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Karlheinz Stockhausen

 
Karlheinz Stockhausen

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Karlheinz Stockhausen



 
 
Karlheinz Stockhausen (22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important (Barrett 1988, 45; Harvey 1975b, 705; Hopkins 1972, 33; Klein 1968, 117) but also controversial (Power 1990, 30) composers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music" (Hewett 2007).






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Karlheinz Stockhausen (22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important (Barrett 1988, 45; Harvey 1975b, 705; Hopkins 1972, 33; Klein 1968, 117) but also controversial (Power 1990, 30) composers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music" (Hewett 2007). He is known for his ground-breaking work in electronic music
Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology....
, aleatory
Aleatory

Aleatoricism is the creation of art by chance, exploiting the principle of randomness. The word derives from the Latin word alea, the rolling of dice....
 (controlled chance) in serial composition, and musical spatialization
Spatialization

Spatialization is the aspect of music related with space. The term is connected with electroacoustic music and spatial music to denote sound's different sources in space or sound's spatial movement....
.

He was educated at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
Hochschule für Musik Köln

The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Europe's largest academy of music....
 and the University of Cologne
University of Cologne

The University of Cologne is one of the oldest University in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany....
, and later studied with Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organ , and ornithology. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 11 and numbered Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupr? among his teachers....
 in Paris, and with Werner Meyer-Eppler
Werner Meyer-Eppler

Werner Meyer-Eppler , was a Germany physicist, experimental acoustician, phonetics, and Information theory.Meyer-Eppler studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, first at the University of Cologne and then in Bonn, from 1936 until 1939, when he received a doctorate in Physics....
 at the University of Bonn
University of Bonn

The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in 1818 the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany....
.

One of the leading figures of the Darmstadt School
Darmstadt School

Darmstadt School refers to a loose group of compositional styles created by composers who attended the Darmstadt New Music Summer School from the early 1950s to the early 1960s....
, his compositions and theories were and remain widely influential, not only on composers of art music
Art music

Art music , is an umbrella term generally used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition....
, but also on jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
 and popular-music
Popular music

Popular music is music that is accessible to the mainstream and disseminated by one or more of the mass media. It belongs to any of a number of musical genres, and stands in contrast to classical music, which historically was the music of the elite and upper strata of society, and traditional music which was disseminated orally....
 artists. His works, composed over a period of nearly sixty years, eschew traditional forms. In addition to electronic music—both with and without live performers—they range from miniatures for musical box
Musical box

A musical box is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to strike the tuned teeth of a comb....
es through works for solo instruments, songs, chamber music
Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber....
, choral
Choir

A choir, chorale, or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral Music, in turn, is the music written specifically for a choir to perform....
 and orchestra
Orchestra

An orchestra is an Musical ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an theatre of ancient Greece reserved for the Greek chorus....
l music, to a cycle of seven full-length opera
Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
s. His theoretical
Music theory

Music theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composer techniques....
 and other writings comprise ten large volumes. He received numerous prizes and distinctions for his compositions, recordings, and for the scores produced by his publishing company.

Some of his notable compositions include the series of nineteen Klavierstücke
Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)

The Klavierst?cke constitute a series of compositions by Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierst?cke "are my drawings" ....
 (Piano Pieces), Kontra-Punkte for ten instruments, the electronic/musique-concrète Gesang der Jünglinge
Gesang der Jünglinge

Gesang der J?nglinge is a noted electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955?56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne....
, Gruppen
Gruppen (Stockhausen)

Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known works of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music ....
 for three orchestras, the percussion solo Zyklus
Zyklus

Zyklus f?r einen Schlagzeuger is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was composed in 1959 at the request of Wolfgang Steinecke as a test piece for a percussion instrument competition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where it was premi?red on 25 August 1959 by Christoph Caskel....
, Kontakte
Kontakte (Stockhausen)

Kontakte is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958-1960 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig....
, the cantata Momente
Momente

Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists ....
, the live-electronic Mikrophonie I
Mikrophonie (Stockhausen)

Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which ?normally inaudible vibrations ....
, Hymnen
Hymnen

Hymnen is a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966?67, and elaborated in 1969....
, Stimmung
Stimmung

Stimmung, for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale K?ln....
 for six vocalists, Aus den sieben Tagen
Aus den Sieben Tagen

Aus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"?music produced primarily from the Intuition rather than the Intelligence of the performer....
, Mantra
Mantra (Stockhausen)

Mantra is a composition by the Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was composed in 1970 and premiered in autumn of the same year in Donaueschingen....
 for two pianos and electronics, Tierkreis
Tierkreis (Stockhausen)

Tierkreis is a musical composition by the Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The title is the German word for Zodiac, and the composition consists of twelve melodies, each representing one sign of the zodiac....
, Inori
Inori

Inori: Adorations for One or Two Soloists with Orchestra is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1973?74.Inori is a meditative work....
 for soloists and orchestra, and the gigantic opera cycle Licht
Licht

Licht , subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen which, in total, lasts over 29 hours....
.

He died of sudden heart failure at the age of 79, on 5 December 2007 at his home in Kürten
Kürten

K?rten is a village and a municipality in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....
, Germany.

Biography


Childhood

Stockhausen was born in the Burg Mödrath
Mödrath

M?drath is a Quarter_ of Kerpen, Germany. It was annexed to the Kerpen Ortskern in the course of the lignite resettlement in 1956....
, the so-called "castle" of the village of Mödrath, which served at the time as the maternity home of the Bergheim Kreis
Rhein-Erft-Kreis

The Rhein-Erft-Kreis is a district in the west of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Neuss , district-free Cologne, Rhein-Sieg, Euskirchen , D?ren ....
. The village, located near Kerpen
Kerpen

Kerpen is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia. Germany. It is located about 30 kilometers southwest from Cologne....
 in the vicinity of Cologne
Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants....
, was displaced in 1956 by the strip-mining of lignite
Lignite

Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, or Rosebud coal by Northern Pacific Railroad,is a soft brown fuel with characteristics that put it somewhere between coal and peat....
  in the region, though the castle itself still exists. His father was a schoolteacher and his mother was the daughter of a prosperous family of farmers in Neurath in the Cologne Bight
Cologne Bight

Cologne Bight is a densely populated area of Germany lying between the cities of Bonn, Aachen, and D?sseldorf/Neuss. It is situated in the southwest of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and forms the natural southern conclusion of the Lower Rhenish lowlands and the transition to the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge ....
. She played the piano and accompanied her own singing but, after three pregnancies in as many years, experienced a mental breakdown and was institutionalized
Psychiatric hospital

A psychiatric hospital is a hospital specializing in the treatment of serious mental illness, usually for relatively long-term inpatients.Two rules usually govern whether someone should be placed in a psychiatric hospital: if someone is an immediate threat to harm themselves, or to harm other people....
 in December 1932, followed a few months later by the death of her younger son, Hermann (Kurtz 1992, 8 & 13).

From the age of seven, Stockhausen grew up in Altenberg
Altenberg (Bergisches Land)

Altenberg is an Ortsteil in the municipality of Odenthal in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and was formerly the seat of the Counts of Berg ....
, where he received his first piano
Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
 lessons from the Protestant organist
Organist

An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ . An organist may play organ repertoire, play with an musical ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist....
 of the Altenberg Cathedral, Franz-Josef Kloth (Kurtz 1992, 14). His father, Simon Stockhausen, remarried in 1938 and with his new wife Luzia, had two daughters (Kurtz 1992, 18). Because his relationship with his new stepmother was less than happy, in January 1942 he became a boarder at the teachers' training college in Xanten
Xanten

Xanten is a historic town in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany, located in the district of Wesel . Xanten is known for the Archaeological Park , its mediaeval picturesque city centre with Xanten Cathedral and many museums, its large man-made lake for various watersport activities as well as high standard of living....
, where he continued his piano training and also studied oboe and violin (Kurtz 1992, 18). According to one source, as a young teenager he worked as a cobbler (Prendergast 2000, 52). In 1941 or 1942, he learned that his mother had died, ostensibly from leukemia, though everyone at the same hospital had supposedly died of the same disease. It was generally understood that she had been a victim of the Nazi policy of euthanasia
Euthanasia

Euthanasia refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner. Many different forms of euthanasia can be distinguished, including euthanasia and human euthanasia, and within the latter, voluntary and involuntary euthanasia....
 for "useless eaters
Action T4

Action T4 was a program, also called Euthanasia Program, in Nazi Germany spanning October 1939 until August 1941, during which physicians killed 70,273 people specified in Adolf Hitler secret memo of September 1, 1939 as suffering patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination," but described in a denunciation of th...
" (Stockhausen 1989a, 20; Kurtz 1992, 19). Later, Stockhausen dramatised his mother's death in hospital by lethal injection, in Act 1 scene 2 ("Mondeva") of the opera Donnerstag aus Licht
Licht

Licht , subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen which, in total, lasts over 29 hours....
 (Kurtz 1992, 213). In the Autumn of 1944, he was conscripted to serve as a stretcher-bearer in Bedburg
Bedburg

Bedburg is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia of Germany with 25.000 residents. The town is documented as existing as early as 893....
 (Kurtz 1992, 18). In February 1945, he met his father for the last time in Altenberg. Simon, who was on leave from the front, told his son "I'm not coming back. Look after things" (Kurtz 1992, 19).

Education

From 1947 to 1951, Stockhausen studied music pedagogy
Pedagogy

Pedagogy , or paedagogy is the art or science of being a teacher. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
 and piano at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
Hochschule für Musik Köln

The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Europe's largest academy of music....
 (Cologne Conservatory of Music) and musicology
Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture....
, philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
, and Germanics
German studies

German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents, and disseminates German language and German literature in both its historic and present forms....
 at the University of Cologne
University of Cologne

The University of Cologne is one of the oldest University in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany....
. He had the usual training in harmony
Harmony

In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously, and chord s, actual or implied, in music. The word is related to the word "harmonic" which implies related wavelengths of waves....
 and counterpoint
Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more Register that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony....
, the latter with Hermann Schroeder
Hermann Schroeder

Hermann Schroeder was a Germany composer and a Roman Catholic Church church musician.He spent the greatest part of his life?s work in the Rheinland....
, but he did not develop a real interest in composition
Musical composition

Musical composition is:* an original piece of music* the musical form of a musical piece* the process of creating a new piece of music...
 until 1950. He was admitted at the end of that year to the class of the Swiss composer Frank Martin
Frank Martin (composer)

Frank Martin was a Switzerland composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands....
, who had just begun a seven-year tenure in Cologne (Kurtz 1992, 28). At the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1951, Stockhausen met the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts
Karel Goeyvaerts

Karel Goeyvaerts was a Belgium composer. After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, he studied musical composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and musical analysis with Olivier Messiaen....
, who had just completed studies with Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organ , and ornithology. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 11 and numbered Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupr? among his teachers....
 (analysis) and Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six - also known as the Groupe des Six - and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century....
 (composition) in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, and Stockhausen resolved to do likewise (Kurtz 1992, 34–36). He arrived in Paris on 8 January 1952 and began attending Messiaen's courses in aesthetics and analysis, as well as Milhaud's composition classes. He continued with Messiaen for a year, but was disappointed with Milhaud and abandoned his lessons after a few weeks (Kurtz 1992, 45–48). In March 1953, he left Paris to take up a position as assistant to Herbert Eimert
Herbert Eimert

Herbert Eimert was a Germany Music theory, Musicology, journalist, music critic, Editing, radio producer, and composer....
 at the newly established Electronic Music Studio of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk
Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk

Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk was the organization responsible for public broadcasting in the Germany States of Germany of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia from 22 September 1945 until 31 December 1955....
 (NWDR) (from 1 January 1955, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Westdeutscher Rundfunk

The Westdeutscher Rundfunk is a Germany public broadcasting institution based in the States of Germany of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in K?ln....
, or WDR) in Cologne (Kurtz 1992, 56–57). In 1962, he would succeeded Eimert as director of the studio (Morawska-Büngeler 1988, 19). From 1954 to 1956, he studied phonetics, acoustics, and information theory with Werner Meyer-Eppler
Werner Meyer-Eppler

Werner Meyer-Eppler , was a Germany physicist, experimental acoustician, phonetics, and Information theory.Meyer-Eppler studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, first at the University of Cologne and then in Bonn, from 1936 until 1939, when he received a doctorate in Physics....
 at the University of Bonn
University of Bonn

The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in 1818 the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany....
 (Kurtz 1992, 68–72). Together with Eimert, Stockhausen edited the influential journal Die Reihe
Die Reihe

Die Reihe was an influential German-language music journal, edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and published by Universal Edition between 1955 and 1962 ....
 from 1955 to 1962 (Grant 2001, 1–2).

Career and adult life


Family and home
On 29 December 1951, in Hamburg, he married Doris Andreae (Kurtz 1992, 45; Maconie 2005, 47). Together they had four children: Suja (b. 1953), Christel (b. 1956), Markus
Markus Stockhausen

Markus Pirol Stockhausen is a Germany trumpeter and composer.He is the son of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. He was born in Cologne. At age four he appeared as "child at play" in his father's theatre piece Originals ....
 (b. 1957), and Majella (b. 1961) (Kurtz 1992, 90; Tannenbaum 1987, 94). On 3 April 1967, in San Francisco, he married Mary Bauermeister
Mary Bauermeister

Mary Hilde Ruth Bauermeister is a Germany artist....
, with whom he had two children: Julika (b. 22 January 1966) and Simon (b. 1967) (Kurtz 1992, 141 & 149; Tannenbaum 1987, 95).

Four of Stockhausen's children became professional musicians (Kurtz 1992, 202), and he composed some of his works specifically for them. A large number of pieces for the trumpet
Trumpet

The trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest Register in the brass instrument family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC....
—from Sirius (1975–77) to the trumpet version of In Freundschaft (1997)—were composed for and premièred by his son Markus (Kurtz 1992, 208; Markus Stockhausen 1998, 13–16; Tannenbaum 1987, 61). Markus, at the age of 4 years, had performed the part of The Child in the Cologne première of Originale, alternating performances with his sister Christel (Maconie 2005, 220). Klavierstück XII and Klavierstück XIII (and their versions as scenes from the operas Donnerstag aus Licht and Samstag aus Licht) were written for his daughter Majella, and were first performed by her at the ages of 16 and 20, respectively (Maconie 2005, 430 & 443; Stockhausen Texte 5:190, 255, 274; Stockhausen Texte 6:64, 373). The saxophone duet in the second act of Donnerstag aus Licht, and a number of synthesizer parts in the Licht operas, including Klavierstück XV ("Synthi-Fou") from Dienstag, were composed for his son Simon (Kurtz 1992, 222; Maconie 2005, 480 & 489; Stockhausen Texte 5:186, 529), who also assisted his father in the production of the electronic music from Freitag aus Licht. His daughter Christel is a flautist who performed and gave a course on interpretation of Tierkreis in 1977 (Stockhausen Texte 5:105), later published as an article (C. Stockhausen 1978).

In 1961, Stockhausen acquired a parcel of land in the vicinity of Kürten
Kürten

K?rten is a village and a municipality in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....
, a village east of Cologne, near Bergisch Gladbach
Bergisch Gladbach

is a city and capital of the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis , in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....
 in the Bergisches Land
Bergisches Land

The Bergisches Land is a region in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It contains beside the tri-city area of Remscheid-Solingen-Wuppertal the district Mettmann, Leverkusen, the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, the Oberbergischer Kreis and parts of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis....
. He had a house built there, which was designed to his specifications by the architect Erich Schneider-Wessling, and he resided there since its completion in the autumn of 1965 (Kurtz 1992, 116–17, 137–38).

Teaching
in Darmstadt, 1957]] After lecturing at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt (first in 1953), Stockhausen gave lectures and concerts in Europe, North America, and Asia (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 2, 14–15). He was guest professor of composition at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States....
 in 1965 and at the University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis

The University of California, Davis is a public university research university located in Davis, California, and one of ten campuses in the University of California system....
 in 1966–67 (Kramer 1998; Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 2–3). He founded and directed the Cologne Courses for New Music from 1963 to 1968, and was appointed Professor of Composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
Hochschule für Musik Köln

The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Europe's largest academy of music....
 in 1971, where he taught until 1977 (Kurtz 1992, 126–28 & 194; Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 3). In 1998, he founded the Stockhausen Courses, which are held annually in Kürten (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 6–8, 15).

"Space music" and Expo 70
Ever since the mid-1950s, Stockhausen had been developing concepts of spatialization
Spatialization

Spatialization is the aspect of music related with space. The term is connected with electroacoustic music and spatial music to denote sound's different sources in space or sound's spatial movement....
 in his works, not only in electronic music, such as the 5-channel Gesang der Jünglinge
Gesang der Jünglinge

Gesang der J?nglinge is a noted electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955?56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne....
 (1955–56) and Telemusik
Telemusik

Telemusik is an electronic composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen.According to a note in the score, Telemusik was realized between January 23 and March 2, 1966 in the Studio for Electronic Music of the Japanese broadcasting system Nippon Hoso Kyokai , in collaboration with the director of the studio, Wataru Uenami and the studio techni...
 (1966), and 4-channel Kontakte
Kontakte (Stockhausen)

Kontakte is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958-1960 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig....
 (1958–60) and Hymnen
Hymnen

Hymnen is a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966?67, and elaborated in 1969....
 (1966–67). Instrumental/vocal works like Gruppen
Gruppen (Stockhausen)

Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known works of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music ....
 for three orchestras (1955–57) and Carré for four choirs and orchestras (1959–60) also exhibit this trait (Stockhausen Texte 2:71–72, 49–50, 102–103; Stockhausen 1989, 105–108; Cott 1973, 200–201). In lectures such as “Music in Space” from 1958 (Stockhausen Texte 1:152–75), he called for new kinds of concert halls to be built, "suited to the requirements of spatial music". His idea was
a spherical space which is fitted all around with loudspeakers. In the middle of this spherical space a sound-permeable, transparent platform would be suspended for the listeners. They could hear music composed for such standardized spaces coming from above, from below and from all points of the compass. (Stockhausen Texte 1:153)
In 1968, the West German
West Germany

West Germany was the common English name for the Germany , from its formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when East Germany was dissolved and its States of Germany became part of the Federal Republic, ending the more than 40-year division of Germany....
 government invited Stockhausen to collaborate on the German Pavilion at the 1970 World Fair
Expo '70

Expo '70 was a World's Fair held in Suita, Osaka, Japan between March 15 and September 13, 1970. The theme of the Expo was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." This was the first World's Fair held in Japan....
 in Osaka
Osaka

is a Cities of Japan in Japan, located at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay, in the Kansai region of the main island of Honshu.Osaka is a City designated by government ordinance under the Local Autonomy Law and the capital city of Osaka Prefecture....
, and with the artist Otto Piene
Otto Piene

Otto Piene is a Germans artist....
 to create a joint multimedia project for it. Other collaborators on the project included the pavilion’s architect, Fritz Bornemann
Fritz Bornemann

Fritz Bornemann was a German architect....
, Fritz Winckel, director of the Electronic Music Studio at the Technical University of Berlin
Technical University of Berlin

The Technical University of Berlin is located in Berlin, Germany.It was founded in 1879 and, with nearly 30,000 students, is one of the largest technical universities in Germany....
, and the engineer Max Mengeringhausen. The pavilion theme was “gardens of music”, in keeping with which Bornemann intended “planting” the exhibition halls beneath a broad lawn, with only a connected auditorium “sprouting” above ground. Initially, Bornemann conceived this auditorium in the form of an amphitheatre
Amphitheatre

An amphitheatre is an open-air venue for spectator sports, concerts, rallies, or theatrical performances. There are two similar, but distinct types of amphitheatres: Ancient amphitheatres, built by the ancient Rome, were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used for spectator sports; these comp...
, with a central orchestra podium and surrounding audience space. In the summer of 1968, Stockhausen met with Bornemann and persuaded him to change this conception to a spherical space with the audience in the center, surrounded by loudspeaker groups in seven rings at different "latitudes" around the interior walls of the sphere (Kurtz 1992, 166; Föllmer 1996).



Though Stockhausen and Piene’s planned multimedia project, titled Hinab-Hinauf, was developed in considerable detail (Stockhausen, Texte 3:155–74), the World Fair committee rejected their concept as too extravagant and instead asked Stockhausen to present daily five-hour programs of his music (Kurtz 1992, 178). Stockhausen’s works were performed for 5½ hours every day over a period of 183 days to a total audience of about a million listeners (Wörner 1973, 256). According to Stockhausen's biographer, Michael Kurtz, "Many visitors felt the spherical auditorium to be an oasis of calm amidst the general hubbub, and after a while it became one of the main attractions of Expo 1970" (Kurtz 1992, 179).



Publishing activities
From the mid-1950s onward, Stockhausen designed (and in some cases had had printed) his own musical scores for his publisher, Universal Edition
Universal Edition

Universal Edition is a european classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in music in Vienna, and originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market ....
, which often involved unconventional devices. The score for his piece Refrain, for instance, includes a rotatable (refrain
Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in Poetry; the "chorus" of a song. Poetry fixed forms that feature refrains include the villanelle, the virelay, and the sestina....
) on a transparent plastic strip. Early in the 1970s, he ended his agreement with Universal Edition and began publishing his own scores under the Stockhausen-Verlag imprint (Kurtz 1992, 184). This arrangement allowed him to extend his notational innovations (for example, dynamics in Weltparlament [the first scene of Mittwoch aus Licht] are coded in colour) and resulted in eight German Music Publishers Society Awards between 1992 (Luzifers Tanz) and 2005 (Hoch-Zeiten, from Sonntag aus Licht) (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 12–13).

In the early 1990s, Stockhausen reacquired the licenses to most of the recordings of his music he had made to that point, and started his own record company to make this music permanently available on compact disc
Compact Disc

A Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store Data , originally developed for storing digital audio. The CD, available on the market since October 1982, remains the standard physical medium for sale of commercial Sound recording and reproduction to the present day....
 (Maconie 2005, 477–78).

Death


Stockhausen died of sudden heart failure on the morning of 5 December 2007 in Kürten
Kürten

K?rten is a village and a municipality in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....
, North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine - Westphalia is the westernmost and - in terms of population and economic output - the largest States of Germany of Germany. North Rhine - Westphalia has over 18 million inhabitants, contributes about 22% of Germany's gross domestic product and comprises a land area of 34,083 km? ....
 (Bäumer 2007). He had just the night before finished a work recently commissioned for performance by the Mozart Orchestra of Bologna
Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, in the Po Valley , between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, exactly between the Reno River and the S?vena River....
 (Bäumer 2007).

Compositions

Stockhausen wrote 370 individual works. He often departs radically from musical tradition and his work is influenced by Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organ , and ornithology. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 11 and numbered Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupr? among his teachers....
, Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Var?se, whose name was also spelled Edgar Var?se , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, and Anton Webern
Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and Conducting. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm and dynamics were formative...
, as well as by film (Stockhausen 1996b) and by painters such as Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian

Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian, , was a Dutch people Painting.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg....
 (Stockhausen 1996a, 94; Texte 3, 92–93; Toop 1998) and Paul Klee
Paul Klee

Paul Klee was a Switzerland Painting of Germany nationality. His highly individual style was influenced by many different art trends, including expressionism, cubism, and surrealism....
 (Maconie 2005, 187).

1950s

Stockhausen began to compose in earnest only during his third year at the conservatory (Kurtz 1992, 26–27). His early student compositions remained out of the public eye until, in 1971, he published Chöre für Doris, Drei Lieder for alto voice and chamber orchestra, Choral for a capella choir (all three from 1950), and a Sonatine for Violin and Piano (1951) (Maconie 1990, 5–6 and 11).

In August 1951, just after his first Darmstadt visit, Stockhausen began working with a form of athematic
Theme (music)

In music, a theme is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. It may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found ....
 serial
Serialism

In music, serialism is a technique for Musical composition#A musical composition that uses Set to describe Aspect of music, and allows the Permutation of those sets....
 composition that rejected the twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any through the use of tone rows....
 of Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School....
 (Felder 1977, 92). He characterized many of these earliest compositions (together with the music of other, like-minded composers of the period) as punktuelle
Punctualism

Punctualism is a style of musical composition prevalent in Europe between 1949 and 1955 "whose structures are predominantly effected from tone to tone, without superordinate formal conceptions coming to bear" ....
 ("punctual" or "pointist" music, commonly mistranslated as "pointillist") Musik, though one critic concluded after analysing several of these early works that Stockhausen "never really composed punctually" (Sabbe 1981). Compositions from this phase include Kreuzspiel
Kreuzspiel

Kreuzspiel is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen written for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and four percussion instrument in 1951 .Stockhausen regarded Kreuzspiel as his first original composition, as opposed to the style-imitation exercises he did as part of his music studies ....
 (1951), the Klavierstücke I–IV
Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)

The Klavierst?cke constitute a series of compositions by Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierst?cke "are my drawings" ....
 (1952—the fourth of this first set of four Klavierstücke, titled Klavierstück IV, is specifically cited by Stockhausen as an example of "punctual music" in Texte 2, 19), and the first (unpublished) versions of Punkte and Kontra-Punkte (1952) (Texte 2, 20). However, several works from these same years show Stockhausen formulating his "first really ground-breaking contribution to the theory and, above all, practice of composition" (Toop 2005, 3), that of "group composition" (Toop 2005, 3), found in Stockhausen's works as early as 1952 and continuing to the present time (Toop 2005, 3). This principle was first publicly described by Stockhausen in a radio talk from December 1955, titled "Gruppenkomposition: Klavierstück I
Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)

The Klavierst?cke constitute a series of compositions by Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierst?cke "are my drawings" ....
" (Texte 1, 63–74).

In December 1952, he composed a Konkrete Etüde, realized in Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a France composer, writer, broadcaster, and engineer most widely recognized as the chief pioneer of musique concr?te, a unique genre of experimental music that began in Europe during the mid-1900s....
's Paris musique concrète
Musique concrète

Musique concr?te , is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sonorities derived from musical instruments or register s, nor to elements traditionally thought of as 'musical' ....
 studio. In March 1953, he moved to the NWDR studio in Cologne and turned to electronic music
Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology....
 with two Electronic Studies (1953 and 1954), and then introducing spatial placements of sound sources with his mixed concrète and electronic work Gesang der Jünglinge
Gesang der Jünglinge

Gesang der J?nglinge is a noted electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955?56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne....
 (1955–56). Experiences gained from the Studies made plain that it was an unacceptable oversimplification to regard timbres as stable entities (Texte 1, 56). Reinforced by his studies with Meyer-Eppler, beginning in 1955, Stockhausen formulated new "statistical" criteria for composition, focussing attention on the aleatoric
Aleatoric music

Aleatoric music is music in which some Aspect of music is left to Randomness, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer....
, directional tendencies of sound movement, "the change from one state to another, with or without returning motion, as opposed to a fixed state" (Decroupet and Ungeheuer 1998, 98–99). Stockhausen later wrote, describing this period in his compositional work, "The first revolution occurred from 1952/53 as musique concrète, electronic tape music, and space music, entailing composition with transformers, generators, modulators, magnetophones, etc; the integration of all concrete and abstract (synthetic) sound possibilities (also all noises), and the controlled projection of sound in space" (Stockhausen 1989b, 127; reprinted in Schwartz & Childs 1998, 374). His position as "the leading German composer of his generation" (Toop 2001) was established with Gesang der Jünglinge and three concurrently composed pieces in different media: Zeitmasze for five woodwinds, Gruppen
Gruppen (Stockhausen)

Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known works of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music ....
 for three orchestras, and Klavierstück XI
Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)

The Klavierst?cke constitute a series of compositions by Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierst?cke "are my drawings" ....
 (Kohl 1998a, 61). The principles underlying the latter three compositions are presented in Stockhausen's best-known theoretical article, ". . . wie die Zeit vergeht . . ." (". . . How Time Passes . . ."), first published in 1957 in vol. 3 of Die Reihe
Die Reihe

Die Reihe was an influential German-language music journal, edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and published by Universal Edition between 1955 and 1962 ....
  (Texte 1, 99–139).

His work with electronic music and its utter fixity led him to explore modes of instrumental and vocal music in which performers' individual capabilities and the circumstances of a particular performance (e.g., hall acoustics) may determine certain aspects of a composition. He called this "variable form" (Wörner 1973, 101–105). In other cases, a work may be presented from a number of different perspectives. In Zyklus
Zyklus

Zyklus f?r einen Schlagzeuger is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was composed in 1959 at the request of Wolfgang Steinecke as a test piece for a percussion instrument competition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where it was premi?red on 25 August 1959 by Christoph Caskel....
 (1959), for example, he began using graphical notation for instrumental music. The score
Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of musical notation; like its analogs?books, pamphlets, etc.?the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens....
 is written so that the performance can start on any page, and it may be read upside down, or from right to left, as the performer chooses (Stockhausen, Texte 2, 73–100). Still other works permit different routes through the constituent parts. Stockhausen called both of these possibilities "polyvalent form" (Stockhausen, Texte 1, 241–51), which may be either open form
Open form

Open Form can refer* In music, to Aleatoric music* In poetry, to free verse* In painting, to a form where the boundaries between objects are irregular or not well-defined...
 (essentially incomplete, pointing beyond its frame), as with Klavierstück XI (1956), or "closed form" (complete and self-contained) as with Momente
Momente

Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists ....
 (1962-64/69) (Kaletha 2004, 97–98).

In many of his works, elements are played off against one another, simultaneously and successively: in Kontra-Punkte
Kontrapunkte

Kontra-Punkte is a musical composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen which resolves contrasts among six pairs of musical instrument, as well as extremes of note values and dynamics , into a homogeneous ending texture ....
 ("Against Points", 1952-53), which, in its revised form became his official "opus 1", a process leading from an initial "point" texture of isolated notes toward a florid, ornamental ending is opposed by a tendency from diversity (six timbres, dynamics, and durations) toward uniformity (timbre of solo piano, a nearly constant soft dynamic, and fairly even durations). In Gruppen
Gruppen (Stockhausen)

Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known works of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music ....
 (1955–57), fanfares and passages of varying speed (superimposed durations based on the harmonic series
Harmonic series (music)

Definite pitch musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously....
) are occasionally flung between three full orchestras, giving the impression of movement in space (Maconie 2005, 486).

In his Kontakte
Kontakte (Stockhausen)

Kontakte is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958-1960 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig....
 for electronic sounds (optionally with piano and percussion) (1958–60), he achieved for the first time an isomorphism
Isomorphism

In abstract algebra, an isomorphism is a bijection map f such that both f and its inverse function f −1 are homomorphisms, i.e., structure-preserving mappings....
 of the four parameters of pitch, duration, dynamics, and timbre (Stockhausen 1962, 40).

1960s

In 1960, Stockhausen returned to the composition of vocal music (for the first time since Gesang der Jünglinge) with Carré for four choirs and four orchestras (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 18). Two years later, he began an expansive cantata
Cantata

A cantata is a vocal music music composition with an musical instrument accompaniment and often containing more than one movement ....
 titled Momente
Momente

Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists ....
 (1962-64/69), for solo soprano, four choir groups and thirteen instrumentalists (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 18). In 1963, Stockhausen created Plus-Minus, "2 × 7 pages for realisation" containing basic note materials and a complex system of transformations to which those materials are to be subjected in order to produce an unlimited number of different compositions (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 20; Toop 2005, 175–78). Through the rest of the 1960s, he continued to explore such possibilities of "process composition
Process music

Process music is music that arises from a process, and more specifically, music that makes that process audible....
" in works for live performance, such as Prozession (1967), Kurzwellen, and Spiral (both 1968), culminating in the verbally described "intuitive music" compositions of Aus den sieben Tagen
Aus den Sieben Tagen

Aus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"?music produced primarily from the Intuition rather than the Intelligence of the performer....
 (1968) and Für kommende Zeiten (1968-70) (Fritsch 1979; Kohl 1981, 192–93, 227–51; Kohl 1998b, 7; Toop 2005, 191–92). Some of his later works, such as Ylem (1972) and the first three parts of Herbstmusik (1974), also fall under this rubric (Maconie 2005, 254 and 366–68). Several of these process compositions were featured in the all-day programmes presented at Expo 70, for which Stockhausen composed two more similar pieces, Pole for two players, and Expo for three (Kohl 1981, 192–93; Maconie 2005, 323–24). In other compositions, such as Stop for orchestra (1965), Adieu for wind quintet (1966), and the Dr. K Sextett, which was written in 1968–69 in honour of Alfred Kalmus of Universal Edition, he presented his performers with more restricted improvisational possibilities (Maconie 2005, 262, 267–68, 319–20).

He pioneered live electronics in Mixtur (1964/67/2003) for orchestra and electronics (Kohl 1981, 51–163), Mikrophonie I
Mikrophonie (Stockhausen)

Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which ?normally inaudible vibrations ....
 (1964) for tam-tam, two microphones, two filters with potentiometer
Potentiometer

A potentiometer is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used , it acts as a variable resistor or Rheostat....
s (6 players) (Maconie 1972; Maconie 2005, 255–57), Mikrophonie II
Mikrophonie (Stockhausen)

Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which ?normally inaudible vibrations ....
 (1965) for choir, Hammond organ
Hammond organ

The Hammond organ is an electronic organ which was invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to Church as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s, it became a standard keyboard instrument for jazz, blues, Rock and r...
, and four ring modulators
Ring modulation

Ring modulation is a signal-processing effect in electronics, related to amplitude modulation or frequency mixer, performed by multiplying two signals, where one is typically a sine-wave or another simple waveform....
 (Peters 1992), and Solo for a melody instrument with feedback (1966) (Maconie 2005, 262–65). Improvisation also plays a part in all of these works, but especially in Solo (Maconie 2005, 264). He also composed two electronic works for tape
Tape recorder

This article deals mainly with analog signal tape recorders for Sound recording and reproduction applications; information on Digital Audio Tape, recording of Videocassette recorder, and data logger can be found in other articles....
, Telemusik (1966) and Hymnen
Hymnen

Hymnen is a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966?67, and elaborated in 1969....
 (1966-67) (Kohl 2002; Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 21). The latter also exists in a version with partially improvising soloists, and the third of its four "regions" in a version with orchestra (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 21). At this time, Stockhausen also began to incorporate pre-existent music from world traditions into his compositions (Kohl 1981, 93–95; ). Telemusik was the first overt example of this trend (Kohl 2002, 96).

In 1968, Stockhausen composed the vocal sextet Stimmung
Stimmung

Stimmung, for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale K?ln....
, for the Collegium Vocale Köln
Collegium Vocale Köln

Collegium Vocale K?ln is a German vocal ensemble, founded in the late 1960s when its members were still students at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne....
, an hour-long work based entirely on the overtones of a low B-flat (Toop 2005, 39). In the following year, he created Fresco for four orchestral groups, a Wandelmusik ("foyer music") composition (Maconie 2005, 321). This was intended to be played for about five hours in the foyers and grounds of the Beethovenhalle auditorium complex in Bonn
Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located about 20 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the Capital of Germany West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, before, after, and during a group of (in part simultaneous) concerts of his music in the auditoriums of the facility (Maconie 2005, 321–23). The overall project was given the title Musik für die Beethovenhalle (Maconie 2005, 296). This had precedents in two collective-composition seminar projects that Stockhausen gave at Darmstadt in 1967 and 1968: Ensemble and Musik für ein Haus (Gehlhaar 1968; Ritzel 1970; Iddon 2004; Maconie 2005, 321), and would have successors in the "park music" composition for five spatially separated groups, Sternklang ("Star Sounds") of 1971, the orchestral work Trans, composed in the same year and the thirteen simultaneous "musical scenes for soloists and duets" titled Alphabet für Liège (1972) (Maconie 2005, 334–36, 338, 341–43).

1970s

Beginning with Mantra
Mantra (Stockhausen)

Mantra is a composition by the Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was composed in 1970 and premiered in autumn of the same year in Donaueschingen....
 for two pianos and electronics (1970), Stockhausen turned to formula composition
Formula composition

Formula composition is a serialism-derived technique encountered principally in the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, involving the projection, expansion, and Ausmultiplikation of either a single melody-formula, or a two- or three-voice contrapuntal construction ....
, a technique which involves the projection and multiplication of a single, double, or triple melodic
Melody

In music, a melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity....
-line formula (Kohl 1983–84a; Kohl 1990; Kohl 2004). Sometimes, as in Mantra and the large orchestral composition with mime soloists, Inori
Inori

Inori: Adorations for One or Two Soloists with Orchestra is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1973?74.Inori is a meditative work....
, the simple formula is stated at the outset as an introduction. He continued to use this technique (e.g., in the two related solo-clarinet pieces, Harlekin ["Harlequin"] and Der kleine Harlekin ["The Little Harlequin"] of 1975, and the orchestral Jubiläum ["Jubilee"] of 1977) through the completion of the opera-cycle Licht in 2003 (Blumröder 1982; Conen 1991; Kohl 1983–84a; Kohl 1990; Kohl 1993; Kohl 2004; Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 10). Some works from the 1970s did not employ formula technique—e.g., the vocal duet "Am Himmel wandre ich" ("In the Sky I am Walking", one of the 13 components of the multimedia Alphabet für Liège, 1972), "Laub und Regen" ("Leaves and Rain", from the theatre piece Herbstmusik (1974), the unaccompanied-clarinet composition Amour
Amour (Stockhausen)

Amour is a cycle of five pieces for clarinet by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1974–76. The composer thought of each piece as a gift for a close friend....
, and the choral opera Atmen gibt das Leben ("Breathing Gives Life", 1974/77)—but nevertheless share its simpler, melodically oriented style (Conen 1991, 57). Two such pieces, Tierkreis
Tierkreis (Stockhausen)

Tierkreis is a musical composition by the Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The title is the German word for Zodiac, and the composition consists of twelve melodies, each representing one sign of the zodiac....
 ("Zodiac", 1974–75) and In Freundschaft ("In Friendship", 1977, a solo piece with versions for virtually every orchestral instrument), have become Stockhausen's most widely performed and recorded compositions (Anon. 2007a; Deruchie 2007; Nordin 2004).

This dramatic simplification of style provided a model for a new generation of German composers, loosely associated under the label neue Einfachheit or New Simplicity
New Simplicity

New Simplicity was a stylistic tendency amongst some of the younger generation of German composers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, reacting against not only the European avant garde of the 1950s and 1960s, but also against the broader tendency toward objectivity found from the beginning of the twentieth century....
 (Andraschke 1981). The best-known of these composers is Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm is a Germany composer from Karlsruhe. He finished both his school and his studies in music theory and composition in 1972, two years before the premiere of his early work Morphonie at the 1974 Donaueschingen Festival launched his career as a prominent figure in the European new music scene....
, who studied with Stockhausen in 1972–73. His orchestral composition Sub-Kontur (1974–75) quotes the formula of Stockhausen's Inori (1973–74), and he has also acknowledged the influence of Momente on this work (Frobenius 1981, 53 + note 59–60). Other large works from this decade include the orchestral Trans (1971) and two music-theatre compositions utilizing the Tierkreis melodies: Musik im Bauch ("Music in the Belly") for six percussionists (1975), and the science-fiction "opera" Sirius
Sirius (Stockhausen)

Sirius: eight-channel electronic music and trumpet, soprano, bass clarinet, and Bass is a music-theatre composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen....
 (1975–77) for eight-channel electronic music with soprano, bass, trumpet, and bass clarinet, which has four different versions for the four seasons, each lasting over an hour and a half (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 23–25).

1977–2003

Between 1977 and 2003, he composed seven operas in a cycle titled Licht: Die sieben Tage der Woche
Licht

Licht , subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen which, in total, lasts over 29 hours....
 ("Light: The Seven Days of the Week") (Maconie 2005, 403–544). The Licht cycle deals with the traits associated in various historical traditions with each weekday (Monday = birth and fertility, Tuesday = conflict and war, Wednesday = reconciliation and cooperation, Thursday = travelling and learning, etc.) and with the relationships between and among three archetypal characters: Michael
Michael (archangel)

Saint Michael is an archangel in Christian and Islamic tradition. He is viewed as the field commander of the Army of God.He is mentioned by name in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation....
, Lucifer
Lucifer

Lucifer is a name frequently given to Satan in Christian belief. This usage as a reference to a fallen angel stems from a particular interpretation of a passage in the Bible that speaks of someone who is given the name of "Day Star" or "Morning Star" as fallen from heaven....
, and Eve
Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve are the First man or woman created by God in the Hebrew creation story told in Genesis 1-2....
 (Kohl 1983–84b, 489; Stockhausen Texte 6:152–56, 175, 200–201). Each of these characters dominates one of the operas (Donnerstag [Thursday], Samstag [Saturday], and Montag [Monday], respectively), the three possible pairings are foregrounded in three others, and the equal combination of all three is featured in Mittwoch (Wednesday) (Kohl 1990, 274).

Stockhausen's conception of opera was based significantly on ceremony and ritual, with influence from the Japanese Noh
Noh

, or is a major form of classic Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Together with the closely-related Kyogen farce, it evolved from various popular, folk and aristocratic art forms, including Dengaku, Shirabyoshi, and Gagaku....
 theatre (Stockhausen, Conen, and Hennlich 1989, 282), as well as Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian

Judeo?Christian is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, and considered, often along with classical antiquity Greco-Roman civilization, a fundamental basis for Western world legal codes and moral values....
 and Vedic
Vedic mythology

Vedic mythology refers to the mythological aspects of the historical Vedic religion and Vedic literature.It has directly contributed to the evolution and development of later Hinduism and Hindu mythology....
 traditions (Bruno 1999, 134). Similarly, his approach to voice and text sometimes departed from traditional usage: characters were as likely to be portrayed by instrumentalists or dancers as by singers, and a few parts of Licht (e.g., Luzifers Traum from Samstag, Welt-Parlament from Mittwoch, Lichter-Wasser and Hoch-Zeiten from Sonntag) use written or improvised texts in simulated or invented languages (Kohl 1983–84b, 499; Moritz 2005; Stockhausen 1999, 18–25; Stockhausen 2001b, 20; Stockhausen 2003, 20).

The seven operas were not composed in "weekday order", but rather starting (apart from Jahreslauf in 1977, which became the first act of Dienstag) with the "solo" operas and working toward the more complex ones: Donnerstag (1978–80), Samstag (1981–83), Montag (1984–88), Dienstag (1977/1987–91), Freitag (1991–94), Mittwoch (1995–97), and finally Sonntag (1998–2003) (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 3–7, 26–48).

Stockhausen had dreams of flying throughout his life, and these dreams are reflected in the Helikopter-Streichquartett
Helikopter-Streichquartett

The Helikopter-Streichquartett is one of Karlheinz Stockhausen's best-known pieces, and one of the most complex to perform. It involves a string quartet, four helicopters with pilots, as well as audio and video equipment and technicians....
 (the third scene of Mittwoch aus Licht), completed in 1993. In it, the four members of a string quartet
String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments — usually two violins, a viola and cello — or a piece written to be performed by such a group....
 perform in four helicopter
Helicopter

A helicopter is an aircraft that is Lift and propelled by one or more horizontal plane Helicopter rotors, each rotor consisting of two or more rotor blades....
s flying independent flight-paths over the countryside near the concert hall. The sounds they play are mixed together with the sounds of the helicopters and played through speakers to the audience in the hall. Videos of the performers are also transmitted back to the concert hall. The performers are synchronized with the aid of a click-track, transmitted to them and heard over headphones (Stockhausen 1996c, 215).

The first performance of the piece took place in Amsterdam on 26 June 1995, as part of the Holland Festival
Holland Festival

The Holland Festival is The Netherland's oldest and largest performing arts festival, and takes place every June in Amsterdam. It comprises theater, music, opera and modern dance....
 (Stockhausen 1996c, 216). Despite its extremely unusual nature, the piece has been given several performances, including one on 22 August 2003 as part of the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart....
 to open the Hangar-7 venue (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 7), and the German première on 17 June 2007 in Braunschweig
Braunschweig

Braunschweig , known as Brunswiek in Low German, is a city of 245,810 people , located in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
 as part of the Stadt der Wissenschaft 2007 Festival (Stockhausen-Stiftung 2007). The work has also been recorded by the Arditti Quartet
Arditti Quartet

The Arditti Quartet is an internationally acclaimed string quartet founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music....
.

2003–2007

After completing Licht, Stockhausen embarked on a new cycle of compositions, based on the hours of the day, entitled Klang ("Sound"). Twenty-one of these pieces were completed before the composer's death (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 49–50). The works from this cycle performed to date are First Hour: Himmelfahrt (Ascension), for organ or synthesizer, soprano and tenor (2004-2005); Second Hour: Freude (Joy) for two harps (2005); Third Hour: Natürliche Dauern (Natural Durations) for piano (2005-2006); and Fourth Hour: Himmels-Tür (Heaven's Door) for a percussionist and a little girl (2005) (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 49). The Fifth Hour, Harmonien (Harmonies), is a solo in three versions for flute, bass clarinet, and trumpet (2006) (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 49); the bass clarinet and flute versions were premièred in Kürten on 11 July 2007 and 13 July 2007, respectively (Stockhausen 2007b and Stockhausen 2007c), and the trumpet version was premièred on 2 August 2008 in London at a BBC Proms concert (Stockhausen-Stiftung 2008, 7). The Sixth through Twelfth hours are chamber-music works based on the material from the Fifth Hour (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 49). Of these, the Seventh (Balance, for flute, English horn, and bass clarinet), Ninth (Hoffnung, for string trio), and Tenth, Glanz (commission of the Asko Ensemble and the Holland Festival), were premièred on 22 August (Stockhausen-Stiftung 2008, 9), 31 August (Stockhausen-Stiftung 2008, 10), and 19 June (Beer 2008; Voermans 2008), respectively. The première of the Sixth (Schönheit, for flute, trumpet, and bass clarinet) has been announced for 5 October 2009 (Stockhausen-Stiftung 2008, 16). The Thirteenth Hour, Cosmic Pulses—an electronic work made by superimposing 24 layers of sound, each having its own spatial motion, among eight loudspeakers placed around the concert hall—was premièred in Rome on 7 May 2007 at Auditorium Parco della Musica
Parco della Musica

The Auditorium Parco dlla Musica is a large multi-functional public music complex to the north of Rome ? in the area where the 1960 Summer Olympic Games were held....
, (Sala Sinopoli) (Stockhausen 2007a). Hours 14 through 21 are solo pieces for bass voice, baritone voice, basset-horn, horn, tenor voice, soprano voice, soprano saxophone, and flute, respectively, each with electronic accompaniment of a different set of three layers from Cosmic Pulses (Stockhausen-Verlag 2008, 50). Of these, the Twentieth (Edentia for soprano saxophone and electronic music) was premièred on 6 August 2008 (Mischke 2008), while the Fourteenth (Havona for bass voice and electronic music) and Nineteenth (Urantia for soprano and electronic music) have been announced for 10 January 2009 in Paris, and 8 November 2008 in London, respectively (Stockhausen-Stiftung 2008, 15 and 13).

Theories


In the 1950s and early 1960s, Stockhausen published a series of articles that established his importance in the area of music theory. Although these include analyses of music by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
, Debussy
Claude Debussy

Achille-Claude Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he is considered one of the most prominent figures working within the field of Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions....
, Bartók
Béla Bartók

B?la Viktor J?nos Bart?k was a Hungarian people composer and pianist, considered to be one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of ethnomusicology....
, Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, considered by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially Cosmopolitanism Russian who was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the century....
, Goeyvaerts
Karel Goeyvaerts

Karel Goeyvaerts was a Belgium composer. After studies at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, he studied musical composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and musical analysis with Olivier Messiaen....
, Boulez
Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music and Conducting....
, Nono
Luigi Nono

Luigi Nono was an Italy avant-garde composer of classical music, one of the most important composers of the 20th century....
, Johannes Fritsch
Johannes Fritsch

Johannes G. Fritsch is a Germany composer.He studied music, sociology, and philosophy from 1961 to 1965 at the University of Cologne and the Musikhochschule in Cologne with, amongst others, Bernd Alois Zimmermann....
, Michael von Biel
Michael von Biel

Michael von Biel is a Germany composer, cellist, and graphic artist.Von Biel studied piano, theory, and composition in Toronto , Vienna , New York City , London , and Cologne ....
, and, especially, Webern
Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and Conducting. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm and dynamics were formative...
 (Texte 1:24–31, 39–44, 75–85, 86–98; Texte 2:136–39, 149–66, 170–206; Texte 3:236–38; Texte 4:662–63), the items on compositional theory directly related to his own work are regarded as the most important generally. "Indeed, the Texte come closer than anything else currently available to providing a general compositional theory for the postwar period" (Morgan 1975, 16). His most celebrated article is "... wie die Zeit vergeht ..." (". . . How Time Passes . . ."), first published in the third volume of Die Reihe
Die Reihe

Die Reihe was an influential German-language music journal, edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and published by Universal Edition between 1955 and 1962 ....
 (1957). In it, he expounds a number of temporal conceptions underlying his instrumental compositions Zeitmaße, Gruppen
Gruppen (Stockhausen)

Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known works of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music ....
, and Klavierstück XI
Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)

The Klavierst?cke constitute a series of compositions by Germany composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierst?cke "are my drawings" ....
. In particular, this article develops (1) a scale of twelve tempo
Tempo

In musical terminology, 'tempo' is the speed or pace of a given musical piece. It is an extremely crucial element of composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece....
s analogous to the chromatic pitch scale, (2) a technique of building progressively smaller, integral subdivisions over a basic (fundamental) duration, analogous to the overtone series
Overtone

An overtone is a natural resonance of a system. Systems described by overtones are often sound systems, for example, blown pipes or plucked strings....
, (3) musical application of the concept of the partial field (time fields and field sizes) in both successive and simultaneous proportions, (4) methods of projecting large-scale form from a series of proportions, (5) the concept of "statistical" composition, (6) the concept of "action duration" and the associated "variable form", and (7) the notion of the "directionless temporal field" and with it, "polyvalent form" (Stockhausen Texte 1:99–139).

Other important articles from this period include "Musik im Raum" ("Music in Space", 1958, Texte 1:152–75), "Musik und Graphik" ("Music and Graphics", 1959, Texte 1:176–88), "Momentform" (1960, Texte 1:189–210), "Die Einheit der musikalischen Zeit" ("The Unity of Musical Time", 1961, Texte 1:211–21; Stockhausen 1962), and "Erfindung und Entdeckung" ("Invention and Discovery", 1961, Texte 1:222–58), the last summing up the ideas developed up to 1961. Taken together, these temporal theories
suggested that the entire compositional structure could be conceived as "timbre
Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices or musical instruments....
": since "the different experienced components such as color, harmony
Harmony

In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously, and chord s, actual or implied, in music. The word is related to the word "harmonic" which implies related wavelengths of waves....
 and melody
Melody

In music, a melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity....
, meter and rhythm
Rhythm

Rhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events....
, dynamics
Dynamics (music)

In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note , but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional ....
, and form correspond to the different segmental ranges of this unified time" [Texte 1:120], the total musical result at any given compositional level is simply the "spectrum
Spectral music

Spectral music refers to a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer based sound spectrum analysis using a Fast Fourier transform is one of the more common methods used in generating descriptive data....
" of a more basic duration—i.e., its "timbre," perceived as the overall effect of the overtone structure
Overtone

An overtone is a natural resonance of a system. Systems described by overtones are often sound systems, for example, blown pipes or plucked strings....
 of that duration, now taken to include not only the "rhythmic" subdivisions of the duration but also their relative "dynamic" strength, "envelope," etc. . . . Compositionally considered, this produced a change of focus from the individual tone to a whole complex of tones related to one another by virtue of their relation to a "fundamental
Fundamental frequency

The fundamental tone, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0 or F0, is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series ....
"—a change that was probably the most important compositional development of the latter part of the 1950s, not only for Stockhausen’s music but for "advanced" music in general. (Morgan 1975, 6)
Some of these ideas, considered from a purely theoretical point of view (divorced from their context as explanations of particular compositions) drew significant critical fire (Backus 1962, Fokker 1968, Perle 1960). For this reason, Stockhausen ceased publishing such articles for a number of years, as he felt that "many useless polemics" about these texts had arisen, and he preferred to concentrate his attention on composing (Texte 4:13).

Through the 1960s, although he taught and lectured publicly (Texte 3:196–211), Stockhausen published little of an analytical or theoretical nature. Only in 1970 did he again begin publishing theoretical articles, with "Kriterien", his six seminar lectures for the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Texte 3:222–29).

Reception


Musical influence

Stockhausen's two early Electronic Studies (especially the second) had a powerful influence on the subsequent development of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the work of the Italian Franco Evangelisti
Franco Evangelisti

Franco Evangelisti , was an Italian composer specifically interested in the scientific theories behind sound....
 and the Poles Andrzej Dobrowolski
Andrzej Dobrowolski

Andrzej Dobrowolski was a Poland composer and teacher.Dobrowolski was one of the first Polish composers to concentrate on music for tape, and one of the first to pioneer the combination of pre-recorded tape and live performers....
 and Wlodzimierz Kotonski
Wlodzimierz Kotonski

Wlodzimierz Kotonski , is a Poland composer....
 (Skowron 1981, 39). The influence of his Kontra-Punkte
Kontrapunkte

Kontra-Punkte is a musical composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen which resolves contrasts among six pairs of musical instrument, as well as extremes of note values and dynamics , into a homogeneous ending texture ....
, Zeitmasse and Gruppen
Gruppen (Stockhausen)

Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known works of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music ....
 may be seen in the work of many composers, including Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, considered by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially Cosmopolitanism Russian who was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the century....
's Threni (1957-58) and Movements for piano and orchestra (1958-59) and other works up to the Variations: Aldous Huxley In Memoriam (1963-64), whose rhythms "are likely to have been inspired, at least in part, by certain passages from Stockhausen's Gruppen" (Neidhöffer 2005, 340). Though music of Stockhausen's generation may seem an unlikely influence, Stravinsky said in a 1957 conversation:
I have all around me the spectacle of composers who, after their generation has had its decade of influence and fashion, seal themselves off from further development and from the next generation (as I say this, exceptions come to mind, Krenek, for instance). Of course, it requires greater effort to learn from one’s juniors, and their manners are not invariably good. But when you are seventy-five and your generation has overlapped with four younger ones, it behooves you not to decide in advance "how far composers can go," but to try to discover whatever new thing it is makes the new generation new. (Stravinsky and Craft 1959, 133)


Amongst British composers, Sir Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle

Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle Order of the Companions of Honour is a United Kingdom contemporary composer....
 readily acknowledges the influence of Stockhausen's Zeitmaße (especially on his two wind quintets, Refrains and Choruses and Five Distances) and Gruppen on his work more generally (Cross 2000, 48; Cross 2001; Hall 1984, 3 and 7–8; Hall 1998, 99 and 108; Pace 1996, 27). Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough

Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an England composer of contemporary classical music. His complex, multi-layered music is always distinctive when performed, and led Pierre Boulez to refer to it as a 'polyphony of polyphonies'....
 says that, although the "technical and speculative innovations" of Klavierstücke I-IV, Kreuzspiel and Kontra-Punkte escaped him on first encounter (Ferneyhough 1988), they nevertheless produced a "sharp emotion, the result of a beneficial shock engendered by their boldness" (Ferneyhough 1988) and provided "an important source of motivation (rather than of imitation) for my own investigations" (Ferneyhough 1988). While still in school, he became fascinated upon hearing the British première of Gruppen, and
listened many times to the recording of this performance, while trying to penetrate its secrets—how it always seemed to be about to explode, but managed nevertheless to escape unscathed in its core—but scarcely managed to grasp it. Retrospectively, it is clear that from this confusion was born my interest for the formal questions which remain until today. (Ferneyhough 1988)
With respect to Stockhausen's later work, he said,
I have never subscribed (whatever the inevitable personal distance) to the thesis according to which the many transformations of vocabulary characterizing Stockhausen’s development are the obvious sign of his inability to carry out the early vision of strict order that he had in his youth. On the contrary, it seems to me that the constant reconsideration of his premises has led to the maintenance of a remarkably tough thread of historical consciousness which will become clearer with time. . . . I doubt that there has been a single composer of the intervening generation who, even if for a short time, did not see the world of music differently thanks to the work of Stockhausen. (Ferneyhough 1988)
In a short essay describing Stockhausen's influence on his own work, Richard Barrett
Richard Barrett

Richard Barrett is an United States lawyer, White nationalism and self-proclaimed leader in the nationalist Skinhead movement. Barrett is a speaker and editor of the All The Way monthly newsletter....
 concludes that "Stockhausen remains the composer whose next work I look forward most to hearing, apart from myself of course" and names as works that have had particular impact on his musical thinking Mantra, Gruppen, Carré, Klavierstück X, Inori, and Jubiläum (Barrett 1998).

French composer Jean-Claude Éloy
Jean-Claude Éloy

Jean-Claude ?loy is a France composer.?loy studied at the Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music, where he was awarded first prizes in piano , chamber music , counterpoint , ondes martenot , and composition ....
 regards Stockhausen as the most important composer of the second half of the twentieth century, and cites virtually "all his catalog of works" as "a powerful discoveration [sic], and a true revelation" (Éloy 2008).

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen is a Netherlands composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He was recipient of the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1959....
 acknowledged the influence of Stockhausen's Momente
Momente

Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists ....
 in his pivotal work Contra tempus of 1968 (Schönberger 2001). German composer Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm is a Germany composer from Karlsruhe. He finished both his school and his studies in music theory and composition in 1972, two years before the premiere of his early work Morphonie at the 1974 Donaueschingen Festival launched his career as a prominent figure in the European new music scene....
, who studied with Stockhausen, was influenced by Momente, Hymnen, and Inori (Williams 2006, 382). Jazz musicians such as Miles Davis
Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an United States jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s: he played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jaz...
 (Bergstein 1992), Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor is an United States pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the inventors of free jazz....
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus was an United States jazz bassist, composer, bandleader, and occasional pianist. He was also known for his activism against racism....
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is a jazz pianist and composer. He embraces elements of rock and roll and soul music while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz....
, Yusef Lateef
Yusef Lateef

Dr. Yusef Lateef is an United States jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer and Music education and a renowned spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to Islam in 1950....
 (Feather 1964; Tsahar 2006), and Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophone, clarinettist, flute, piano, and philosopher. He has created a large body of highly complex work....
 (Radano 1993, 110) cite Stockhausen as an influence.

At the Cologne ISCM Festival in 1960, the Danish composer Per Nørgård
Per Nørgård

Per N?rg?rd is one of the most important Denmark composers of the twentieth century. Julian Anderson considers his Voyage into the Golden Screen for chamber orchestra to be the first "properly instrumental piece of spectral composition."...
 heard Stockhausen's Kontakte as well as pieces by Kagel, Boulez, and Berio. He was profoundly affected by what he heard and his music suddenly changed into "a far more discontinuous and disjunct style, involving elements of strict organization in all parameters, some degree of aleatoricism and controlled improvisation, together with an interest in collage from other musics" (Anderson 2001).

Stockhausen was influential within pop and rock music as well. Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock music, jazz, electronic music, orchestral, and musique concr?te works....
 acknowledges Stockhausen in the liner notes of Freak Out!
Freak Out!

Freak Out! is the debut album by American experimental rock band The Mothers of Invention, released June 27, 1966 on Verve Records. Though often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, the real unifying theme of the album is not musical, but a satirical attitude based on frontman Frank Zappa's unique perception of American pop...
, his 1966 debut with the Mothers of Invention. Rick Wright
Richard Wright (musician)

Richard William "Rick" Wright was an English piano, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound....
 and Roger Waters
Roger Waters

George Roger Waters is an England rock music musician. He is best known as the bass guitar player and one of the main songwriters in the English rock band Pink Floyd from 1964 to 1985....
 of Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd are an English Rock music band who initially earned recognition for their psychedelic rock and space rock music, and later, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music....
 also acknowledge Stockhausen as an influence (Macon 1997, 141; Bayles 1996, 222). San Francisco psychedelic groups Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was an United States rock music band formed in San Francisco, California in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
 and the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of Rock music, Folk music, bluegrass music, blues, reggae, country music, jazz, Psychedelic rock, space rock and gospel music?and for live performances of long musical improvisati...
 are vaguely said to have done the same (Prendergast 2000, 54), though Stockhausen himself merely says the former band included students of Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Italian orders of merit was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental music work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music....
 and both were "well orientated toward new music" (Texte 4, 505). Founding members of Cologne-based experimental band Can
Can (band)

Can were an experimental rock band formed in West Germany in 1968. One of the most important krautrock groups, Can incorporated strong minimalism and world music influences....
, Irmin Schmidt
Irmin Schmidt

Irmin Schmidt is a German keyboard instrument player and composer, probably best known as a founding member of Can .Schmidt has recorded a few solo albums, and written an opera based on Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series....
 and Holger Czukay
Holger Czukay

Holger Czukay is a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can ....
, state they studied with Stockhausen (; , though Czukay at the time was known as Holger Schüring), and this is confirmed to have been from 1963 to 1966 at the Cologne Courses for New Music (Texte 3, 196, 198, 200). German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from D?sseldorf, Germany. The signature Kraftwerk sound combines driving, Repetitive music rhythms with catchy melody, mainly following a Western classical music style of harmony, with a minimalism and strictly electronic instrumentation....
 also say they studied with Stockhausen (Flur 2003, 228), and Icelandic vocalist Björk
Björk

Bj?rk Gu?mundsd?ttir is an Icelandic singer-songwriter, composer, actor and record producer, whose work includes seven solo albums and two film soundtracks....
 has acknowledged Stockhausen's influence (Heuger 1998, 15; Guðmundsdóttir 1996; Ross 2004, 53 & 55).

Wider cultural renown


Stockhausen, along with John Cage
John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer. A pioneer of Aleatoric music, electronic music and Extended technique, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde and, in the opinion of many, the most influential American composer of the 20th century....
, is one of the few avant-garde composers to have succeeded in penetrating the popular consciousness (Anon. 2007b; Broyles 2004; Hewett 2007). The Beatles
The Beatles

The Beatles were a rock music and pop music band from Liverpool, England that formed in 1960. During their career, the group primarily consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr ....
 famously included his face on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the United Kingdom rock music band The Beatles. Recorded over a 129-day period beginning on 6 December 1966, the album was released on 1 June 1967 in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States....
 (Guy and Llewelyn-Jones 2004, 111). This reflects his influence on the band's own avant-garde experiments as well as the general fame and notoriety he had achieved by that time (1967). In particular, "A Day in the Life
A Day in the Life

?'A Day in the Life'? is a song by the British Rock music band The Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, it is the final track on the group's 1967 album Sgt....
" (1967) and "Revolution 9
Revolution 9

"Revolution 9" is a musique concr?te track that appeared on The Beatles' 1968 The Beatles .The recording began as an extended ending to the album version of "Revolution ", to which were added vocal and music sound clips, tape loops, reverse sound/music and sound effects influenced by the musique concr?te styles of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ed...
" 1968) were influenced by Stockhausen's electronic music (Aldgate, Chapman, and Marwick 2000, 146; MacDonald 1995, 233–34). Stockhausen's name, and the perceived strangeness and unlistenability of his music, was even a punchline in cartoons, as documented on a page on the official Stockhausen web site (). Perhaps the most caustic remark about Stockhausen was attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham

Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour was a British people Conducting and impresario. From the early twentieth century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of Britain and, according to Neville Cardus, was the first British conductor to have a regular international career....
. Asked "Have you heard any Stockhausen?", he is alleged to have replied, "No, but I believe I have trodden in some" (Lebrecht 1983, 334, annotated on 366: "Apocryphal; source unknown").

Stockhausen's fame is also reflected in works of literature. For example, he is mentioned in Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an United States science fiction novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysics themes in novels dominated by monopoly corporations, Authoritarianism, and altered states of consciousness....
's 1974 novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is a 1974 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick about a genetically enhanced pop singer and television star who loses his identity overnight....
 (Dick 1993, 101) and in Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American literature based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English studies degree from Cornell University....
's 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels and often considered his most accessible, the book is about a woman, Oedipa Maas, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero ....
. The Pynchon novel features "The Scope", a bar with "a strict electronic music policy". Protagonist Oedipa Maas asks "a hip graybeard" about a "sudden chorus of whoops and yibbles" coming out of "a kind of jukebox." He replies, "That's by Stockhausen... the early crowd tends to dig your Radio Cologne sound. Later on we really swing" (Pynchon 1999, 34).

Criticism

Robin Maconie finds that, "Compared to the work of his contemporaries, Stockhausen’s music has a depth and rational integrity that is quite outstanding. . . . His researches, initially guided by Meyer-Eppler, have a coherence unlike any other composer then or since" (Maconie 1989, 177–78). Maconie also compares Stockhausen to Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical music era and Romantic music eras in classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time....
: "If a genius is someone whose ideas survive all attempts at explanation, then by that definition Stockhausen is the nearest thing to Beethoven this century has produced. Reason? His music lasts" (Maconie 1988), and "As Stravinsky said, one never thinks of Beethoven as a superb orchestrator because the quality of invention transcends mere craftsmanship. It is the same with Stockhausen: the intensity of imagination gives rise to musical impressions of an elemental and seemingly unfathomable beauty, arising from necessity rather than conscious design” (Maconie 1989, 178).

Christopher Ballantine, while comparing and contrasting the categories of experimental
Experimental music

Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-twentieth century, particularly in North America, and whose most famous and influential exponent was John Cage ....
 and avant-garde
Avant-garde music

Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....
 music, concludes that
Perhaps more than any other contemporary composer, Stockhausen exists at the point where the dialectic between experimental and avant-garde music becomes manifest; it is in him, more obviously than anywhere else, that these diverse approaches converge. This alone would seem to suggest his remarkable significance. (Ballantine 1977, 244)


Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, considered by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially Cosmopolitanism Russian who was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the century....
 expressed great, but not uncritical, enthusiasm for Stockhausen's music in the conversation books with Robert Craft
Robert Craft

Robert Lawson Craft is an United States Conducting and writer. He is best known for his intimate working friendship with Igor Stravinsky, a relationship which resulted in a number of recordings and books....
 (e.g., Craft and Stravinsky 1960, 118) and for years organised private listening sessions with friends in his home where he played tapes of Stockhausen's latest works (Stravinsky 1984, 356; Craft 2002, 141). In an interview published in March 1968, however, he says of an unidentified person,
I have been listening all week to the piano music of a composer now greatly esteemed for his ability to stay an hour or so ahead of his time, but I find the alternation of note-clumps and silences of which it consists more monotonous than the foursquares of the dullest eighteenth-century music. ([Craft] 1968, 4)
The following October, a report in Sovetskaia Muzyka (Anon. 1968) translated this sentence (and a few others from the same article) into Russian, substituting for the conjunction "but" the phrase "Ia imeiu v vidu Karlkheintsa Shtokkhauzena" ("I am referring to Karlheinz Stockhausen"). When this translation was quoted in Druskin's Stravinsky biography, the field was widened to all of Stockhausen's compositions and Druskin adds for good measure, "indeed, works he calls unnecessary, useless and uninteresting”, again quoting from the same Sovetskaia Muzyka article, even though it had made plain that the characterization was of American "university composers" (Druskin 1974, 207).

Early in 1995, BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on European classical music, but jazz, world music, drama and the arts also feature....
 sent Stockhausen a package of recordings from contemporary artists Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin

Richard David James , aka Aphex Twin, is an electronic musician who has been described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music." He founded the record label Rephlex Records in 1991 with friend Grant Wilson-Claridge....
, Plastikman, Scanner
Scanner

Scanner may refer to a number of technological devices:* Scanner , for searching for and receiving radio broadcasts* A rotating radar antenna...
 and Daniel Pemberton, and asked him for his opinion on the music. In August of that year, Radio 3 reporter Dick Witts interviewed Stockhausen about these pieces for a broadcast in October, subsequently published in the November issue of the British publication The Wire
The Wire (magazine)

The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music....
 asking what advice he would give these young musicians. Stockhausen made suggestions to each of the musicians, who were then invited to respond. All but Plastikman obliged (Witts 1995).

Controversy

In a press conference in Hamburg
Hamburg

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany , and is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits. The city is home to approximately 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg metropolitan area has more than 4.3 million inhabitants....
 on 16 September 2001, Stockhausen was asked by a journalist whether the characters in Licht were for him "merely some figures out of a common cultural history" or rather "material appearances". The composer replied, "I pray daily to Michael, but not to Lucifer. I have renounced him. But he is very much present, like in New York recently" (Stockhausen 2002, 76). The same journalist then asked how the events of September 11th had affected him, and how he viewed reports of the attack in connection with the harmony of humanity represented in Hymnen
Hymnen

Hymnen is a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966?67, and elaborated in 1969....
. He answered:
Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. [Hesitantly.] And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process." (Stockhausen 2002, 76–77.)


(To see how the excerpt appeared out of its context, and in English translation, see Tommasini 2001.)

As a result of the reaction to the press report of Stockhausen's comments, a four-day festival of his work in Hamburg was canceled. In addition, his pianist daughter announced to the press that she would no longer appear under the name "Stockhausen" (Lentricchia and McAuliffe 2003, 7).

In a subsequent message, he stated that the press had published "false, defamatory reports" about his comments, and clarified as follows:

At the press conference in Hamburg, I was asked if Michael, Eve and Lucifer were historical figures of the past and I answered that they exist now, for example Lucifer in New York. In my work, I have defined Lucifer as the cosmic spirit of rebellion, of anarchy. He uses his high degree of intelligence to destroy creation. He does not know love. After further questions about the events in America, I said that such a plan appeared to be Lucifer's greatest work of art. Of course I used the designation "work of art" to mean the work of destruction personified in Lucifer. In the context of my other comments this was unequivocal. (Stockhausen 2001a)


Honours

Amongst the numerous honors and distinctions that were bestowed upon Stockhausen are:
  • 1964 German gramophone critics award;
  • 1966 and 1972 SIMC award for orchestral works (Italy);
  • 1968 Grand Art Prize for Music of the State of North Rhine-Westfalia; Grand Prix du Disque (France); Member of the Free Academy of the Arts, Hamburg;
  • 1968, 1969, and 1971 Edison Prize (Holland);
  • 1970 Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music
    Royal Swedish Academy of Music

    The Royal Swedish Academy of Music or Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien, founded in 1771 by King Gustav III of Sweden, is one of the Swedish Royal Academies in Sweden....
    ;
  • 1973 Member of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin;
  • 1974 Distinguished Service Cross
    Distinguished Service Cross

    The Distinguished Service Cross is a military decoration for courage. Different versions exist for different countries.*Distinguished Service Cross ...
    , 1st class (Germany);
  • 1977 Member of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome;
  • 1979 Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters;
  • 1980 Member of the European Academy of Science, Arts and Letters;
  • 1981 Prize of the Italian music critics for Donnerstag aus Licht;
  • 1982 German gramophone prize (German Phonograph Academy);
  • 1983 Diapason d’or (France) for Donnerstag aus Licht;
  • 1985 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
    Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

    The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture , and confirmed as part of the Ordre National du M?rite by President of France Charles de Gaulle in 1963....
     (France);
  • 1986 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
    Ernst von Siemens Music Prize

    The international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize is an annual music prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Sch?nen K?nste on behalf of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung , established in 1972....
    ;
  • 1987 Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music
    Royal Academy of Music

    The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a college or university school of music, Britian's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999....
    , London;
  • 1988 Honorary Citizen of the Kuerten community ();
  • 1989 Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    American Academy of Arts and Sciences

    The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning. It serves as a nationwide honor society for the United States....
    ;
  • 1990 Prix Ars Electronica
    Prix Ars Electronica

    The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important yearly prizes in the field of electronic art and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music....
    , Linz, Austria;
  • 1991 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy of Music; Accademico Onorario of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Caecilia, Rome; Honorary Patron of Sound Projects Weimar;
  • 1992 IMC-UNESCO
    International Music Council

    The International Music Council was created in 1949 as UNESCO's advisory body on matters of music. It is based at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, France, where it functions as an independent international non-governmental organization....
     Picasso Medal; Distinguished Service Medal of the German state North Rhine-Westfalia; German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of Luzifers Tanz (3rd scene of Saturday from Light);
  • 1993 Patron of the European Flute Festival; Diapason d’or for Klavierstücke I–XI and Mikrophonie I and II;
  • 1994 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score Jahreslauf (Act 1 of Tuesday from Light);
  • 1995 Honorary Member of the German Society for Electro-Acoustic Music; Bach Award of the city of Hamburg;
  • 1996 Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h. c.) of the Free University of Berlin
    Free University of Berlin

    The Free University of Berlin is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on humanities and social sciences and on health science and natural sciences....
    ; Composer of the European Cultural Capital Copenhagen; Edison Prize (Holland) for Mantra; Member of the Free Academy of the Arts Leipzig; Honorary Member of the Leipzig Opera; Cologne Culture Prize;
  • 1997 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of Weltparlament (1st scene of Wednesday from Light); Honorary member of the music ensemble LIM (Laboratorio de Interpretación Musical), Madrid;
  • 1999 Entry in the Golden Book of the city of Cologne;
  • 2000 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of Evas Erstgeburt (Act 1 of Monday from Light);
  • 2000–2001 The film In Absentia made by the Quay Brothers
    Brothers Quay

    Stephen and Timothy Quay , are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animation....
     (England) to concrete and electronic music by Karlheinz Stockhausen won the Golden Dove (first prize) at the International Festival for Animated Film in Leipzig. More awards: Special Jury Mention, Montreal, FCMM 2000; Special Jury Award, Tampere 2000; Special Mention, Golden Prague Awards 2001; Honorary Diploma Award, Cracow 2001; Best Animated Short Film, 50th Melbourne International Film Festival 2001; Grand Prix, Turku Finland 2001;
  • 2001 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score Helicopter String Quartet (3rd scene of Wednesday from Light); Polar Music Prize
    Polar Music Prize

    The Polar Music Prize is an international music prize. It is awarded to individuals, groups or institutions in recognition of exceptional achievements in the creation and advancement of music....
     of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Arts;
  • 2002 Honorary Patron of the Sonic Arts Network
    Sonic Arts Network

    Sonic Arts Network is a UK-based organisation, established in 1979, that aims to enable both audiences and practitioners to engage with the art of sound through a programme of festivals, events, commissions and education projects....
    , England;
  • 2003 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of Michaelion (4th scene of Wednesday from Light);
  • 2004 Associated member of the Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres & des Beaux-arts (Belgium); Honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. h. c.) of the Queen’s University in Belfast; German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of Stop and Start for 6 instrumental groups;
  • 2005 German Music Publishers Society Award for the score of Hoch-Zeiten for choir (5th scene of Sunday from Light).


Notable students

  • Maryanne Amacher
    Maryanne Amacher

    Maryanne Amacher is an United States composer of sound installations.Amacher studied composition with George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received a B.F.A....
  • Gilbert Amy
    Gilbert Amy

    Gilbert Amy is a France composer and conducting. In 1954 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod....
  • Junsang Bahk
    Junsang Bahk

    Junsang Bahk is a celebrated Korean composer, also active in Austria.Bahk studied composition at the Graduate School, Seoul National University, where he received a Master of Music Degree in 1965....
  • Clarence Barlow
    Clarence Barlow

    Clarence Barlow is a composer of European classical music and electroacoustic music works. He was born in Calcutta, a member of the anglophone minority, of British and Portuguese descent....
  • Gerald Barry
    Gerald Barry

    Gerald Barry is an Irish composer.Born in Clarecastle, County Clare, Republic of Ireland, he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel....
  • Mary Bauermeister
    Mary Bauermeister

    Mary Hilde Ruth Bauermeister is a Germany artist....
  • Michael von Biel
    Michael von Biel

    Michael von Biel is a Germany composer, cellist, and graphic artist.Von Biel studied piano, theory, and composition in Toronto , Vienna , New York City , London , and Cologne ....
  • Konrad Boehmer
    Konrad Boehmer

    Konrad Boehmer is a Netherlands composer and writer of Germany birth.Boehmer was born in Berlin. His music reflects his Marxism political agenda, which is made explicit in many of his writings from the late 1960s and 1970s ....
  • Jean-Yves Bosseur
    Jean-Yves Bosseur

    Jean-Yves Bosseur is a France composer and writer.Bosseur studied composition with Henri Pousseur and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cologne Courses for New Music, from 1965 to 1968, at the Hochschule f?r Musik K?ln , and received a doctorate in aesthetic philosophy from the University of Paris....
  • Karl Gottfried Brunotte
    Karl Gottfried Brunotte

    Karl Gottfried Brunotte is a Germany composer and music philosopher.He studied music sociology, music psychology, ancient languages, aesthetics, piano, Organ , harpsichord, violin, viola, recorder, singing, conducting, and musical composition, as well as electronic music, with Heinz Werner Zimmermann, Lothar Hoffmann-Erbrecht, Hans Pete...
  • Boudewijn Buckinx
    Boudewijn Buckinx

    Boudewijn Buckinx is a Belgium composer.Buckinx attended the Antwerp Conservatory, and from 1964 studied composition and serial music with Lucien Goethals in Ghent, where he also studied electronic music at the IPEM....
  • Cornelius Cardew
    Cornelius Cardew

    Cornelius Cardew was an England avant-garde composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an Experimental music performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music"....
  • Stephen Chatman
    Stephen Chatman

    Stephen Chatman is a Canada composer.Chatman studied with Joseph Wood and Walter Aschaffenburg at the Oberlin Conservatory and with Ross Lee Finney, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, and Eugene Kurtz at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, completing a D.M.A....
  • Tom Constanten
    Tom Constanten

    Tom Constanten is an United States keyboardist, best known for playing with the Grateful Dead from 1968?1970....
  • Holger Czukay
    Holger Czukay

    Holger Czukay is a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can ....
  • Hugh Davies
    Hugh Davies

    Hugh Seymour Davies was a musicology, composer, and inventor of musical instruments.Davies was born in Exmouth, Devon, England. After attending Westminster School, he studied music at Worcester College, University of Oxford from 1961 to 1964....
  • Michel Decoust
    Michel Decoust

    Michel Decoust is a France composer and Conductor .Decoust studied from 1956 to 1965 with Jean Rivier and Darius Milhaud at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as at the Cologne Courses for New Music in 1964?65, with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen....
  • Jean-Claude Éloy
    Jean-Claude Éloy

    Jean-Claude ?loy is a France composer.?loy studied at the Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music, where he was awarded first prizes in piano , chamber music , counterpoint , ondes martenot , and composition ....
  • Peter Eötvös
    Peter Eötvös

    'Peter E?tv?s' ['p?t?r.'?tv??] is a Hungarian people composer and Conducting.E?tv?s was born in Odorheiu Secuiesc/Sz?kelyudvarhely . He studied composition in Budapest and Cologne....
  • Julio Estrada
    Julio Estrada

    Julio Estrada Velasco was born in Mexico City, April 10, 1943. His family was exiled from Spain in 1941. He is a composer, theoretician, historian, pedagogue, and interpreter....
  • Johannes G. Fritsch
    Johannes Fritsch

    Johannes G. Fritsch is a Germany composer.He studied music, sociology, and philosophy from 1961 to 1965 at the University of Cologne and the Musikhochschule in Cologne with, amongst others, Bernd Alois Zimmermann....
  • Renaud Gagneux
    Renaud Gagneux

    Renaud Gagneux is a France composer.At the ?cole Normale in Paris, Renaud Gagneux studied piano with Alfred Cortot and composition with Henri Dutilleux....
  • Rolf Gehlhaar
    Rolf Gehlhaar

    Rolf Gehlhaar is an American composer.Gehlhaar is the son of a German rocket scientist, who emigrated to the United States in 1953. He took American citizenship in 1958 and studied at Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley before moving to Cologne, Germany in 1967 to become assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen, and a memb...
  • Jacob Gilboa
    Jacob Gilboa

    Yehuda Jacob Gilboa was born as Erwin Goldberg and was an Israel composer.Gilboa was born in Ko?ice, Slovakia. Some years later he lived in Vienna, where he received training in playing the piano....
  • Gérard Grisey
    Gérard Grisey

    G?rard Grisey was a France composer of contemporary music....
  • Jon Hassell
    Jon Hassell

    Jon Hassell is an United States trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound....
  • York Höller
    York Höller

    York H?ller is a Germany musical composition and Professor of composition at the Hochschule f?r Musik K?ln....
  • Eleanor Hovda
    Eleanor Hovda

    Eleanor Hovda is a composer from the United States of America.She has been recorded by the ensemble Rel?che , and has released two albums on OO Discs, Coastal Traces and Ariadne Music....
  • Nicolaus A. Huber
    Nicolaus A. Huber

    Nicolaus A. Huber is a Germany composer.From 1958 to 1962 he studied music education at the Hochschule f?r Musik und Theater in Munich and subsequently composition with Franz Xaver Lehner and G?nter Bialas....
  • Alden Jenks
    Alden Jenks

    Alden Jenks is an American composer.Alden Jenks received a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied composition with Andrew Imbrie and Seymour Shifrin....
  • David C. Johnson
  • Will Johnson
    Will Johnson (composer)

    Will Johnson is an United States composer and improviser.Johnson, who was raised in Marietta, Georgia, earned a B.A. in music from Princeton University and an M.A....
  • Jonathan Kramer
    Jonathan Kramer

    Jonathan Donald Kramer , was a United States composer and music theorist....
  • Helmut Lachenmann
    Helmut Lachenmann

    Helmut Lachenmann is a Germany composer associated with Musique concr?te....
  • André Laporte
    André Laporte

    Andr? Laporte is a Belgium composer....
  • Mario Lavista
    Mario Lavista

    Mario Lavista is a Mexico composer and writer. In 1978 he won the Diosa de Plata from the Asociaci?n de Periodistas y Cr?ticos de Cine, the Premio Nacional de Artes y Ciencias in 1991, and the Medalla Mozart in 1991....
  • Luca Lombardi
    Luca Lombardi

    Luca Lombardi is an Italy composer....
  • Vincent McDermott
    Vincent McDermott

    Vincent McDermott is a classically trained American composer and ethnomusicologist. His works show particular influence from the musics of South Asia and Southeast Asia, particularly the gamelan music of Java....
  • John McGuire
    John McGuire (composer)

    John McGuire is an United States of America composer, pianist, organist, and music editor....
  • Jennifer Helen McLeod
    Jenny McLeod

    Jenny McLeod ONZ is a composer and former Professor of Music at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand....
  • Robin Maconie
    Robin Maconie

    Robin Maconie is a New Zealand composer, pianist, and writer.Robin Maconie studied with Frederick Page and Roger Savage at the Victoria University of Wellington, receiving a Master of Arts in the History and Literature of Music in 1964....
  • Mesías Maiguashca
    Mesías Maiguashca

    Mes?as Maiguashca is an Ecuadorian composer.He is an advocate of the New Music, especially of electronic music in the milieu of Karlheinz Stockhausen....
  • Pierre Mariétan
    Pierre Mariétan

    Pierre Mari?tan is a Switzerland composer....
  • Tomás Marco
    Tomás Marco

    Tom?s Marco Arag?n is a Spain composer and writer on music....
  • Gérard Masson
    Gérard Masson

    G?rard Masson is a France composer....
  • Paul Méfano
    Paul Méfano

    Paul M?fano , is a France composer and Conducting....
  • Costin Miereanu
    Costin Miereanu

    Costin Miereanu is a France composer and Musicology of Romanian birth....
  • Dary John Mizelle
    Dary John Mizelle

    Dary John Mizelle is an American composer.Mizelle studied trombone as well as musical composition and participated in the New Music Ensemble at the University of California, Davis, where he participated in a course led by Karlheinz Stockhausen....
  • Emmanuel Nunes
    Emmanuel Nunes

    Emmanuel Nunes is a Portuguese composer presently living in Paris....
  • Gonzalo de Olavide
    Gonzalo de Olavide

    Gonzalo de Olavide y Casenave was a Spain composer born in Madrid....
  • Jorge Peixinho
    Jorge Peixinho

    Jorge Peixinho was a Portugal composer, pianist, and Conductor .Peixinho studied composition and piano initially at the Conservatory of Lisbon , then studied composition with Boris Porena and Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome, graduating in 1961....
  • Robert HP Platz
    Robert HP Platz

    Robert H.P. Platz is a Germans European classical music composer.Platz studied music theory, composition , musicology and piano in Freiburg, Germany between 1970 and 1973....
  • Zoltán Pongrácz
    Zoltán Pongrácz

    Zolt?n Pongr?cz was a Hungary composer.Pongr?cz studied composition from 1930 to 1935 with Zolt?n Kod?ly at the Budapest Academy of Music. He became professor of composition at the Debrecen Conservatory in 1947 and continued in that position until 1958....
  • Horatiu Radulescu
    Horatiu Radulescu

    Horatiu Radulescu was a Romanian-French composer, best known for the Spectral music of composition....
  • Wolfgang Rihm
    Wolfgang Rihm

    Wolfgang Rihm is a Germany composer from Karlsruhe. He finished both his school and his studies in music theory and composition in 1972, two years before the premiere of his early work Morphonie at the 1974 Donaueschingen Festival launched his career as a prominent figure in the European new music scene....
  • Ingo Schmitt
    Ingo Schmitt

    Ingo Schmitt is a Germany politician who was Member of the European Parliament for Berlin from 1999 - 2005. On September 18, 2005 he was elected to the Bundestag and consequently resigned from the European Parliament....
  • Irmin Schmidt
    Irmin Schmidt

    Irmin Schmidt is a German keyboard instrument player and composer, probably best known as a founding member of Can .Schmidt has recorded a few solo albums, and written an opera based on Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series....
  • Holger Schüring
    Holger Czukay

    Holger Czukay is a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can ....
  • Kurt Schwertsik
    Kurt Schwertsik

    Kurt Schwertsik is an Austrian contemporary composer. He is famous for creating the ?Third Viennese School? and spreading contemporary European classical music....
  • Gerald Shapiro
    Gerald Shapiro (composer)

    Gerald M. Shapiro is an American composer of acoustic and electronic music.Shapiro studied first at the Eastman School of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree with distinction in 1964....
  • Makoto Shinohara
    Makoto Shinohara

    Makoto Shinohara is a Japanese composer.Shinohara studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music from 1952 to 1954, studying composition with Tomojiro Ikenouchi, piano with Kazuko Yasukawa, and conducting with Akeo Watanabe and Kurt Woess....
  • Roger Smalley
    Roger Smalley

    Roger Smalley is a British-Australian composer, piano and conducting. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Western Australia and Honorary Research Associate at The University of Sydney....
  • Avo Sõmer
    Avo Sõmer

    Avo Somer is an American musicologist music theorist, and composer, of Estonian birth.Avo S?mer emigrated from Estonia with his parents in 1944, when he was ten years old, first to Germany and then to the United States....
  • Tim Souster
    Tim Souster

    Tim Souster was a British composer best known for his electronic music output....
  • Atli Heimir Sveinsson
    Atli Heimir Sveinsson

    Atli Heimir Sveinsson is an Icelandic composer.Sveinsson was born in Reykjav?k, Iceland and started piano lessons at the age of 10. He studied piano with R?gnvaldur Sigurjonsson at the Reykjav?k College of Music and took his diploma in 1957....
  • Zsigmond Szathmáry
    Zsigmond Szathmáry

    Zsigmond Szathm?ry is a Hungary organist, pianist, composer, and conducting....
  • Ivan Tcherepnin
    Ivan Tcherepnin

    Ivan Tcherepnin was an experimental music, then later modernism /postmodern music, composer. He was born into a highly musical family, his father and grandfather, Alexander Tcherepnin and Nikolai Tcherepnin, being distinguished Russians composers, and his mother Ming Tcherepnin a well-known pianist....
  • Serge Tcherepnin
    Serge Tcherepnin

    Serge Tcherepnin is an American composer and electronic-instrument builder of Russia-China origin.Serge Tcherepnin is the son and grandson of composers Alexander Tcherepnin and Nikolai Tcherepnin....
  • Gilles Tremblay
    Gilles Tremblay

    Gilles Tremblay is a Canada composer. He studied at the Conservatories of Montreal and Paris , where his teachers including Olivier Messiaen , Yvonne Loriod , and Maurice Martenot ....
  • Stephen Truelove
    Stephen Truelove

    Stephen Nathan Truelove is an United States composer, teacher, and pianist.Truelove studied composition at Tulsa University, where he received an Master of Music in 1970....
  • Claude Vivier
    Claude Vivier

    Claude Vivier was a Canada composer.Born to unknown parents in Montreal, Vivier was adopted at the age of three by a poor French-Canadian family....
  • Kevin Volans
    Kevin Volans

    Kevin Volans is a composer associated with the minimalism movement in contemporary composition. He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on July 6, 1949, and even though he has spent most of his life outside his native country, is the best known South African composer active today....
  • Thomas Wells
    Thomas Wells

    Thomas Wells may refer to:* Thomas B. Wells, U.S. Tax Court judge* Thomas Bucklin Wells, one-time actor and husband of Dorothy Dunbar* Thomas Leonard Wells, Ontario political figure...
  • La Monte Young
    La Monte Young

    La Monte Thornton Young is an United States composer and musician.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalism composer, and one of the four most celebrated leaders of the minimalist school, along with Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, despite having little in common formally with Glass or Reich....
  • Hans Zender
    Hans Zender

    Johannes Wolfgang Zender is a Germany conducting and composer....


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External links

  • by Karlheinz Essl (1989)
  • Obituary in The Guardian by Ivan Hewett
  • Obituary in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger by Rainer Nonnenmann (in German).
  • The online music review discusses awareness of Stockhausen's music in the US and


Listening

  • featuring tracks from Mantra