Karlheinz Stockhausen
Born in Modrath, near Cologne, the prolific musician wrote more than 300 works from orchestral pieces to pure electronic music during his career. Best known for his avant-garde electronic work, Stockhausen was an experimental musician who utilised tape recorders and mathematics to create innovative, ground-breaking pieces. His Electronic Study, 1953, was the first musical piece composed from pure sine wave sounds. Electronic Study II, produced a year later, was the first work of electronic music to be notated and published. But the composer rejected the idea that he was making the music of the future, writing in 1966: What is modern today will be tradition tomorrow.
Born in Modrath, near Cologne, the prolific musician wrote more than 300 works from orchestral pieces to pure electronic music during his career. Best known for his avant-garde electronic work, Stockhausen was an experimental musician who utilised tape recorders and mathematics to create innovative, ground-breaking pieces. His Electronic Study, 1953, was the first musical piece composed from pure sine wave sounds. Electronic Study II, produced a year later, was the first work of electronic music to be notated and published. But the composer rejected the idea that he was making the music of the future, writing in 1966: What is modern today will be tradition tomorrow.
Paare Vom Freitag
*2022 Stock.* Paare Vom Freitag (Couples of Friday) with soprano, bass, electronic instruments (signal processing and samples) (1992/99). The Stockhausen Edition no. 48 contains 99 tracks of the isolated electro-acoustic/concrete vocal duets from the opera Freitag aus Licht (Friday from Light). In the opera these brief duets are sequenced and layered into 12 "Sound Scenes" spread throughout the opera, but on this disc they are presented as isolated events. These short vocal duets featuring the v…
Hymnen - Elektronische Musik Mit Orchester
*2022 Stock.* Hymnen - Elektronische Musik Mit Orchester is the premier recording of a specially-adapted version of the 3rd Region of the massive electronic/tape work Hymnen. Commissioned for a 1971 concert with the New York Philharmonic, Stockhausen scored a new orchestral accompaniment to this particular quadrant (the other 3 Regions were accompanied in this concert by the electro-acoustic Stockhausen Group, employing intuitive strategies). This orchestra and tape version also includes a solo …
Solo
*2022 Stock.* Solo includes new recordings of vintage-era variable-form solo chamber works involving shortwave radio or delay processing. A unique version of Solo (accompanied by excerpts from Hymnen Region 2) was previously recorded by trombonist Vinko Globokar for Deutsche-Grammaphon, but this is its first proper appearance on the Stockhausen label. Earlier electro-acoustic noise versions of Spiral can be found on The Stockhausen Edition no. 15. Both of these works feature an element of perfor…
Markus Trompete Stockhausen
*2022 Stock. Includes a 128-page booklet.* Markus Trompete Stockhausen features Markus Stockhausen performing Licht-related chamber works highlighting trumpet, piccolo trumpet, and flugelhorn. This CD also includes tracks created for a newly-recorded television broadcast presentation of Examen (from Act 1 of Donnerstag aus Licht). - Stockhausenspace.blogspot.com
Dienstag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock. Includes a 192-page booklet in English.* Dienstag Aus Licht is the complete staged 4th opera of the Licht cycle, Dienstag Aus Licht (Tuesday from Light). This opera has a prelude Greeting, followed by two Acts. The first is a new arrangement and recording of Der Jahreslauf (The Stockhausen Edition no. 29). Besides being newly-arranged for Stockhausen's 2nd generation electro-acoustic ensemble, this version also has additional opening and closing character sequences to put it in cont…
Stockhausen conducts Haydn and Mozart
*2022 Stock.* Stockhausen conducts Haydn and Mozart contains 3 concertos from the classical repertoire, featuring Stockhausen's primary soloists performing new cadenzas written by Stockhausen himself (between 1978 and 1985). Markus Stockhausen, Kathinka Pasveer and Suzanne Stephens are backed by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Stockhausen), rec. 1985/86. Stockhausen's cadenzas are largely idiomatic, although sometimes approached with a more pensive "new music" perspective. - St…
Geburts-Arien / Mädchenprozession
*2022 Stock.* The Stockhausen Edition no. 38, Geburts-Arien / Mädchenprozession mostly contains excerpted highlight scenes from the 1st and 2nd Acts of the opera Montag aus Licht, with some additional arrangements for a cappella girls' choir and solo piano. The first 16 tracks are the two "Geburts-Arien" (Act 1, Scene 3, also found on The Stockhausen Edition no. 36b). Tracks 34-53 contain the "Mädchenprozession", "Befruchtung mit Klavierstück", and "Wiedergeburt" scenes from Act 2 (found on the …
Geburtsfest
*2022 Stock.* Geburtsfest = Festival Of Birth presents the mixed choir layer of the entire first Act of the opera Montag aus Licht (with some embedded musique concrète elements). This a cappella version, the "Geburtsfest", allows the listener to experience a specific facet of the opera without the soloists. Waves of choral voices can be heard, layered in various renditions/atomizations of the Licht super-formula. - Stockhausenspace.blogspot.com
Montag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock.* Montag Aus Licht is the 5 CD, fully-staged version of the 3rd Licht opera, Montag aus Licht (Monday from Light). This massive work is comprised of 3 Acts and framed by 2 electro-acoustic installation pieces ("Begrüßung" and "Abschied"). In contrast to Samstag aus Licht (which was highly instrumental in nature), this opera is structured around mixed vocal combos and choir groups. The work features vocalist Nicholas Isherwood, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the WDR Cologne Choir, the…
Oberlippentanz - Ave -Tierkreis
*2022 Stock.* The magic of works by Stockhausen is their inherent possibility for new interpretations. There is a richness of expression hidden inside these works, which has to bloom in different instrumental and interpretational guises for it to realize its own charged splendor. There is no way you can exhaust this music’s inherent goldmine of musical and existential aspects through one version and one version alone. The version of “Oberlippentanz” which opens this CD is a reduced version of ap…
Samstag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock.* Samstag aus Licht is the second opera written for Licht, Samstag aus Licht. This is a darkly humorous 4 act opera on 4 CDs, featuring flute, piano, wind (jazz) band and male choir. The 3rd Scene is presented in both the complete version and as the aborted strike version. In the latter case, the performance is halted before its completion by a revolt from the wind band members (for playing past contracted working hours). If you only get one Licht opera, this is the one I'd recommend…
Aries - Klavierstück XIII
*2022 Stock.* Aries - Klavierstück XIII contains two long works featuring Markus and Majella Stockhausen (in separate performances). Aries is essentially the Spring quadrant of Sirius (the Stockhausen Edition no. 26) with the electronic tape accompanied by only Markus Stockhausen's trumpet part (in effect a live electro-acoustic work). The other work is Majella Stockhausen's traversal of Klavierstück XIII, a solo piano work later adapted with vocal parts into Scene 1 from the opera Samstag Aus L…
Musik Für Klarinette, Bassklarinette Und Bassethorn
*2022 Stock.* Musik Für Klarinette, Bassklarinette Und Bassethorn is a collection of works for clarinet, bass clarinet, and basset-horn featuring the artistry of Suzanne Stephens (also previously featured on In Freundschaft (the Stockhausen Edition no. 27). This 3 CD set includes recordings from 1989 to 1994 of compositions spanning 1974 through 1994. Many of these works are derived or arranged from Licht (reduced for independent concert recital). 7 works are for solo basset-horn, with the remai…
Unsichtbare Chöre
*2022 Stock.* Unsichtbare Chöre features a tape piece made up of 16 layers of a cappella choir tracks, employing a variety of massed vocal approaches, including the use of percussive and whispered noises, joined by a couple brief, hypnotic multi-tracked clarinet sequences. This tape is used as a textural background layer in Act 1 of the opera Donnerstag aus Licht (the Stockhausen Edition No. 30). In Act 3 the same tape is reused, but with the channels reversed. Although some of this material can…
Der Jahreslauf
*2022 Stock.* Der Jahreslauf features a pre-Licht work, although this piece would later be reworked as the opening Act to the Licht opera Dienstag aus Licht (on CD 40). Commissioned for Japanese Gagaku orchestra, Der Jahreslauf is essentially Stockhausen's take on the very slow-changing, web-like textures of this ancient ceremonial music form. As the Gagaku orchestra proceeds through various poly-textural wind and string arrangements, several interruptions arrive in the form of comic skits (usua…
Musik Für Flöte
*2022 Stock.* Musik Für Flöte features the artistry of Kathinka Pasveer on 2 CDs, performing solo works for flute, piccolo flute, and alto flute. In addition to the flute arrangements of Amour and In Freundschaft, it includes several solo arrangements of works from the Licht opera cycle. This set also notably includes the electro-acoustic version of Kathinkas Gesang, a piece performed with percussionists in the opera Samstag aus Licht, but here in a later version with electronic music created at…
In Freundschaft / Traum-Formel / Amour
*2022 Stock.* In Freundschaft features Suzanne Stephens performing three solo works for clarinet and basset-horn (alto clarinet). In Freundschaft (a 3-layer polyphony arranged for a single soloist) is a popular recital work, and has been arranged for many different instruments. It was written as a clarinet solo for woodwind player Suzanne Stephens for her birthday and was first premiered by her in 1978, though a flute version was performed earlier during Stephens' actual birthday celebration. In…
Harlekin / Der Kleine Harlekin
*2022 Stock.* Harlekin / Der Kleine Harlekin features the clarinet and dance of woodwind player Suzanne Stephens. These two pieces for soloist are each based on a single formula theme, but with elements and limbs of the theme expanded and transformed at length in different textural explorations. An over-arching narrative theme enfolds the works in a dramatic scenario. Harlekin is a work for a costumed solo clarinetist with a substantial element of performer movement in its score (dance and mime …
Atmen Gibt Das Leben
*2022 Stock.* Atmen Gibt Das Leben is a semi-theatrical choral work, with the second half accompanied by orchestral background textures. The melodic vocal elements here have a somewhat humorous, folk-like feel to them. Atmen Gibt Das Leben (Breathing Gives Life) is essentially written for a capella mixed choir, but Stockhausen also includes a somewhat secondary orchestra part (usually played as a tape accompaniment) which is used to color the unaccompanied choir. There are 2 sections to this wor…
Inori
*2022 Stock.* Inori is a large scale work for orchestra which portrays the formation of a theme, one parameter at a time (rhythm - dynamics - melody - harmony - polyphony). Essentially, slow-moving sound masses in the beginning evolve into dramatic, complex gestures by the end. Two dancer-mimes are listed as soloists, but obviously they can't be heard on the CD. Inori is a further development of the formula concept Stockhausen first began exploring in Mantra,and would eventually be fully explore…