Stockhausen in Belfast, day 3/3
17:30 25/05/04, Whitla Hall, Belfast
The final concert featured three substantial pieces from Stockhausen's massive opera cycle Licht.
Oktophonie (Octophony)
As its title suggests, the music is projected "over 8 groups of loudspeakers in a cube around the listeners". Composed at the start of the 90s, the work lasts 74 minutes and sounds very different from Stockhausen's electronic music of the 60s. Stockhausen explained how he slowed the rhythms down drastically so that the ear can follow the music's movement in space. Furthermore even the timbres are chosen for this end. The result is an emphasis on droning synthesized sounds constantly moving and flowing around the audience.
In his talk, Stockhausen surprisingly stated that the Whitla Hall was more suitable for octophonic music than any hall in Paris, London or Cologne. He also related his childhood experiences in which as a German he suffered 5 or 6 years of aerial bombardment. As a musician, he said he loved the sounds of the enemy aircraft and the firebombs falling.
Mittwochs-gruss (Wednesday greeting)
We were privileged to hear a world premiere performance of this work which lasts just under an hour. It utilises a Kurtweill K2500X synthesizer and an Akai S-2000 sampler. Again, the pace of the music is dramatically slowed down so that spatial movement is more clearly audible. Stockhausen also recommended making occasional head movements to order to better detect the planes of sound. I seem to recall some overwhelming chimes and bruising chords of sound in this piece. The music is intended to "awaken the universe of the fantasy". Stockhausen took the stage at the end to say how pleased he was to finally hear the piece as it had been intended to be heard and to dedicate it to the festival's organiser, Michael Alcorn.
Mittwochs-abschied (Wednesday farewell)
Here, Stockhausen explained his concept of "transreal" music, which goes beyond the surreal, and is composed of sounds "taken from completely different areas of life" but heard in impossible combinations. For instance, in the first section, sounds from a Venetian mass are heard in conjunction with (among other things) small handheld fans used by ladies in the 1920s. These combinations create "fantasy spaces" and the work is made of up 11 of these spaces. I should note that the sounds Stockhausen uses are also electronically altered, for instance to transpose their pitches. The work lasts 42 minutes and it is recommended that we "fly in the free flight of fantasy" for its duration.
The composer received a standing ovation.
The final concert featured three substantial pieces from Stockhausen's massive opera cycle Licht.
Oktophonie (Octophony)
As its title suggests, the music is projected "over 8 groups of loudspeakers in a cube around the listeners". Composed at the start of the 90s, the work lasts 74 minutes and sounds very different from Stockhausen's electronic music of the 60s. Stockhausen explained how he slowed the rhythms down drastically so that the ear can follow the music's movement in space. Furthermore even the timbres are chosen for this end. The result is an emphasis on droning synthesized sounds constantly moving and flowing around the audience.
In his talk, Stockhausen surprisingly stated that the Whitla Hall was more suitable for octophonic music than any hall in Paris, London or Cologne. He also related his childhood experiences in which as a German he suffered 5 or 6 years of aerial bombardment. As a musician, he said he loved the sounds of the enemy aircraft and the firebombs falling.
Mittwochs-gruss (Wednesday greeting)
We were privileged to hear a world premiere performance of this work which lasts just under an hour. It utilises a Kurtweill K2500X synthesizer and an Akai S-2000 sampler. Again, the pace of the music is dramatically slowed down so that spatial movement is more clearly audible. Stockhausen also recommended making occasional head movements to order to better detect the planes of sound. I seem to recall some overwhelming chimes and bruising chords of sound in this piece. The music is intended to "awaken the universe of the fantasy". Stockhausen took the stage at the end to say how pleased he was to finally hear the piece as it had been intended to be heard and to dedicate it to the festival's organiser, Michael Alcorn.
Mittwochs-abschied (Wednesday farewell)
Here, Stockhausen explained his concept of "transreal" music, which goes beyond the surreal, and is composed of sounds "taken from completely different areas of life" but heard in impossible combinations. For instance, in the first section, sounds from a Venetian mass are heard in conjunction with (among other things) small handheld fans used by ladies in the 1920s. These combinations create "fantasy spaces" and the work is made of up 11 of these spaces. I should note that the sounds Stockhausen uses are also electronically altered, for instance to transpose their pitches. The work lasts 42 minutes and it is recommended that we "fly in the free flight of fantasy" for its duration.
The composer received a standing ovation.
posted by Peter at 11:20
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