Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), German composer, one of the most prominent avant-garde composers of the mid-20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Mödrath, Germany, on August 22, 1928, he studied with the Swiss composer Frank Martin and the French composers Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud. At the University of Bonn, Stockhausen studied electro-acoustics, phonetics, and information theory. In 1953 he helped found West German Radio's important Electronic Music Studio in Cologne. He was active as a teacher, conductor, and performer of his own work. Much of his early music used serialism, or predetermined series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, tone colours, and other elements, but from the 1950s onwards he experimented with aleatory techniques (use of chance and improvisation) and freedom for performers in deciding their own speed and dynamics. Fluctuating tempos and indeterminacy prevail in the wind quintet Zeitmasse (Time Measure, 1956). His Gesang der Jünglinge (Youthsong, 1956) projects a singing boy’s voice, mingled with electronic sounds, through five spatially separated loudspeakers. In Gruppen for three orchestras (1955-1957) his design was to submerge individual players and whole groups of players into a multiple assemblage, creating a new sonic organism. Other works include Zyklus (1961), for solo percussionist; the multimedia work Beethausen, opus 1970, von Stockhoven (1970); and chamber works such as Ylem (1973) and Tierkreis (Zodiac, 1977). In contrast, Sternklange (Star Sounds, 1971) was a large work, composed for five separate groups and open-air performance, in the course of which the names of the constellations are called out.

Many of Stockhausen’s works have a meditative atmosphere built in a large timescale, such as Mantra (1970) for two pianos, and Stimmung (1968) for six voices, a 70-minute work built on different voicings of a single chord. The wide-ranging profusion of ideas stemming from various spiritual and literary sources, inspiring works conceived on a grand scale, combined with his compelling personality gave Stockhausen a following in the 1960s far beyond the relatively small number of contemporary music enthusiasts of the time. Although he maintained a lower public profile after the mid-1970s, from 1977 until 2002 he was engaged on his most grandiose project: LIGHT—the seven days of the week was a cycle of seven large operas to be performed on seven consecutive days, based on the Christian creation myth and employing elemental figures such as Eve, Lucifer, and the archangel Michael. The first to be completed was Thursday (1980), followed by Saturday (1983), Monday (1988), Tuesday (1991), Friday (1994), and Wednesday (1998); the latter included the award-winning 'Helicopter String Quartet'. For this work, members of the Arditti String Quartet were recorded while playing inside separate helicopters flying in patterns charted by the composer; all the sound was recorded and mixed live by the composer (who was on the ground). The world premieres of the second, third, and fourth scenes in Sunday, the last in the cycle, took place in 2003. In 2004 the European Centre for the Arts Hellerau in Dresden announced that it was planning to stage the first full performance of the LIGHT cycle (comprising around 29 hours of music) in 2008 to coincide with what would have been the composer’s 80th birthday. Stockhausen died in Kuerten, Germany, on December 5, 2007.