Now the review of the annouced concert. Km 28 is a small venue in Berlin Neukölln with an interesting program in contemporary music. It is one not very big room. In the background the bar, in one corner a grand piano, in front of that chairs, two sofas, armchairs etc. The place looks familiar. Yesterday we listened to a piano recital with works by Stockhausen, Feldman and M. Hyytiäinen; the pianist was Fidan Aghayeva-Edler. A very interesting and intelligent program! All the pieces had an open form; that means, the pianist determines what is actually played. So we heard the pieces two or even three times, in a different way. The Stockhausen was KLAVIERSTÜCK XI, first performed by David Tudor in 1957: On a big paper 19 groups of notes are dispersed irregularly. The pianist starts with the group that catches his eye spontaneously; at the end of the group he reads instructions for tempo, volume, way of playing for the next segment, that he also chooses freely etc. In this way each version is very different, but has the same Stockhausen-sound. The work is extremely demanding; Aghayeva-Edler knew, what was necessary and performed it very sensitively and with the demanded brilliance – very good! From Feldman she performed Intermission 6, also from the fifties: On a sheet of paper single notes and chords are scattered; the pianist chooses freely and procedes to a new tone after the former totally has faded away. The result is a very meditative and sensitive piece, very different to Stockhausen's, though the making is similar. Stockhausen used this technique 50 years later in his last piano-cycle NATÜRLICHE DAUERN. The last work was contemporary: Miika Hyytiäinen's „Torstainen“, a collection of short pieces, reflecting personal ideas and experiences of the composer – the pianist also is responsible, what and how it is performed. It was interesting to listen to this work in connection to Stockhausen: Though in Hyytiäinen the musical language sounds contemporary, it is definitely less complex and demanding; in Stockhausen the listener is more challenged, to create his own connections and meanings. That seems to me a general statement: the past is more avantgarde. But surprisingly: When I finally listened to Stockhausen after the work of Hyytiäinen, I had the impression that the Stockhausen also developed more to comparatively simple story-telling. As John Cage once said to Christian Wolff: Whatever we do, even when we compose with chance-operations, the final result is melody. We can't help it!
Fidan Aghayeva-Edler will perform Stockhausen's KLAVIERSTÜCK XI in two versions on Nov 3, 20.30h, in "km28", a venue for contemporary music in Berlin-Neukoelln, Karl-Marx-Str. 28. www.km28.de
Yesterday a performance of Stockhausen's STIMMUNG took place in Berlin. Good news, because performances of this piece are very rare, due to the extreme difficulty of the score. The singers were members of Operalab, a Berlinbased company who is specialised in avantgarde projects. Due to corona-difficulties just two out of planned four performances have been possible. So the expectations were great, even more when I read the article by Michael Höppner, the dramaturg of the production, in the program booklet, a very well informed text about the importance and the meaning of the piece. The singers (Gina May Walter, Nina Guo, Sophie Catherin, Magnus H. Jonsson, David Eggert, Julien Ségol) obviously had trained a lot and have a good potential. Why did I leave finally disappointed? To begin with the stage. The design was very simple, what is good, and consisted of a big spiral, a central symbol in many works of the composer, even used by himself to characterise the development of his oeuvre in general. But, and that is a central problem: It had the effect to separate the audience from the interpreters. Here we sit as listeners and there is the stage with the interpreters. But for the spirit of the piece it is absolutely essential that we all, listeners and singers, are one community that is part of the ritual performed. The ideal situation would be: The singers sit in the center of the room and the listeners sit also on the ground, on the earth, around them. That is part of the unifying spirit of the work. And in general: What the piece is about, nobody expressed better than the composer himself: „Gewiß ist STIMMUNG meditative Musik. Die Zeit ist aufgehoben. Man horcht ins Innere des Klanges, ins Innere des Harmonischen Spektrums, ins Innere eines Vokals, INS INNERE. Feinste Schwebungen – kaum Ausbrüche – ALLE SINNE sind wach und ruhig. In der Schönheit des Sinnlichen leuchtet die Schönheit des Ewigen.“ This meditative „Stimmung“ the performance failed totally. It was due to the central concept of the performance, to add to the work dance movement (Choreography: Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart). The movement stayed simple, as it had to be, because the singers themselves were the dancers as well, had to perform not only the music but the movements as well. Sure, a peculiarity of Stockhausen's works is, that in many pieces the musicians on stage are seen not only as experts in music, but as actors, who act with their whole body, with costumes etc; in HARLEKIN for instance it is absolutely essential, that the interpreter dances. But Stimmung is a special thing. Not only that the composer did not compose movement for STIMMUNG; if one adds movement, it must fit to the meditative character of the work – one can imagine a sort of simple ritual. But the choreographer gets, as the evening proceeds, more and more bogged down in small storys, that turn away from the Stimmung of the work, finally destroy it. The path of the performance is not into the inner, a path of concentration, but of distraction. What contributes to that impression is the neglect of beauty. The sensual beauty is, as Stockhausen put it, absolute central, because it mirrors the beauty of the Eternal. Especially the costumes seemed thrown together, no trace of beauty, an endeavour to mould things. That is a pity! For sure the interpreters will have more success, will be nearer to the spirit of the work, when they do less, when they concentrate on the music, on performing the sound. Then the spirit will come. You cannot force it by action!
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...
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!
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
That for me is interesting news. I would have thought, as you did, that CD 6 with KONTAKTE in the instrumental version would be the "hit". But CD 3 has the really striking electronical version of KONTAKTE and additionally GESANG, and that is really classical. I thought that also TIERKREIS would be popular. When Stockhausen worked on the orchestral version of TIERKREIS, I expected that many many orchestras would perform that, because it is rather conventional and you also could perform a selection of the work, but I totally failed. And what about "MICHAELs REISE"? As to KLAVIERSTÜCKE, I would think that the Sony-CDs with Kontarsky are comparably popular.
Soni, thank you for your hint. No, I do not know this interpretation. But, my problem is not a problem of interpretation, more a problem of understanding. MANTRA has a very lucid construction, unfolds from the one formula, that is present in every moment. But I do not realize that, when I listen to the work. So for me MANTRA is much more difficult than LICHT. Here the formulas are also present in every moment, but I can hear this and that motive, moving and changing, and that makes sense in most cases immediately. But, I must admit, not always. LICHT-BILDER from SONNTAG for me has something of a rather dry exercise. When you come to LICHT, my advice is: Please don't start with this scene ...
The personal experience in discovering the music of Stockhausen – that is a very personal theme indeed, and every single person will have her or his own remembrances and other things that are helpful. When I think of my own story: Long ago, as a school-boy being attracted to Stockhausen was more out of a spirit of contradiction: When even Adorno, the Pope of modernism, spoke of the young Stockhausen as a naughty lad … There was something fascinating in for instance GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE, but I had no idea what that could be. What helped was listening over and over again. And then, much later, trying to perform a score. I am no musician, but I liked to sing: Schubert, Carl Loewe, Fauré, and I got lessons in singing, and finally my teacher and I came to TIERKREIS. I trained for months these 12 melodies – I am sure my intonation was horrible, but nevertheless I really got into it, and after some time each of the melodies became, as we say in German, an „Ohrwurm“, a catchy tune. Not a strenuous, a stressing avantgarde, but very characteristic music of joy. The other work I began to practise were the movements of INORI in the Kürten courses with Alain Louafi – even when you are unable to learn more than the first few pages of the score, your personal benefit is enormous. And everybody can do that! The experience of the Kürten courses is also very helpful and important. 10 days from morning to night just the sound of Stockhausen – you really get into it! And you realise the overwhelming richness of his music, so many different traces and styles, unbelievable. As Ian said: When you have the time to participate in these courses, you should do that! For me live-performances are absolutely essential. And when you have the opportunity to be in the audience when an opera is staged – that can be a mind-changing event. But: The performance has to be as daring as the music is. In this way I was lucky to see FREITAG in Leipzig, unforgettable. And then I was privileged to collaborate with the Spanish stage-team La Fura in MICHAELs REISE, also a daring enterprise – I could listen nearly a hundred times to that work in the rehearsals and performances, and then, when you know a work nearly by heart, you can understand how rich the music is and how many layers of meaning and beauty are there to discover. But still I feel: There are works, that do not open to me for a deeper understanding. For me that is the case with MANTRA. I know and I feel: It is a very very important work. Intellectually I know what happens in the score – but I cannot hear that, even though I attended many performances with different pianists over and over again. But, what comes to my mind, is what Johannes Fritsch once said, when he presented TELEMUSIK long ago in Berlin: „That is not my first presentation. I listened to that piece more than 150 times. Now there begins to evolve an idea, what really happens in this piece and what it is about.“ So, sometimes patience and endurance. But also, and not seldom: spontaneous enthusiasm!
In the Seventies there was a series on LP "Greatest Hits" of famous composers, and in that series 2 LPs: Stockhausen's Greatest Hits. I am sorry that I do not have that in my collection, but according to TEXTE 4, 686 in these LPs were excerpts from GESANG, KONTAKTE, CARRE, TELEMUSIK, STIMMUNG, KURZWELLEN, HYMNEN, GRUPPEN, ES, SPIRAL, STOCKHOVEN - BEETHAUSEN (one of my favourites!), MANTRA, AUFWÄRTS. An obvious choice, when we think of the early works, but without KLAVIERSTÜCKE, MOMENTE, MIKROPHONIE ...
Yesterday in Berlin Akademie der Künste there was an evening commemorating the 4 concerts Stockhausen and his musicians gave in the cave of Jeita in Lebanon 1969. I must confess: I did not expect such an event in this academy, for: Though Stockhausen was a member from early days on, in later years I had the impression: There was a lot of hostility against Stockhausen from the music-department. But now this evening – great. I think it took place because of Raed Yassin, a Lebanese artist who undertook reserches, especially in the Kürten archive, to these concerts, and created a work of music about it. Before presenting it he spoke about the concerts in 1969 in an interesting way: He began with mentioning the astronaut Armstrong who entered the moon in the same year and spoke about having listened there to a cosmic sound, a cosmic echo. In the interpretation of Yassin that had a spiritual meaning, a sound from beyond. Like in Islamic tradition: Primarily this tradition is not written, not a book, but orally performed. What Mohammed received, was an oral tradition, a spiritual echo from God. (By the way, it is the same in Christian, in Pauline thinking: „The letter kills, the spirit gives life“) And in this way Yassin interpreted the music of Stockhausen in the big cave of Jeita: an echo from the divine. And his own work in the same way: an echo of this echo. It consisted of works of Stockhausen that had been performed in Jeita: GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE, STIMMUNG, HYMNEN, TELEMUSIK, KURZWELLEN, in a sort of a remix. The Stockhausen Stiftung does not support this idea of remix, but in this evening I must confess: It did not sound bad and functioned in this context. And then Yassin gave the hint: When Armstrong entered the moon and heared the echo, he was 40 years old, Stockhausen in Yeita was 40, Mohammed receiving God's message was 40, and also he himself, echoing Stockhausen's music, was 40. An age of special receptivity to the Divine... The second person presenting a work of his, was Daniel Ott, the Swiss composer living and teaching (as successor to Dieter Schnebel) in Berlin. He presented his work Fin al Cunfin, composed for an Alpine landscape near the origin of the river Inn, were Switzerland, Austria and Italy meet, a spectacular and very steep spot with echos from the mountains, a 1 hour work for choir and brass ensemble that lived from the contact to this landscape, to nature. So: Echos in the mountains and under the earth in the cave, a nice relationship. Finally the evening ended with the projection of the film: Stockhausen et les grottes de Jeita by Anne- Marie Deshayes (you can find it in youtube in the French original version). Very impressive the pictures of the spectacular cave, the public including Max Ernst and Andre Masson, and above all the musicians with Stockhausen himself. Some parts of the rehearsals were shown with then young musicians like Peter Eötvös, Johannes Fritsch, Vinko Globokar (before his terrible time of Stockhausen-bashing!); especially impressive the work on STIMMUNG were Stockhausen managed to form a complete unity of the group of singers with an unbelievable musical intimacy. That is an result of rehearsing again and again – a result that in nowaday concerts seems completely unknown. And Stockhausen himself talking about his ideas about music, spirituality, politics – always talking out of this very moment, but you could have the impression: his sentences are absolutely classical, as if he had thought about it for hours. So you could get a sens of the revolutionary spirit of the years 1968 and following – I was really enthusiastic, because these years of my youth came back. And with that an important insight for me: If you just look at the content, what Stockhausen said is what now everybody says – but what a difference in spite of that! In our time everything is poisened by some hidden anxiety: in respect to political correctness, and in the ambition to defend the position of an opinion leader that is threatened. Thus everything has changed. What had been revolutionary and enthusiastic, now is conservative and moralistic, gets didactic in a bad sense. It is important to get in contact again to our origins!
Yesterday I attended in a Berlin church a lecture-concert with the Weimar Ensemble for Intuitive Music. This concert belonged to a series of events to celebrate 30 years of peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic. Michael von Hintzenstern, who lived in the Communist part of Germany, spoke about his contact to Stockhausen, who then was outlawed in Eastern Germany. He and his brother became fans of Stockhausen's music, when they still were schoolboys, and in 1970, at the age of 14, he made contact with the master. Six years later he was awarded for a composition of his by Boswil foundation in Switzerland and astonishingly was allowed from his government to go there for 3 month. On the way to Switzerland he went to Kürten and met Stockhausen personally; he spoke about the overwhelming generosity of Stockhausen. In 1980 he together with his brother and two other friends founded his ensemble – from this time on they still are together; an amazing fact. Up to now their first task was to perform Stockhausen's works for intuitive music that are gathered in two collections: AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN (1968) and FÜR KOMMENDE ZEITEN (1970) – but that by far is not the only repertoire! Stockhausen himself two times worked extensively with the musicians in the 90s und in 2005, and a series of CDs appeared. All these informations were very interesting and revealing. But the most important part of the evening was the music. The ensemble performed 4 works from both collections. For me it was a unique experience: without any extraordinary or spectacular attitude, really close to Stockhausen's texts and therefore in a way simple, but not without surprising moments, and, above all, touching pure beauty. Classical interpretations! I wished one could listen far more often to them – they are invited with this repertoire internationally, and that should go on. They have an enormous experience and belong to the nowadays not many musicians who have worked with Stockhausen himself – and that makes a difference, for sure not always, but in this case indeed! You can get information about the ensemble on the website of Hans Tutschku: www.tutschku.com/efim
Since some years Ian Parsons is an important and appreciated contributor to our forum. And more than that: He is a person who is very much dedicated to the music of Stockhausen, especially to LICHT. One has the impression: Where ever there is a major Stockhausen-event, he will be present. So he is one of the people who know LICHT best. In the last years he has written a thesis on LICHT that is now accessible: https://doi.org/10.26180/5cc270b524096 ; what he writes will be of interest for many of us and hopefully raise a controversial discussion.
At first I must say: Ian's text has one merit that hardly can be underestimated: In his interpretation of the opera cycle he does not take the three protagonists for granted. He asks not only: what is the meaning of each of them, how do they relate to one another – but also: What is the overall meaning? Why these three and not others? What is the function of this „trinity“; whom can they be compared to? These are essential questions that are not tackled up to now in a sufficient way, and so the enterprise of Ian is very important and interesting. And in his path through the cycle we meet every now and then revealing insights.
But for me there is a big BUT, and that comes from methodological reasons. One would expect that at the beginning of Ian's thesis we encounter a meticulous analysis about what the operas tell about the three protagonists, what characteristic traits we find in them and how they are differentiated in a general way. But that is not done sufficiently. Instead we are confronted from the beginning with a scheme from the French psychologist Lacan that he uses to characterise the human personality: The Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real, and that is equated with Michael, Eve and Lucifer. So what Lacan writes about these three dimensions of the personality serves as a tool to present the protagonists of the operas. I must admit: I am no expert in Lacan – so I may have missed much of what Ian writes. But from the beginning I had the impression: That is the bed of Procrustes; Stockhausen's figures are forced into that scheme and what does not fit, is either violently stretched or cut off and thrown away. That has absurd consequences. For instance when we investigate Lucifer: The Real of Lacan, that stands for him, lies beneath everything, is ungraspable; when you try to express it, you end up in insolvable contradiction. But how is Luzifer presented in LICHT? There is this contradiction, but that does not lies in himself. He contradicts God and the creation, but in himself he is very clear and totally graspable, for he is a very rational, idealistic power, loving the purity of the One and sacrificing everything else; therefore his mania of numbers and counting, the pure thinking in mathematics. And what is indicated here for Luzifer is also true for Michael and Eve. Michael is not to be aequated to the Symbolic to which belong cultural values – MICHAELs REISE is not about socialising Michael, but: In this part of LICHT Michael spreads his message through the whole world and proves himself in the main realms of human existence. Because, and that is essential: he is a cosmic energy, not a central element of the human psyche that has a function there. This way Ian's interpretation of LICHT goes on and on. Everywhere he detects Lacan's principles, everything is reduced to that, to the point: You get what you have invested, and that means: nothing new. Stockhausen builds the world of Lacan in a mythological, in an odd way. Therefore: Why should I look at LICHT? Lacan is enough when I look for insight. And that damages LICHT – what certainly is not purposely intended by the author. So when he speaks of VISION from DONNERSTAG: The Symbolic, namely Michael remains alone in that scene and that must be pathological for psychological reasons; therefore Ian cannot recognise the special beauty of this music – for him it is thin and dissolving, and finally he detects in it Nietzsche's „God is dead“. It does not matter, it cannot matter, that the tenor in this scene sings the most sublime and spiritually important sentences of the whole cycle, pointing to what all is about. In this way what Ian does reminds me on the DONNERSTAG-production in Basel sometime ago: a stage team that had its own psychologically inspired idea prior to the work of Stockhausen and just used this work to do their own thing. I know that this is a very polemic statement, but that is what happens again und again on European stages. What is the reason for treating Stockhausen this way? Ian loves Stockhausen's music, no doubt. But I would assume that he has major difficulties with his religious position and thus looks for another way to make sense of the work. I think: It is quite ok when you are not a religious person. But you should accept then, that LICHT, for instance, is basically a work based on religion, and then you should ask: What could this work contribute to understanding the human existence? For instance in the case of LICHT the insight, that man cannot live totally autonomous, but is dependent on forces he cannot controll totally – and these forces work in LICHT – that as an example. But if you totally cut away this general, this „cosmic“ dimension from LICHT, you will damage the work. It is better then to admit: I cannot agree with the message totally, but it is great music. And that is my last point: Ian, as I know him, is an enthusiastic person. You see that, when you meet him and he speaks about Stockhausen's music. This trait of his personality is more or less lacking in this thesis, for he forces himself to be more busy with Lacan's scheme. But I fear that is always the danger in musicology – you deal more with your concept than with the music, that has more dimensions than the relationships we can see in the score. But nevertheless that always is sad to perceive. But: he has finished his text now – the music can again come into the foreground, and that will be good.
This summer there were some main events concerning Stockhausen: AUS LICHT in Amsterdam, SAMSTAG in Paris and the Kürten Courses that ended on Sunday. Some of us had been sceptical concerning the courses: Would there be enough interest, sufficient time to prepare everything? Indeed there were notably less participants this time – also in some concerts more empty seats than usual; but in the final INORI nearly everything was occupied. But in spite of all this again it was a concentrated time packed with many great and rewarding events: As usual the master classes, the lectures by Stockhausen-specialists, the rehearsals and concerts, and in addition two ongoing seminars, on diphonic singing taught by Nicolas Isherwood, and on MIKROPHONIE I by Michael Pattmann. And the opportunity to talk with many like-minded people! What I did not expect: This time the highlights were the students-concerts. Therefore at the end three prizes were given by the Stiftung to really outstanding performances. The first prize won Simon Smith for his presentation of KLAVIERSTÜCK XIII (LUZIFERs TRAUM). Everybody in the hall realised: This was a unique performance – also Kathinka Pasveer and Suzanne Stephens said, they had never heard this work this way. I myself heard several performances of this piece and spent some time with the score – but after the first minute I asked myself: Is that really the work I have heard before? In this powerful presentation everything sounded fresh and new – fascinating. Sometimes I was reminded to the world premiere of KLAVIERSTÜCK X played by Frederic Rzewski, this overwhelming virtuosity – but Simon played his piece more concious to the form of the work. A recording should be made and I would love to listen to a life performance by Simon again! Similar the interpretation of IN FREUNDSCHAFT for Saxophon by Yui Sakagoshi, also vivid and powerful and really new. It was especially interesting, because there was another presentation of the work in a version for recorder, played by Veronica Tollenaar, also very good. One could realize that performing with a different instrument creates a very different piece, also a unique experience. So everybody present in Kürten left the courses with a whole variety of great experiences – and quite exhausted because of the intensity of these days – and grateful.
In these days in Berlin Staatsoper a production of "Kopernikus" by Claude Vivier can be seen. Its subtitel is: "Opéra-Rituel de Mort". Yesterday I attended this production, and there the above question arose. For Vivier studied two years with Stockhausen (1972-74) at the High School for Music in Cologne; it was the time when INORI was composed. "Kopernikus" was written in 1978/79. When I listened to the work a propinquity to Stockhausen was for me quite obvious (though the conductor of this production neglected that). There is no conventional opera, but a musical ritual on the theme of death. In this case a girl just had died, is lying there on a bed and executes the transgression to a state beyond death - we may think on the later "KATHINKAs GESANG" (1983) from SAMSTAG aus LICHT. Also the connection to the universe, to the stars and to the elements is important, somehow a cosmic religious spirit as we meet that in Stockhausen. I would think in Vivier there is no formula-composition in a Stockhausen-sense; maybe the music sounds a bit more conventional, but that is not very significant. More significant the use of the Rin, that reminds on INORI. Obvious the nearness to Stockhausen is how Vivier treats the language. Partly we hear French and can understand the meaning of the words, but in most cases he uses a fantasy-language, composed like music. So it is (for me) obvious that Vivier is a disciple of Stockhausen. Stockhausen had a lot of students; even Helmut Lachenmann was among them. But is there such thing as a "Stockhausen-school"? The first impression is: He had no successors. What has it been that the students learned from him? When he began to read the Urantia-Book he urged his students also to study that - but did that have any results?
2018 is the year of Stockhausen's 90th birthday. Therefore there are some performances of major works of his especially in Europe. One of the main events is INORI. There has been a one year long training for young performers of the mime-part, the prayers-part of this work, and it will be performed twice at the Lucerne Festival Sept 2, and after that in Paris and Berlin. To prepare for that I just began to look again at this work. When we first visited the Kürten Courses in 2000 my wife and I myself took part in Alain Louafi's masterclass on INORI; since that time I know that this is an outstanding masterpiece, one of the major steps on the path to LICHT (together with SIRIUS). In the weeks to come I would like to point to some important motives of this work hoping that participants of this forum will contribute their insights and questions. My first theme is the prayer gestures. They come from different religions from all over the world. When the work was performed for the first time in Donaueschingen Festival, Stockhausen therefore organized an exhibition of prayer gestures from all parts of the world. Against that critical voices came, blaming Stockhausen for a mixture of religions, of syncretism; that is an argument often used against attempts to use motives of different religions - the impression one manufactures his own religion and robs for this purpose in an imperialist way foreign (possibly: Third-World) traditions to enrich the own project. This argument could also be applied to TELEMUSIK and its use of sound examples from foreign cultures. Stockhausen himself deals with that problem in his lectures "Kompositorische Grundlagen" (1970). Here in INORI however it seems to me quite clear that Stockhausen has a completely different view: His starting-point is not the different religions and rituals, not a tradition, but life itself, in this case: the life-movement of man turning to God, making contact to God. That is the important point, and to express it, to bring that to life, I use that forms, that rituals, that gestures that people all over the world before my time have developed and that have proven useful. In this point of view there is no conflict of traditions, no: that is mine and that is yours, but there is one life we all participate in, and the big questions of life we all are confronted with. So the series of gestures Stockhausen uses shows the process of opening up to life and to the Divine - that is important and not which tradition for the first time used this or that gesture. Thus in this respect we again encounter a basic characteristic of Stockhausen's art: this direct connection of music and reality. The question is not: to develop a style, to use or to change certain traditions of music, but to show the order of life and of reality itself. By that certain forms of music come about, certain traditions and ways of composing develop, but all that is secondary.
It was often stated: Stockhausen treated religious belief not only as a private matter. His religious conviction for him was a source of artistic inspiration and therefore the theme of religion is not a hidden background, but openly shown in many of his works. INORI is a main example with its gestures of prayer, and the opera cycle is religious in nearly all of its layers. That seems to by a main reason of the resistence against his work that at least the German opera houses show. For me that was a strong suspicion; now I read an articel on this subject, that raised this suspicion to certainty: https://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?opt...d=101&Itemid=84 It is a text in German by author Dirk Pilz on www.nachtkritik.de, were he resumes the treatment of religion on German stages in the last years or decades that is characterised by arrogance and stupidity. Thus it is not only Stockhausen that suffers from this, but it is a general habit. It is clear that also in the production of DONNERSTAG in Basel last year you can detect this - a case of intellectual conformism, that even is proud, because this attitude seems to be up to date and modern...
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. Thomas Ulrich