Karlheinz Stockhausen

Orchester-Finalisten (Orchestra Finalists) is the second scene of Mittwoch aus Licht (Wednesday from Light), the sixth of the seven operas of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Licht cycle to be composed. It was written in 1995 and 1996 for orchestra and electronic music. Jan van Vlijmen, director of the Holland Festival, commissioned it, and the Asko Ensemble first played it on 14 June 1996 at the Carré Theatre in Amsterdam.

There is no sung text. Eleven instrumentalists play a short solo each, one after another like candidates at an audition, with a horn player joining at the end, against a tape of concrete sounds. The Verlag publishes the solos separately, each with its own electronic part. The soloists on this CD come from the Asko Ensemble of Amsterdam. They include Marieke Schut (oboe), Doris Hochscheid (cello), Jacques Meertens (clarinet), Margreet Bongers (bassoon) and Kathinka Pasveer (flute), along with players of violin, viola, double bass, trumpet, trombone, tuba and horn. The ensemble was recorded in April 1996 at the Steim studio in Amsterdam. The electronic music was realised and mixed at the WDR Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne between April and June 1996, with Volker Müller as recording engineer and Stockhausen and Paulo C. Chagas as recording supervisors. The piece is one movement of 46:37, divided into 23 cue points. The same electronic music is used alone as the Wednesday Farewell (Mittwochs-Abschied), which is on Stockhausen Edition no. 55.

This is Stockhausen-Verlag, Stockhausen Edition no. 52, one CD issued in 1997 with a 32-page booklet in German and English.