Elektronische Musik

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Elektronische Musik 1952-1960

* originally posted on March 13, 2007

This recording includes groundbreaking pieces by one of the most important figures in 20th century music. Included are the essential "Gesang der Junglinge" and "Kontakte" (the purely electronic piece). "Kontakte" is in 25 separate tracks although it may be better for it to be in one track as it could be a minor annoyance when the track ends and the next one starts. But "Kontakte" is a tour-de-force that I am grateful that it is present. Below is a brief bio of Stockhausen including an interesting bit of trivia.

" Stockhausen was born in 1928 near Cologne. Orphaned as a teen, he immersed himself in artistic pursuits and showed promise both as a writer and a musician. He took classes at the new music school in Darmstadt with Adorno before moving to Paris, where he studied with Messiaen and met Boulez and Pierre Schaeffer. These encounters, as well as studies in phonetics and communication, proved a crucial influence on his subsequent work at the electronic music studio in Cologne; by the mid-'50s he had secured a spot in the vanguard of both electronic music and integral serialism. During the next decade he forged relationships with some of the most prominent contemporaries, including Kagel, Ligeti, and Cage, and, taking over the reins at the Darmstadt school, mentored such innovative up-and-comers as Cornelius Cardew and La Monte Young. His influence extended into popular culture, as well: he appears on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. Stockhausen held various appointments during the rest of the twentieth century, and continued teaching summer seminars attended by important emerging composers. Stockhausen's most influential compositions vary widely in their style and media, and attest to the composer's far-ranging interests in science, technology, religion, cosmology, and mysticism. His various instrumental and vocal works from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s explore various ways of extrapolating serial methods and mathematical structures, such as the Fibonacci series, to dictate pitches, rhythms, articulations, and larger formal structures. The influential tape piece Gesang der Jünglinge (1955) combines the jumbled phonemes from a Biblical source text with an elaborately methodic splicing scheme. Hymnen (1966) mixes various national anthems with complex electronic sound structures. In Stimmung (1968), a group of singers intones various mystical names to the harmony of the overtone series. From the late '70s onward, Stockhausen's efforts focused on LICHT, a sprawling opera cycle drawn from various religious mythologies, particularly the Urantia Book, a collection of writings supposedly delivered to Earth by extraterrestrials." (All Music Guide)

Tracklisting:

1. Etude {3:35}

2. Studie I {10:00}

3. Studie II {3:50}

4. Gesang der Junglinge {13:40}

5. Kontakte: Struktur I {2:21}

6. Kontakte: Struktur II {1:05}

7. Kontakte: Struktur III {3:55}

8. Kontakte: Struktur IV {0:48}

9. Kontakte: Struktur V {2:28}

10. Kontakte: Struktur VI {0:27}

11. Kontakte: Struktur VII {2:05}

12. Kontakte: Struktur VIII {1:33}

13. Kontakte: Struktur IX {2:30}

14. Kontakte: Struktur X {4:29}

15. Kontakte: Struktur XI {2:17}

16. Kontakte: Struktur XII {1:22}

17. Kontakte: Struktur XIII A {1:23}

18. Kontakte: Struktur XIII B {0:25}

19. Kontakte: Struktur XIII C {0:47}

20. Kontakte: Struktur XIII D {0:50}

21. Kontakte: Struktur XIII E {0:14}

22. Kontakte: Struktur XIII F {2:09}

23. Kontakte: Struktur XIV {0:29}

24. Kontakte: Struktur XV {0:43}

25. Kontakte: Struktur XVI A {0:35}

26. Kontakte: Struktur XVI B {0:04}

27. Kontakte: Struktur XVI C {0:16}

28. Kontakte: Struktur XVI D {0:10}

29. Kontakte: Struktur XVI E {1:52}

(1) (2) [doubtful this will be reposted] [I don't think the links in the comments work either.]