How Stockhausen treats Eve in his LICHT-cycle is for me a good example, in which way he refers to the Urantia Book. For sure: Stockhausen and the UB get Eve from the biblical tradition. In Gen 2f Eve is the first woman, the mother of live. The Urantia Book tries to include the scientific insight of evolution into the story of the earth, of Urantia, and therefore Adam and Eve are not the first human beings, created by God himself, but important human-superhuman personalities, sent to earth from the officials of our local universe to guide the development of the human races (that already exist). In this task Eve partly fails, but even by that she gives an important contribution to the evolution of mankind. Insofar mankind has to be grateful to her, but nowadays she does not have an important meaning. That is, beyond all differences, the same with biblical Eve. We all come from her, but she is no goddess, has no actual meaning for us. That is totally different for LICHT. Sure, there are some traits that come from the UB, especially in FREITAG, but also in MONTAG, because also here the theme is not creation, but evolution to a better mankind. But Eve is one of the 3 main energies of cosmic life, and that is of utmost importance. The Eve-spirit influences every moment of life and it is crucial for human life to get into contact with it and to develop it inside. Michael alone is not enough! One could think that here we meet the catholic heritage in Stockhausen, for one could compare this importance of Eve with the important role Mary has in catholic piety. Though she shall not be a goddess at all, her importance for a christian life in catholicism is immense, and in LICHT Eve and Mary often go together, are manifestations of the same spiritual energy. To sum up: In this example the UB gives some themes to LICHT, some stimuli, but basically Stockhausen follows his own theme. He is not related to the UB as Messiaen is related to the bible.
There have been many attempts by UB readers to give an overview regarding the complexe structure of the universes described in the UB. So if you ever wondered who is who in Orvonton, Nebadon and in the Paradise go to http://www.nebadon.info/ http://www.orvonton.info/ and http://www.universalfather.info/ There, you can click on the boexes to learn more.
I feel that it could be useful to have a discussion-forum on the music of Stockhausen. There are so many people from all over the world, young and old, learned and eager to get into contact with this musical world: musicologists, composers, musicians, music lovers; people who plan concerts - who write books or have to give lectures and so on. So there should be much stuff, many ideas that we can share. And when we have open questions, there may be people who studied just that and could give a hint or a stimulus.
A problem might be the English language, but i feel that is the only possibility that many people who are interested can participate. And we can exercise tolerance to mistakes!
Thomas Ulrich
You're not registered yet. Click here to register.
Offline