peter Eötvös: Symposion, 19. September 2004, Alte Oper Frankfurt am Main'', edited by Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, 48–56. Edition
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 'Die'' (; en, " heNew Journal of Music") is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appeared on 3 April 1834. His ...
. Mainz: Schott Musik International. . * Kelsall, John. 1975.
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. PhD diss. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. * Kirchmeyer, Helmut. 2009. "Stockhausens Elektronische Messe nebst einem Vorspann unveröffentlichter Briefe aus seiner Pariser Zeit an Herbert Eimert". ''
Archiv für Musikwissenschaft The ''Archiv für Musikwissenschaft'' is a quarterly German-English-speaking trade magazine devoted to music history and historical musicology, which publishes articles by well-known academics and young scholars. It was founded in 1918 as the s ...
'' 66, no. 3:234–359. * Kohl, Jerome. 2008. Programme notes in the programme booklet for the Klang Festival, (1–9 November), Southbank Centre, London: 12–13, 16–17, 20–21, 24–25. * Kohl, Jerome. 2009a. "''Klang''/''Som'': Die 24 Stunden des Tages/As 24 horas do dia". ''Temporada Gulbenkian de Música 2009–2010'' (October): 13–14. * Kohl, Jerome. 2009b. "''Hoffnung''/''Esperança'', para violino, viola e violoncelo (2007): 9ª hora de ''Klang'', as 24 horas do dia". ''Temporada Gulbenkian de Música 2009–2010'' (October): 18. * Kohl, Jerome. 2009c. "''Schönheit''/''Beleza'', para clarinete baixo, flauta e trompete (2006): 6ª hora de ''Klang'', as 24 horas do dia". ''Temporada Gulbenkian de Música 2009–2010'' (October): 22. * Kohl, Jerome. 2010. "A Child of the Radio Age". In ''Cut & Splice: Transmission'', edited by Daniela Cascella and Lucia Farinati, 135–139. London: Sound and Music. . * Kohl, Jerome. 2012a. "A Gedenkschrift for Karlheinz Stockhausen: Guest Editor's Introduction". ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 306–312. * Kohl, Jerome. 2012b. "Harmonies and the Path from Beauty to Awakening: Hours 5 to 12 of Stockhausen's ''Klang''". ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 476–523. * Krause, Peter. 2008. "Elektro-Esoterik: Uraufführung von Stockhausen-Klang". ''
Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the '' Frankfurter ...
'' (8 August). * Maconie, Robin. 2016. ''Other Planets: The Complete Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen 1950–2007'', updated edition. Lanham, Maryland, and London: Rowman & Littlefield. . * Mießgang, Thomas, and Robert Baumanns. 1997.
Schlagsahne, Irrengesang, Kirmesgeister: Karlheinz Stockhausen testet Krautrock
. ''
Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History Th ...
'', 1997, no. 17 (18 April). * Miller, Paul. 2009. "Stockhausen and the Serial Shaping of Space". PhD diss. Rochester: Eastman School of Music. * Miller, Paul. 2012. "An Adventure into Outer Space: Stockhausen's ''Lichter—Wasser'' and the Analysis of Spatialized Music". ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 342–392. * Misch, Imke, and Markus Bandur (eds.). 2001. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen bei den Internationalen Ferienkursen für Neue Musik in Darmstadt 1951–1996: Dokumente und Briefe''. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. . * Mischke, Joachim. 8 August 2008. "SHMF: Neue Musik, visionär, von heute und wie von gestern". ''
Hamburger Abendblatt The ''Hamburger Abendblatt'' (English: ''Hamburg Evening Newspaper'') is a German daily newspaper in Hamburg. The paper focuses on news in Hamburg and area, and produces regional supplements with news from Norderstedt, Ahrensburg, Harburg, and P ...
''. * Morreau, Annette. 6 March 2001. "Where Herzog Met Portishead: Only Connect, Barbican, London". ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
''. * Mowitz, Michael. 2010. ''Die Form der Klänge. Stockhausens ›Konzeption einer einheitlichen musikalischen Zeit‹ am Beispiel der Komposition "Kontakte"''. Osnabrück
epOs-Music
. * Normandeau, Robert. 2009. "Influence de Stockhausen chez les compositeurs électroacoustiques québécois: Sondage courriel et entrevues". ''Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines'' 19, no. 2:51–55. * Parsons, Ian Lawrence. 2019. "The Phenomenology of ''Light'': an Interpretation of Stockhausen's Opera Cycle Drawing on Heidegger's Fourfold and Lacanian Psychoanalysis". PhD diss. Melbourne: Monash University. * Rea, John. 2009.
On Stockhausen's ''Kontakte'' (1959–60) for Tape, Piano and Percussion: A Lecture/Analysis by John Rea Given at the University of Toronto, March 1968
. ''Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines'' 19, no. 2:77–86. * Rigoni, Michel. 1998. ''Stockhausen: ... un vaisseau lancé vers le ciel'', second edition, revised, corrected, and enlarged. Lillebonne: Millénaire III Editions. . * Rigoni, Michel. 2001. ''Le rêve de Lucifer de Karlheinz Stockhausen''. La trace des silences. aris M. de Maule. . * Roads, Curtis. 2001. ''Microsound''. Cambridge: MIT Press. . * Romney, Jonathan. 3 March 2001.
The Barbican's Musical Jellyfish: Sound on Film Live
. ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
''. * Rudi, Jøran (editor), Asbjørn Blokkum Flø, and Asbjørn Schaathun. 2008. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen – A Pioneer in Utopia''. Oslo: Notam. . * Sandner, Wolfgang, and
Péter Eötvös Péter Eötvös ( hu, Eötvös Péter, ; born 2 January 1944) is a Hungarian composer, conductor and teacher. Eötvös was born in Székelyudvarhely, Transylvania, then part of Hungary, now Romania. He studied composition in Budapest and C ...
. 2005. "Klangbildeaufnahmen wie von einem Fotografen". In ''Identitäten: Der Komponist und Dirigent Péter Eötvös: Symposion, 19. September 2004, Alte Oper Frankfurt am Main'', edited by Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, 59–67. Edition
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 'Die'' (; en, " heNew Journal of Music") is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appeared on 3 April 1834. His ...
. Mainz: Schott Musik International. . * Shimizu, Minoru. 1999. "Stockhausen und Japan, Licht und Schatten". In ''Internationales Stockhausen-Symposion 1998: Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität zu Köln, 11. bis 14. November 1998. Tagungsbericht'', edited by Imke Misch and Christoph von Blumröder, 87–94. Signale aus Köln: Beiträge zur Musik der Zeit 4. Saarbrücken: PFAU-Verlag. . * Sigel, Paul. 2000. "Der deutsche Beitrag auf der Expo70 in Osaka." ''Arch plus'' no. 149–150 (April): 116–133. Reprinted onlin
''Thema'' 5, no. 1 (July 2000)
* Smalley, John. 2000
''Gesang der Jünglinge'': History and Analysis
. Programme note for concert series, Masterpieces of 20th-Century Electronic Music: A Multimedia Perspective. The Columbia University Computer Music Center, presented by Lincoln Center (July) . * Stenzl, Jürg. 1991. "York Höller's 'The Master and Margarita': A German Opera." Translated by Sue Rose. ''
Tempo In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...
'' New Series, no. 179 (December): 8–15. * Stephens, Suzanne, and Kathinka Pasveer (eds.). 2008. ''Gedenkschrift für Stockhausen''. Kürten: Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik. . * Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1998. "Bildung ist große Arbeit: Karlheinz Stockhausen im Gespräch mit Studierenden des Musikwissenschaftlichen Instituts der Universität zu Köln am 5. Februar 1997." In ''Stockhausen 70: Das Programmbuch Köln 1998''. Signale aus Köln: Musik der Zeit 1, edited by Imke Misch and Christoph von Blumröder, 1–36. Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag. * Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2007b. "Harmonien/Harmonies for Bass Clarinet (2006)". In ''2007 Stockhausen-Kurse Kürten: Programm zu den Interpretations- und Kompositionskursen und Konzerten der Musik von / Programme for the Interpretation and Composition Courses and Concerts of the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, 7. Juli bis 15. Juli 2007 in Kürten / from th to 15th 2007 in Kuerten'', notes for the German première on 11 July 2007, pp. 33–34. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. * Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2007c. "Harmonien/Harmonies for Flute (2006): 5th Hour of Klang / Sound, The 24 Hours of the Day". In ''2007 Stockhausen-Kurse Kürten: Programm zu den Interpretations- und Kompositionskursen und Konzerten der Musik von / Programme for the Interpretation and Composition Courses and Concerts of the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, 7. Juli bis 15. Juli 2007 in Kürten / from to 15th 2007 in Kuerten'', notes for the German première on 13 July 2007, p. 36. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. * Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2012. ''Jahreskreis—Circle of the Year: Immerwährender Kalendar mit Stockhausen-Zitaten und -Abbildungen'' / ''Perpetual Calendar with Stockhausen Quotes and Illustrations'', edited by Kathinka Pasveer, translations by
Suzanne Stephens Suzanne Stephens (born July 28, 1946) is an American clarinetist, resident in Germany, described as "an outstanding performer and tireless promoter of the clarinet and basset horn". Biography Suzanne Stephens was born in Waterloo, Iowa, the dau ...
, Jayne Obst, Tim Nevill,
Jerome Kohl Jerome Joseph Kohl (November 27, 1946 – August 4, 2020) was an American musicologist, academic journal editor, and recorder teacher. A music theorist at the University of Washington, he became recognized internationally as an authority on the ...
, Thomas von Steinaecker, and Imke Misch. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. . * Stockhausen, Karlheinz, and Maryvonne Kendergi. 2009.
La mesure du temps: un entretien inédit avec Stockhausen (1958)
. ''Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines'' 19, no. 2:63–76. * Stockhausen-Stiftung. 2008.
Stockhausen Aufführungen/Performances 2008
'. Kürten: Stockhausen-Stiftung. * Straus, Joseph N. 1997. "Babbitt and Stravinsky under the Serial 'Regime'" ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 35, no. 2 (Summer): 17–32. * Straus, Joseph N. 2001. ''Stravinsky's Late Music''. Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis 16. New York: Cambridge University Press 33–35. . * Stravinsky, Igor, and
Robert Craft Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. ...
. 1960. ''Memories and Commentaries''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. * Telford, James. 2011. "Reconciling Opposing Forces: The Young James Macmillan—A Performance History". ''
Tempo In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...
'' 65, no. 257 (July): 40–51. *
Tommasini, Anthony Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief c ...
. 30 September 2001.
The Devil Made Him Do It
. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. * Tilbury, John. 2008. ''Cornelius Cardew (1936–1981) – A Life Unfinished''. Harlow: Copula. *
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 ...
. 2008. "Kulturelle Dissidenten: Die Stockhausen-Klasse der Jahre 1973 und 1974". ''MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für neue Musik'', no. 116 (February): 46–49. * Toop, Richard. 2012. "''Himmels-Tür'': Crossing to the Other Side". ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 425–475. * Truelove, Stephen. 1984. "Karlheinz Stockhausen's ''Klavierstück XI'': An Analysis of Its Composition via a Matrix System of Serial Polyphony and the Translation of Rhythm into Pitch." DMA diss. Norman: University of Oklahoma. * Truelove, Stephen. 1998. "The Translation of Rhythm into Pitch in Stockhausen's ''Klavierstück XI''." ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 36, no. 1 (Winter): 189–220. * Ulrich, Thomas. 2006. ''Neue Musik aus religiösem Geist: theologisches Denken im Werk von Karlheinz Stockhausen und John Cage''. Saarbrücken: Pfau. . * Ulrich, Thomas. 2012a. "Lucifer and Morality in Stockhausen's Opera Cycle ''Licht''", translated by
Jerome Kohl Jerome Joseph Kohl (November 27, 1946 – August 4, 2020) was an American musicologist, academic journal editor, and recorder teacher. A music theorist at the University of Washington, he became recognized internationally as an authority on the ...
. ''
Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was firs ...
'' 50, nos. 1 & 2 (Winter–Summer): 313–341. * Ulrich, Thomas. 2012b. ''Stockhausen: A Theological Interpretation'', translated by Jayne Obst. Kürten: Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik. . * Ulrich, Thomas. 2017. ''Stockhausens Zyklus LICHT: Ein Opernführer''. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag. . * Vermeil, Jean. 1996. ''Conversations with Boulez: Thoughts on Conducting'', translated by Camille Nash, with a selection of programs conducted by Boulez and a discography by Paul Griffiths. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. * Viel, Massimiliano. 1990. "Formeltechnik, ponte tra intuito e memoria. Incontro con K.Stockhausen". ''Sonus'' 2, no 1: 51–68. * Voermans, Erik. 2008. "Besluit van een machtig oeuvre". ''
Het Parool ''Het Parool'' () is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published on 10 February 1941 as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In English, its name means ''The Password'' or ''The Mott ...
'' (20 June). * Wager, Gregg. 1998. ''Symbolism as a Compositional Method in the Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen''. College Park, Maryland: Gtrgg Wager. English translation of "Symbolik als kompositorische Methode in den Werken von Karlheinz Stockhausen". PhD diss. Berlin: Free University Berlin, 1996. * Wolfson, Richard. 5 March 2001.
Hit and mismatch
''
The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
'', London. * Welsh, Tom. 2019. "Ballad for a Child: The Discovery of an Unknown Song by Karlheinz Stockhausen Provides a Humanising Footnote to His Barnstorming 1958 Lecture Tour of the US". ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
'', no. 425 (July): 20–21.


Obituaries

* Anon. 2007.
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Influential and Controversial German Composer Who Pursued His Uncompromising Avant-Garde Vision through Six Decades
. ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'' (10 December) (archive from 14 August 2011, accessed 20 May 2020). * Nonnenmann, Rainer. 2007.
In Kürten zu Hause—und im Universum
. ''
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger The ''Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger'' (KStA) is a German daily newspaper published in Cologne, and has the largest circulation in the Cologne–Bonn Metropolitan Region. ''Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger'' has a base of over 100 contributing editors and a wi ...
'' (7 December) (in German). *Swed, Mark 2007.
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Avant-Garde Composer; at 79
. ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' (8 December): 67. via
Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...


Documentary films

*'' Karlheinz Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet'', documentary, The Netherlands, 1995, 78 min., producer: , director:
Frank Scheffer Frank Scheffer (born 1956 in Venlo) is a Dutch cinematographer and producer of documentary film, mostly known for his work ''Conducting Mahler'' (1996) on the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Mu ...
, production: Allegri Film, streaming and DVD:
Medici.tv Medici.tv (stylized as medici.tv), created in 2008, is a video streaming platform for classical music, jazz, and ballet. Live events With 150+ live events each year, medici.tv live streams performances by various artists, ensembles and orche ...
.
trailer
' * ', documentary, Germany, 2009, 56 min., producer and director: Norbert Busè and co-director , production: , broadcast:
Arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...
, ZDF.


External links

* * * *
Stockhausen
– full CD editions
The Stockhausen Society (International)
– main site

catalogues of works (Stockhausen Stiftung)

at
UbuWeb UbuWeb is a web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. Phi ...

Stockhausen
excerpts from sound archives works, musiquecontemporaine.fr {{DEFAULTSORT:Stockhausen, Karlheinz 1928 births 2007 deaths People from Kerpen 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers People from the Rhine Province University of Bonn alumni German male classical composers German opera composers Male opera composers Experimental composers Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Microtonal composers Deutsche Grammophon artists Twelve-tone and serial composers Electroacoustic music composers Ernst von Siemens Music Prize winners Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Nonesuch Records artists Chrysalis Records artists German electronic musicians Composers for piano Composers for pipe organ Composers for violin Composers for cello Composers for trombone Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln alumni Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln faculty Pupils of Darius Milhaud 20th-century German composers 21st-century German composers German Army soldiers of World War II 20th-century German male musicians Child soldiers in World War II German magazine founders Electronic composers