Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1928-2007) 4-9 Jan

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anyway, why are there two threads on this?

Surround sound?

An engaging and enjoyable half-hour, I thought; congratulations and thanks due to all concerned.



This year's Festival, in case a reminder would be useful, begins tomorrow.

[mercia]

An engaging and enjoyable half-hour, I thought; congratulations and thanks due to all concerned.

I agree. I wasn't aware there was another thread - feel free to merge them, whoever knows how to.

[ardcarp]

Thanks for the tip, SG. Just heard it. A very droll programme in which we learned a little about Stockhausen but a great deal about social history.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pd3bt

I anticipate a play by Alan Bennett sometime soon.......

[ahinton]

Thanks for the tip, SG. Just heard it. A very droll programme in which we learned a little about Stockhausen but a great deal about social history.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pd3bt

I anticipate a play by Alan Bennett sometime soon.......

Sirius in the van, peut-être?...

I once thought that John McEnroe was accusing Stockhausen when I first heard him say "you can't be Siruis" but I discovered that I was wrong about this...

[Quarky]

Just an idle thought.

Whether, if the output of Stockhausen, Xenakis, and the whole of the Darmstadt movement (who seemed the true experimenters as opposed to the US-originating "Experimental" music) had been named Music II, this might have avoided some of the conflict with traditionalists?

That piece of ceiling falling close to Stockhausen's head seems something more than a completely random incident.....?

[ahinton]

Whether, if the output of Stockhausen, Xenakis, and the whole of the Darmstadt movement (who seemed the true experimenters as opposed to the US-originating "Experimental" music) had been named Music II, this might have avoided some of the conflict with traditionalists?

Not only was Xenakis (and Carter, for that matter) not especially a central force in the Darmstadt/Donaueschingen/Köln movement I also believe that confining that movement (such as it was/is) under the "experimental" label and pitting it against the work of "traditionalists" is so gross an over-simplification as to render it almost meaningless; one has only to consider the vast difference between the work of Stockhausen and Boulez in its early and perhaps headiest days to realise this.

That piece of ceiling falling close to Stockhausen's head seems something more than a completely random incident.....?

Does it really? That might be convenient for the purposes of making a tiresome joke about it, but...

[ardcarp]

Just musing about Stockhausen and Xenakis being 'Now' (as in Hear and Now). They are, arguably 'Then'. Turnage, MacMillan and Weir are 'Now'. Reich and Adams are 'Now-ish'. Oh damn. I forgot about Einaudi and Jenkins......

[Serial_Apologist]

Just musing about Stockhausen and Xenakis being 'Now' (as in Hear and Now). They are, arguably 'Then'.

More's the pity. Or Morse, if the John Thaw character were approached and asked, I reckon. Or maybe he was more an 18th/19th century music man.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Just musing about Stockhausen and Xenakis being 'Now' (as in Hear and Now). They are, arguably 'Then'. Turnage, MacMillan and Weir are 'Now'. Reich and Adams are 'Now-ish'. Oh damn. I forgot about Einaudi and Jenkins......

Indeed, ardy - which is why Karlheinz and Iannis don't feature quite so prominently in recent HCMF events as they did ten years or so ago. But you will hear Billone, Furrer, Frey, Fox, Zorn, ter Schiphorst, Birtwistle, Garland, Bailey, Lang, Coll, Pinnock, Sikorski, Lash, Ichiyanagi from this year's Festival on Hear and Now ...


... oh, and no Morse, S_A (I remember he had a dim view of "the avant-garde") - but there's quite a bit of George Lewis broadcast in the Boxing Day edition.

[Quarky]

; one has only to consider the vast difference between the work of Stockhausen and Boulez in its early and perhaps headiest days to realise this.


Does it really? That might be convenient for the purposes of making a tiresome joke about it, but...

Sorry for delay in coming back on this. Wasn't it Boulez who threatened to take a felt-tip pen to the Mona Lisa? Didn't he have something to say about destroying the art of the past?

Hence my "idle thought". But obviously you don't appreciate my sense of humour.. Then again, I'm not sure the R4 programme was entirely serious.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wasn't it Boulez who threatened to take a felt-tip pen to the Mona Lisa?

No.

Didn't he have something to say about destroying the art of the past?

No.

Hence my "idle thought". But obviously you don't appreciate my sense of humour.. Then again, I'm not sure the R4 programme was entirely serious.

Not "idle" - just downright lazy!

[Bryn]

No.


No.


Not "idle" - just downright lazy!

“It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed.” [1971, no?]

Of course, he did somewhat 'clarify' his position the following year.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Of course, he did somewhat 'clarify' his position the following year.

Precisely! - Although, obviously Oddy doesn't appreciate Boulaye's sense of humour.

[ahinton]

Precisely! - Although, obviously Oddy doesn't appreciate Boulaye's sense of humour.

...which, although Schönberg was "dead" (according to Le Maître avec Marteau), isn't perhaps so far removed from Schönberg's gag about having discovered a means of expression that would ensure the supremacy of German music for the next 100 years (to which Ronald Stevenson once ruefully observed - with no less humour in his curious missing of the point of Schönberg's own - "a strange idea for an Austrian Jew to have")...

The full revised quote (and, let's face it, over the years Pete's turned revision into something beyond an art-form) was "It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed. It's now 1971 so I'll start by destroying Pli selon pli and those three antediluvian piano sonatas"...

[Serial_Apologist]

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) 4-9 Jan

For me I'm afraid, this COTW has launched with a very inadequate opening programme.

From a snatch of Kontakte by way of three monodic Klavierstucke to the early Chore fur Doris, then onto a full but strangely laid back performance of Gruppen, by way of a student violin and piano Sonatina, neither the jumbled chronology nor Robert Worby's varispeed metrophone [sic] demonstration, managed to illuminate further Mr Worby's observation that Stockhausen, contrary to common opinion, was no revolutionary but a visionary with his roots firmly in the Austro-German music tradition.

The remainder of the week is going to have to make up for this if it is not be have turned out one big disappointment to those of us who usually hold great store by COTW.