Karlheinz Stockhausen
Published 40 months ago
Karlheinz Stockhausen, 78-year-old electronic muysic pioneer who has influenced artists from The Beatles to Bjork.
- Text by Gary Weasel
Words like 'important' and 'controversial' inevitably surface when you examine the lengthy career of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. A few facts to kick off. He pioneered electronic music in "variable form". He has written graphical scores that can be read from any direction. Inspired by dreams of flying, he has written works for a string quartet where each participant performs from their own helicopter hovering above the concert hall. In short, he does things none of us really understand but sound really quite impressive.
Although he is said to have influenced notable artists from The Beatles to Bjork, approaching his work is not an easy sell for the uninitiated. "The loops," Stockhausen enthuses about his latest work, Cosmic Pulses, "were enlivened by manual regulation of the accelerandi and ritardandi around the respective tempo, and by quite narrow glissandi." It's certainly not anything you'll be jumping up and down to with a pint of lager on your head.
But if, like me, you have pretensions about enjoying music all the more when you don't have a clue what you're talking about, you may get a kick out of dipping a peregrinating toe into the choppy waters of the Stockhausen oeuvre. You'll find an incredibly deep seam of works (over 300) ranging from his early experiments with electronic music in Electronic Studies from the early 1950s, through to the celebrated seven-opera cycle of Licht, which he dedicated himself to during the majority of the 80s and 90s.
When we first contacted him in his hometown of Kuerten, Stockhausen's assistant told us that he "has literally disappeared in the production of Cosmic Pulses. Please accept his absence." We did accept it, but then we tried him again anyway a few days later. Eventually, he took a few moments away from his world of composition to answer our e-mailed questions... you can read his unexpurgated transmission in full below.
