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.
Synthi-Fou / Dienstags-Abschied
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Synthi-Fou / Dienstags-Abschied ” "A double –CD like this one falls right into that crystal clarity, giving yet more insight into how his art is achieved, piece by piece, structurally – but as it is with human beings or a flower or an Earth sun rise, the result is much more and something else altogether than the sum of all the parts… and somewhere in that realm lies the real mystery; that elusive, vibrant core of beauty and truth which can’t be accounted fo…
Oktophonie
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Oktophonie ” Realized at the Studio für Elektronische Musik, WDR, August 23 - November 30, 1990 & Aug. 5-30, 1991. " (...) Stockhausen also points out that the production and spatialization are described in the separate OCTOPHONY score. This score is indeed a very meticulous and detailed one, indispensable for aficionados who will want to enter the inner workings of the OCTOPHONY structure. It is an extreme score in this aspect, in the minute details of its…
Donnerstag Aus Licht
Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Donnerstag aus Licht” (“Thursday from Light”); opera in three acts, a greeting and a farewell for 15 musical interpreters (4 solo voices, 8 instrumental soloists, 3 solo dancers), chorus, orchestra and magnetic tapes (1978 – 1980) " It arises in a silvery, calm motion of wind instruments – obviously preparing us for something of importance and vast durations. It is “Donnerstag-Gruss” (“Thursday Greeting”); the start of “Donnerstag aus Licht” (“Thursday from Light”); the …
Sirius
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Sirius” eight-channel electronic music and trumpet, soprano, bass clarinet, and bass is a music-theatre composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed between 1975 and 1977. "It begins with a slowly emerging hum - like a disturbance in the wiring of your sound equipment -; then evolves into a murmur of great timbral depths, finally releasing itself into a spinning, swooshing, disturbing sound of higher frequencies in the foreground, panning between the spea…
Tierkreis / Musik Im Bauch
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Musik im Bauch (Music in the Belly) ” is a piece of scenic music for six percussionists and music boxes composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1975. "The origin of “Musik im Bauch” and “Tierkreis”, as far as can be traced, goes back to 1967, when Stockhausen’s daughter Julika was around two years old. Stockhausen explains that all kinds of minute sounds were coming from the little girl’s insides, and Stockhausen joked with her and said: “Julika, you really ha…
Mantra
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Mantra” was composed in 1970 and premiered in autumn of the same year at the Donaueschingen Festival. The work is scored for two ring-modulated pianos; each player is also equipped with a chromatic set of crotales (antique cymbals) and a wood block, and one player is equipped with a short-wave radio producing morse code or a magnetic tape recording of morse code. "The real basis for “Mantra” is a thirteen-note motif; formula, allotting each note specific ch…
Spiral - Pole
Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Kurzwellen” for six players (1968). Spiral for a soloist with a shortwave receiver together with Pole (Poles), for two performers with shortwave radio receivers and a sound projectionist, is one of a series of works dating from the 1960s which Stockhausen designated as "process" compositions. These works in effect separate the "form" from the "content" by presenting the performers with a series of transformation signs which are to be applied to material that may vary con…
Aus Den Sieben Tagen
Packaged in two Multiboxes, with a 124 page booklet (in English language), in a 2" thick slip box. Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Aus den sieben Tagen” for six players (1968) (From the Seven Days) is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer(s).." This type of composition or instruction or whatever on…
Kurzwellen
*2022 Stock.* Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Kurzwellen” for six players (1968). Participants: Aloys Kontarsky (piano & short-wave radio), Harald Bojé (electronium & short-wave radio), Alfred Alings & Rolf Gehlhaar (tam-tam & short-wave radio), Johannes G. Fritsch (electric viola & short-wave radio), Karlheinz Stockhausen (filters & potentiometers). Kurzwellen is one of a series of works dating from the 1960s which Stockhausen designated as "process" compositions. These works in effect separate the "f…
Prozession / Ceylon
Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Prozession” (1967) / “Ceylon” (1970) Prozession is one of a series of works dating from the 1960s which Stockhausen designated as "process" compositions. These works in effect separate the "form" from the "content" by presenting the performers with a series of transformation signs which are to be applied to material that may vary considerably from one performance to the next "Prozession is an ensemble piece that Stockhausen wrote for his ensemble of the time, but it is…
Hymnen
Program notes in German and English in 200-page booklet. Karlheinz Stockhausen personally mixed down and mastered these recordings from the original analogue tapes for this CD edition. Karlheinz Stockhausen –“Mikrophonie I” (1964) for tam-tam, 2 microphones, 2 filters with potentiometers (6 players) / “Mikrophonie II” (1965) for choir, Hammond organ, 4 ring modulators / “Telemusik” (1966) (electronic music). Together with Stockhausen's immediately preceding work Mixtur, for five orchestra grou…
Mikrophonie I / Mikrophonie II / Telemusik
Packaged in a thick 2CD jewel case with 128-page booklet in English. Karlheinz Stockhausen –“Mikrophonie I” (1964) for tam-tam, 2 microphones, 2 filters with potentiometers (6 players) / “Mikrophonie II” (1965) for choir, Hammond organ, 4 ring modulators / “Telemusik” (1966) (electronic music). Together with Stockhausen's immediately preceding work Mixtur, for five orchestra groups, four sine-wave generators, four ring modulators, they form a tryptych of live-electronic works, where electronic …
Mixtur
*2022 Stock.* In short, some of the most breathtaking, intrepidly advanced electronic music ever recorded. A truly precious survey of a lone, pioneering voice in electronic music. Cardboard slipcase housing a CD jewel with 104-page booklet in German and English. Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Mixtur” (1964) is one of the earliest compositions for orchestra with live electronics, and is amongst the first compositions using live-electronic techniques generally. "Orchestral sounds transform into electron…
Momente
Momente (Moments), written between 1962 and 1969, was Stockhausen's first piece composed on principles of modular transposability, and his first musical form to be determined from categories of sensation or perception rather than by numerical units of musical terminology. Comes with a 72-page 4-color big size booklet in German and English, plus a separate 36-page 2-color book with complete sung texts. "Momente for soprano solo, four chorus groups and thirteen instrumentalists” is dominated by th…
Zyklus - Refrain - Kontakte
In short, some of the most breathtaking, intrepidly advanced electronic music ever recorded. A truly precious survey of a lone, pioneering voice in electronic music. Cardboard slipcase housing a CD jewel case and a 184-page booklet in German and English. Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Zyklus” (1959) / “Refrain” (1959) / “Kontakte” (1959 – 60). "Krakabang! Prrrrrrrrrr! Plipprrring! Swooossssh! Goooong! Wuawuawuawua! You’re in the middle of it right from the start, with nowhere to hide. Maybe that’s how…
Elektronische Musik 1952-1960
In short, some of the most breathtaking, intrepidly advanced electronic music ever recorded. A truly precious survey of a lone, pioneering voice in electronic music. Cardboard slipcase housing a CD jewel case and a 184-page booklet in German and English. Karlheinz Stockhausen – Electronic Music 1952 – 1960: “Etude” (1952) / “Studie I” (1953) / “Studie II (1954) / “Gesang der Jünglinge” (1955-56) / “Kontakte” (1959-60). "Nowadays anybody with a computer and some relatively cheap software can mani…
A Rainbow in Curved Air - Tierkreis - Zodiac
An unexpected musical combination of two masterpieces of modern music rethought through the use of contemporary electronic instruments that marvels at lively and innovative sounds, in the version with keyboards and electronics presented at Terraforma Festival 2019.
The Musical Legacy of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Looking Back and Forward
Karlheinz Stockhausen was one of the most influential and prolific composers of the twentieth century. His legacy extends far beyond his extensive catalogue of musical works to his achievements as a pioneer of electronic music, as a writer and thinker on music, and as a teacher. In this volume, various aspects of Stockhausen“s legacy are discussed, including his influence on the creative work of others, and the influences he likewise derived from some of his closest associates. Central theoretic…
Klang Bilder
**Hardcover edition**In the late 1950s, avant-garde musicians were exploring new ways of expressing their experimental compositions in writing. Searching for a universal language that would reach far beyond music, they no longer considered the traditional system of musical notation as sufficient. By progressing into electronic music, as well as by linking music and performance, they blurred the boundaries between different genres and inevitably changed the notation of music. Karlheinz Stockhause…
Serenata I/Sonatine/Canteyodjaya/Zeitmasze
**Edition of 500. 180 gram vinyl** Fantôme Phonographique present a reissue of Serenata I/Sonatine/Canteyodjaya/Zeitmasze, originally released in 1958. The avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was a titan of post-war experimental classical music. Born in the small cheesemaking town of Montrbrison in central France in 1925, Boulez studied at the Paris Conservatoire with the composer and organist Charles Messiaen and received private tuition from pianist Andrée Vaurabourg; after moving…