Karlheinz Stockhausen
Born in Modrath, near Cologne, the prolific musician wrote more than 300 works from orchestral pieces to pure electronic music during his career. Best known for his avant-garde electronic work, Stockhausen was an experimental musician who utilised tape recorders and mathematics to create innovative, ground-breaking pieces. His Electronic Study, 1953, was the first musical piece composed from pure sine wave sounds. Electronic Study II, produced a year later, was the first work of electronic music to be notated and published. But the composer rejected the idea that he was making the music of the future, writing in 1966: What is modern today will be tradition tomorrow.
Born in Modrath, near Cologne, the prolific musician wrote more than 300 works from orchestral pieces to pure electronic music during his career. Best known for his avant-garde electronic work, Stockhausen was an experimental musician who utilised tape recorders and mathematics to create innovative, ground-breaking pieces. His Electronic Study, 1953, was the first musical piece composed from pure sine wave sounds. Electronic Study II, produced a year later, was the first work of electronic music to be notated and published. But the composer rejected the idea that he was making the music of the future, writing in 1966: What is modern today will be tradition tomorrow.
Der Jahreslauf
*2022 Stock.* Der Jahreslauf features a pre-Licht work, although this piece would later be reworked as the opening Act to the Licht opera Dienstag aus Licht (on CD 40). Commissioned for Japanese Gagaku orchestra, Der Jahreslauf is essentially Stockha…
Musik Für Flöte
*2022 Stock.* Musik Für Flöte features the artistry of Kathinka Pasveer on 2 CDs, performing solo works for flute, piccolo flute, and alto flute. In addition to the flute arrangements of Amour and In Freundschaft, it includes several solo arrangement…
In Freundschaft / Traum-Formel / Amour
*2022 Stock.* In Freundschaft features Suzanne Stephens performing three solo works for clarinet and basset-horn (alto clarinet). In Freundschaft (a 3-layer polyphony arranged for a single soloist) is a popular recital work, and has been arranged for…
Harlekin / Der Kleine Harlekin
*2022 Stock.* Harlekin / Der Kleine Harlekin features the clarinet and dance of woodwind player Suzanne Stephens. These two pieces for soloist are each based on a single formula theme, but with elements and limbs of the theme expanded and transformed…
Atmen Gibt Das Leben
*2022 Stock.* Atmen Gibt Das Leben is a semi-theatrical choral work, with the second half accompanied by orchestral background textures. The melodic vocal elements here have a somewhat humorous, folk-like feel to them. Atmen Gibt Das Leben (Breathing…
Inori
*2022 Stock.* Inori is a large scale work for orchestra which portrays the formation of a theme, one parameter at a time (rhythm - dynamics - melody - harmony - polyphony). Essentially, slow-moving sound masses in the beginning evolve into dramatic, …
YLEM
*2022 Stock.* The Stockhausen Edition 21st CD features 2 performances of the open-form work YLEM, which musically portrays the birth and death of the universe through the progressive motion of handheld instruments through a performance space (or in t…
"Am Himmel Wandere Ich..."
*2022 Stock.* "Am Himmel Wandere Ich..."documents a cycle of 12 mystical male-female vocal duets based on traditional American Indian song texts. Am Himmel Wandre Ich's text-influenced melodies could possibly be viewed as Stockhausen's version of th…
Trans
*2022 Stock.* The Stockhausen Edition No.19 contains two recordings of the enigmatic orchestral work Trans, which highlights sometimes comic soloists playing against a backdrop of percolating winds and slowly-modulating strings. The imagery and gener…
Sternklang
*2022 Stock.* Sternklang features a roaming studio recording, documenting the five spacially-separated electro-acoustic chamber groups of Sternklang, a harmonically-modulating piece structurally similar to the all-vocal Stimmung. Some soloists are al…
Für Kommende Zeiten
*2022 Stock.* Für kommende Zeiten is a relatively contemporary recording of some intuitive music pieces from Stockhausen's second collection of text scores, recorded by the Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar (Michael von Hintzenstern (piano/harmoniu…
Stimmung – Pariser Version 1968 In Zwei Aufnahmen Von 1969 Und 1982
*2022 Stock. Includes 124-page booklet in German and English.* “Stimmung” was a commission from the City of Cologne, for an ensemble at the Rheinische Musikschule; Collegium Vocale Köln. It was written early 1968, in February and March, in a house on…
Gruppen / Carré
*2022 Stock. Includes 32-page booklet in German and English.* On volume no. 5 in the ongoing Stockhausen Edition we meet large-scale orchestral works for the first time in the series. The first piece on this CD originates in a commission that Stockha…
Kontra-Punkte / Zeitmaße / Stop / Adieu
*2022 Stock.* The best, most efficient way to hear Stockhausen's works is through his official record label and publishing house. The Stockhausen Edition CDs are meticulously assembled with often voluminous booklets in English and German, filled with…
Formel / Schlagtrio / Spiel / Punkte
Four revolutionary orchestral works from 1951-52 showcase Stockhausen's bold transition to large ensemble writing. Featuring Formel, innovative Schlagtrio, theatrical Spiel, and the composer-conducted Punkte, this collection captures his pioneering e…
Chöre Für Doris - Choral - Drei Lieder - Sonatine - Kreuzspiel
Karlheinz Stockhausen's pivotal 1950-51 works reveal his transition from traditional forms to revolutionary serialism. Featuring Chöre für Doris, Drei Lieder, Sonatine, and groundbreaking Kreuzspiel, this collection captures the composer's systematic…
Mantra
'Composed in 1970, Mantra, for two pianos and ring modulation, was one of the decisive turning points in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s career. The 70-minute piece not only signalled a break with the text-based intuitive works, relying heavily on improvisat…
Kontakte
Kontakte is a Stockhausen classic from 1959, for electronics, percussion and piano (played here by David Tudor). One of his "moment form" compositions, which "...lead up to no climax, nor do they have prepared, and thus expected, climaxes, nor the us…
Strahlen
*2022 stock* The origins and technical content of Strahlen (‘Rays’), a work left incomplete at the time of Stockhausen’s death, are complicated. It’s best to watch the documentary about the work before hearing it through, so that your mind’s eye is t…
Stockhausen on Music (Book)
*2022 stock* If a genius is someone whose ideas survive all attempts at explanation', writes the well-known contemporary musicologist Robin Maconie, 'then by that definition Stockhausen is the nearest thing to Beethoven this century has produced. Rea…