Frankly speaking: I want to abandon this website, because I have the impression: The interest in discussing Stockhausen in this forum has decreased dramatically - the best days of the Stockhausen-forum are over. We had very vivid and interesting discussions with interesting contributions and I want to thank everybody who took part in it. But: tempi passati. Therefore it should come to an end - maybe there will be better ways nowadays to discuss the music of the "master". So: best wishes to you all! Thomas Ulrich

Hi Ulrich, there could be fewer posts, anyway, from the UK now that Ivor Morgan (Sec of British StockSoc) didn't survive a second heart attack a week ago - funeral July 1.
His archive of CDs, dvds, videos, photos and scores are with Peter Britton at East Anglia University (transferred just before Covid-19 became the global threat).
Ed

I do understand you decision to close down the forum Thomas, given the slow participation on it. It is sad, though, because you have done such a great job in moderating this forum over the years and I know I, and many others, have found it to be a great place for discussion many times.

Maybe the problem is simply that people are tending to use different platforms now for these sorts of discussions and so maybe there is some value in setting up a Stockhausen appreciation page on Facebook. There are similar pages for Boulez (and of course many other composers) and they are quite active. I will give some thought to this and maybe involve some others who I know would be keen to see a continuation of the lively discussion and sharing of information that you so wonderfully and kindly enabled over the years of this forum.

It is an unfortunate but true thing, I think, that we have become a fickle world in the platforms we turn to in order to connect and share ideas about the things that are important to us. It can be hard to keep up, and even harder to keep shifting to, and building up momentum in, new places.

I do hope, however, that the content of this forum will not be lost. I still find myself returning to older discussions now and then.

Whatever your final decision is, Thomas, can I please offer you my really sincere thanks for all your time and work in maintaining this forum for so long. It has been such a great place to go. The decline in participation is not because what you do here has lost its relevance, but simply because of the changing ways people use the internet to connect.

Thank you again, very much, for everything.

With warm regards,
Ian Parsons

Ian, Thank you for your friendly and warm words; I appreciate that very much!
Now, what are the consequences? You say, that in the past discussions of this website there are some valuable insights, that should be preserved. When I end this website, everything of this is gone. Is there an alternative? Or should we generally accept, that everything comes to an end and that there is a positive quality in that: It creates space for new things to come?! I would tend to the latter!
You may be right saying that the use of the internet has changed, so that other platforms as facebook are more popular. But that is not my world! Another possibility could be: The interest in Stockhausen has decreased generally. Is that a fact or just a subjective impression? The number of people decreases, who is willing to listen again and again to non-mainstream sounds, and for Stockhausen's music I feel it is very important to have a live-contact that was not possible in lockdown-times. I wonder what you and others think about this!

Thanks for your thoughts Thomas. I thought it was possible to archive a Forum such as this, so it can still be searched on the Internet, even though it might no longer be active - but I really don't know if that is easy, or even possible, to do. I just thought it would be a shame to lose so many years of discussion and reflections. This forum is, I think, a really useful historical resource.

It does trouble me that people are today become more and more inclined to listen only to mainstream music, as you say, and only to music that is cheap and easy to access. This to me, though,is only all the more reason why it is good to maintain some sort of platform online where better music can be discussed and where people can maintain connections with one another to share ideas and to stimulate thinking and engagement. This of course does not mean you have to be the one to do this - and I totally understand that you might not wish to become involved with Facebook.

I do agree that nothing is as good as live contact - but even when we don't have lockdown, live contact is not always possible for everyone, and at least the internet provides more opportunities to connect. It does not replace live contact, but it can, I think, supplement it.

I will continue to think about the possibility of starting a Facebook group, and will also discuss this with the Stiftung.

Meanwhile, Thomas, again my thanks to you for this forum. It has been a wonderful resource for so long.

I am no internet-expert; so I do not know if it is possible to archive the content. And even if there is an easy possibility, someone should pay for that!

The problem is: When I end this forum, there will be no possibility to get back the data. And I am determined to do so in the next 2 weeks.

I think we live in times that are characterised by a contradiction: On the one hand tradition is neglected in cultural life, on the other the archives are full and there is the danger for historians, that you are pressed down by the pure weight of historical witnesses - there is less and less an open space for interpretation. What we did here was interpretation, not creation. The creative work of composers like Stockhausen must be preserved; not every thread of interpretation. So I can live with the loss of data of this kind - it even might be a facilitation, if you know what I mean...

Dear Thomas,

how about

The INTERNET ARCHIVE for keeping the Stockhausen-Discussions alive?

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive

Best, Marcus

How is it done - auf Deutsch: Wie macht man das?

As far as I know there is a tool to upload single web pages and web sites in its integrality:

help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360004651732-Using-The-Wayback-Machine

I don't know exactly the technical background of the Stockhausen-Forum so I can't find out how to upload this forum. Perhaps other members have more experience with the wayBackMachine of the ARCHIVE. Otherwise you can send a request to the ARCHIVE. Since you want to keep a project alive for futher studies that would be otherwise lost without preservation I can imagine that the IA will be open to take it over. Give it a try.

Dear Thomas,

There is a time for everything ...
I think you did a good job to open and maintain the forum.
Sometimes its rather lonely to be a Stockhausen fan, and then it's nice to realize that you are not alone.
The forum offered a opportunity to share our enthousiasme.
I'm not a fan of facebook either; if there would be someone else to takeover the moderating this forum, it would be nice.
But if Ian and the Stiftung see a possibility of starting a Facebook group, it's OK to me.

Right now I'm trying to download the entire content of the forum, just in case; I guess it will take some time.
I hope you can postpone the closing of the forum for a couple of hours/days, I will give you a message when I'm done with the downloading.

If I succeeded in downloading the forum, we can private message all members (or the active members?) to let them know that the forum is closing and a full archive version has been created.
The Stiftung may be asked to keep the archive of the closed forum.

Thanks anyway for all you have done!