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contemporary composers
Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN (b.1928)
Gy鰎gy KURT罣 (b.1926)
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DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 447 761-2
J黵gen Ruck guitar
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Marcus Creed,
Freidrich Goldman and Claudio Abbado
[44:38] full-price
* Live performances
No composer divides opinion amongst people as widely as Stockhausen. For many he is a charlatan whose output has progressively become so separated from what people define as classical music he is seen as a late twentieth century freak. For others, he has redefined what might have become a dying art, generating explorations into sound worlds of white noise and the possibilities of chance within defined structures. But like Boulez, whose classicism is the more potent, Stockhausen stands as one of the colossuses of post-war music.
Left: Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Gruppen (1955-1957) is Stockhausen's first great work. Structured for three orchestras, 109 players in all, the work requires three conductors. The premiere in 1958 was conducted by Stockhausen, Boulez and the Italian composer Bruno Maderna and the version conducted by Abbado, Goldman and Creed is the first to have been made since 1965. The division of the orchestras, one on the left, one in the centre and one on the right, mirrors the division of a symphony orchestra on stage, the difference being in Gruppen that each orchestra includes roughly the same number of instruments, chosen principally by the scales of timbre.
The actual separation of the orchestras allows the possibilities of spatialism to be developed, different tempi to be introduced simultaneously and several temporal layers of sound to be built up, something that a single orchestra would find impossible to achieve. The importance of the separation of orchestral textures created a new concept of instrumental music in space: sound was determined from several directions rather than one and the motion of the music, whether it be from fusion or isolation, came from different angles. Gruppen is principally a work that creates its own drama from the three orchestras, it is about crescendos that suggest one group of players and melodic interventions from sparring sections of the three orchestras that suggest chamber music.
It is ironic that such a seminal work as this has been so little recorded, and whilst this new version is to be recommended it is not entirely ideal. All modern music requires great preparation, principally because it is unfamiliar, but also because it requires a greater sense of orchestral balance than most other works. This recording is not balanced to the best effect - indeed at times you would very hard placed to identify the guitar that plays such a crucial role in the work. This is partly the fault of the sound engineering, although the actual quality of the sound is excellent. The playing itself is error-strewn (there are rumours that Stockhausen listened to only the first four minutes of this recording before giving up). However, it is an exceptionally persuasive performance, played with some bite and intensity by the Berlin Philharmonic (who whilst premiering at least one of Stockhausen's works have rather ignored his music).
Gy鰎gy Kurt醙, a Hungarian composer two years older than Stockhausen, was one of the many young composers who attended the premiere of Gruppen. Significantly less well known than Stockhausen, he has really only gained an international reputation in the last 15 or so years of the 20th century, and both of these works date from this period.
Grabstein f黵 Stephan, or "Gravestone for Stephen" (1989) is in part a requiem, and its sound world is significantly different from Stockhausen's. It is a short work, but one that is incredibly focused and ultimately profoundly intense. Beginning with chords played on the guitar, and with exchanges between woodwind, the development is towards funereal dissonance culminating in the first climax past low strings and dark woodwind and brass at 3:42. The effect is at once startling and terrifying, particularly since the music then returns to the minimalism of the guitar, only for the piece to end in the devastation of total silence.
Stele (1994), written for Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, is principally a three movement funeral symphony. The opening, bold and almost Beethovenian (in fact, Stele opens with the almost identical chord that starts Beethoven's Seventh Symphony), is marked "adagio" and is dominated by slow glissando and wide vibrato. The second movement, marked "lamentoso", has extraordinary sonorous string sounds punctuated by a savage swirling of orchestral bravado. Simple and returning modulations recall the minimalist guitar solo that dominates Grabstein. The final movement, molto sostenuto, has a lamenting quality to it, almost yearning in the strength that derives from the strings. The piece ends slowly, and with the repetition of the modulations that echo throughout the close of the second movement.
Both of the Kurt醙 pieces receive premier recordings on this disc, and both are played with refinement by the Berlin Philharmonic. The soundscape is entirely different from Stockhausen's, but the impact is no less intense. This disc offers a good opportunity to obtain a fine (but imperfect) recording of one of Stockhausen's more accessible works with a coupling that inhabits a quite different soundworld. Deutsche Grammophone, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the leading label for "avant garde" music, should be congratulated for releasing this challenging disc.
What is Stockhausen's achievement? Just as Beethoven revolutionised the symphony with the "Eroica" in 1804, with his compression of themes and the expansion of dramatic development, so Stockhausen has completely altered our perceptions of what music is. Sound colour and silence are symbiotic in a Stockhausen composition, the human voice often pushed to the limits of impossibility, as in his Sirius (1975-77). The possibilities of the tape machine were almost exhausted with Kontakte (1960), and the absorption of other cultural music into quasi-classical forms such as the Mayan and Aztec ethnicity of Stimmung (1968) showed an openness to explore world music that few composers have been brave enough to do. His on-going cycle of operas, one for each of the seven days, Licht, is the nearest this century will produce to the revolutionary cycle of operas that Wagner composed in Der Ring Des Niebulungen.
Photograph by Erich Auerbach.
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Ad鑣: Life Story Arnold: Orchestral Works Daugherty: American Icons Elias: The Prayer Cycle G髍ecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs De Meij: Lord of the Rings Nyman: Piano Concerto. MGV Nyman: Where the Bee Dances |
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P鋜t: Summa. Fratres Penderecki: Violin Concerti Rutter: Te Deum, et al. Sallinen: Works for Strings Stolarczyk: Symphony for 96 Pianos Tan Dun: Symphony 1997 Tavener: The Protecting Veil Vasks: Cello Concerto. Voices |
ink-troduction
Marc Bridle will be directing the British premier of Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet from the cockpit of his Sikorsky.
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