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Here is a catalogue raisonee of Stockhausens complete output, involving no technical analyses, but rather an examination of the musics aesthetic, practical, and intellectual assumptions. The book contains plentiful citations from the history of radio, film, and sound recording, and from contemporary science and technology. Laid out in strict chronological order, it contains unusually ample commentary on the composers sources of inspiration, including discussions of the composers Hermann Schroeder, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer, Herbert Eimert, John Cage, the information scientist Werner Meyer-Eppler, and structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.Each of Stockhausens compositions is treated on its own terms, and also as a piece in a larger puzzle, embracing surrealist art and literature as well as music. Each composition is fully documented within the text with full information of the publisher, catalogue number, ainstrumentation, duration, and composer-authorized compact disc. ... Read more

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incredibly comprehensive, a Good Read
For some time now there's been little published in English on Stockhausen, Maconie's work here makes up for lost time, You can however study with Stockhausen himself if you rather not simply read a book,that real-life, real-time reality fixes seems to be the "buzz" now. You can be a "Survivor" yourself after spending time with Stockhausen and his incredible approach to making music/art/time/space/timbre/mists/clouds/lines/texts; he offers courses each August in Kurten a suburb of Cologne.

Maconie studied with everyone in the European avant-garde,and has been there for premiere performances and knows both sides of the fence, the theoretical/conceptual and performative,and has wonderful insights into not only where certain works are situated within Stockhausen's creative evolution, but the performance problems, and responses to current or latter day reality.
The work here is organized situated around concepts,"polarities","revolution", "aleatory", "Contacts" "Uncertainty" or more functional items as"rhythmic cells",(dealing with early Boulez and Messiaen's concepts) of organizing musical moments(Stockhausen came to abandon this way of thinking in the early Fifties with the first four :klavierstuck: wirtten in Paris),or "Temperaments", as the use in electronic music as "Studie" :Gesange der Juenglinge:.

Chapters come to be like galaxies,"mists" where Stockhausen's music circles revolves around,like layers/swirls of functions,working premises. Maconie traces the breaking off points as well as realms of innovation,which can take odd turns as his ongoing disinterest in strings for example,(violins, cellos)culminated as the subverted "Helikopter Quartet".Strings, here the Arditti Quartet in motion flying away from each other.I wonder if $100,000 instruments were used for this journey?

Also surveyed herein was Stockhausen's early interest in Meyer-Eppler,"how time passes" and communication theory, his concepts of Zeit,densities of Time, and Cycles in music of "particles" of tones,points,"Punkt" "groups", "clusters",each work is given explanation,as for example the coordinated utilization of timbre in the early works, how instrumental color became associated with electronic tones as the sine wave(flute), sawtooth(brass), as in the early "Kontra-Punkte", and later "Kontakte", there was a set of problematics in the interface of electronic sounds with instrumental timbre which was not really resolved interestingly, each realm became unto itself, influence by the other but seldom inhabiting the same conceptual space, "Gruppen for three orchestras" for example was largely influenced by thinking of tones electronically, the complexity of timbral/textural modulations,but the work functions with pure instrumental timbre.
Not until the introduction of LIVE electronics as in the process pieces, as "Plus-Minus", or "Telemusik", "Kurzwellen", the use of short-wave radios", did this get resolved. Improvisation was also the "buzz"in the late Sixties, Seventies that Stockhausen adopted as in these works and "Aus dem Sieben tagen", a set of word pieces as a stimulant for improvisation."Take another's sound and follow it"
Stockhausen was always unrelenting in his search for the next thread of innovation be it any realm even transformations of timbre itself as in his various "klavierstuck", the overwhelming complexity of timbre in the :Tenth klavierstuck: for example, situates a subterranean realm in the extended uses of silences, as like a subverted mirror where the music can only be remembered,the discourse is transgressed; but the piano timbre then is like independent to itself not responsive to anything outside the moment when it occurs and then it is fairly continuous as an organ with the forcefulness,andthe directedness of the acoustic piano capabilities,as large size cluster chords,brutal forearm and the cluster glissandi.

Maconie goes straight through the lifeworlds here with talks on the the various pieces from LICHT, all of it, and we get to know the various forms this opera has takened, with "franchises" of works from each of the operas that can be performed as an independently as an excerpt. Maconie writes well with metaphors created from popular culture, Buster Keaton,films to situate Stockhausen's rather austere,cold work at times within a larger context of the here and now. We learnhowever that deep down Karlheinz is a bit of a conservative,having his own fixed points of "comfort zones" throughout his massive oeuvre yet harboring an aesthetic still for innovation,for the unknown not ever succombing(arguably) to the vagaries of the marketplace with repeatable works and gestures, or throw-away art. He has takened issue for example with American Pop Art as a means of escaping the issues of contemporary expression, and Stockhausen always replaces escape into entertainment(popular forms, tunes, nefarious corrupted minimalism, improvisation copy-cats) with hard-work, the Protestant ethic as Weber has said.
But the operas under LICHT are in fact reponses to the current scene, of feminism,myth and cosmology of the moment "Montag",then childhood somewhat autobiographical in "Donnerstag", or war and violence in "Dienstag",Tuesday, the god of Mars,and the first opera on evil and corruption-darknesses, Lucifer's Dreams as in "Samstag". Each opera is given wonderful discussion,with verbal descriptions of what occurs on stage. Still this is an incredible book. . . ... Read more

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Inspiring Thoughts of a Modern Musical Giant
Looking back at the twentieth century, Stockhausen stands out as one of the most creative forces in music.In this book, the composer shares in prose his thoughts on the world and on music.He asserts his commitment to sound, and to the taking into account of all aspects of sound in his compositions.He also outlines his dreams of how music will relate to culture as a whole, how music will be presented, and the characteristics of future music.This book is, just as performances of his music are, an inspiration and a challenge to me as a composer and musician.

This is, though, just Stockhausen's hint as to the processes and content of his music.The real proof is in the music itself, which supersedes whatever anyone says about it.

exposition into a great musical mind of the 20th century. .
. . . if you have no idea of the Stockhausen Haus of creativity, the genius who resides within, this is for you, although the material here is quite old,from 1981, interviews, and lectures even older from 1971 in London, this is/are materials: perceptive in teaching how his innovations,scourings,analyses,timbral combustions,and architectural musical plannings/ scores set in motion a set of musical problematics. I guess I've always abandoned that aspect of Stockhausen, the teacher side, and he has always been/ was fascinating: begging,demanding,requiring of his students to read the great works of world culture, from Asia and the ancient Aztec culture.One where Aztec priests in Oaxaca would shuffle between alters underground before thousands giving the impression of a multitude of priests, when in fact there was a handful. This thinking was utilized in his works for musical rituals.All the valuable material was the interview here with long a Stockhausen devotee Robin Maconie.

His entire life is here within these dicrete lectures discussing the/his primary works of this century,"Kontakte" where aftergrueling sessions for days with Gottfried Michael Koenig.tech assistant in Cologne,he informed him that "we need to do it all over again",also"Mikrophonie",(one of the first live electronic works to grace the world) excursions into momente form, intuitive music,word pieces "from the Seven last days", the hippie-like "Stimmung" "voicings" on a single chord, (very Germanic, Boulez had said.) Even the early music of "Zeitmasse" for five winds is talked about defined as "early lyric and dramatic" forms,Also the percussion solo"Zyklus".

Whatever you may think of Stockhausen he is a genius and music has not been the same since.(he at one time thought he commuted with extraterrestrial beings)

What's missing is excursions into the operas, "Licht" one( an opera)for each day of the week.

There is also a fantastic addendum list of selected 16 mm films made throughout Karlheinz's life with addresses supposedly where obtainable.This list includes excerpts, fragments from the FORMULA from "Licht". "Samstag" is available in colour. Also a complete discography and list of works, until 1988. When queried on what a new music students today needs??, the reply was stuff for the ears, exercises, like transcribing an unknown musical work onto paper,cold,right now,"Hoerbildung" something he did with his monumental "Hymnen". Also playing more than one instrument is preferable to only one, and singing in a choir is helpful. For composition he relates a time in Rome teaching 120 participants for 19 Days,where he had each write a "Formula",(a pre-compositional-like planning), from his own work at such structural lunar planning, he would then criticize, make suggestions,then when the actual work was done, Stockhausen would play them all himself,again highlighting where a bad rhythm, a bad note, a bad pause may occur.Acoustics should also be a requirement, and dancing, dance within anyone any kind, disco,folk,get down. He also has very practical advise on just writing music,saying for instance how a Boulez score makes him tear his hair out, being so(Boulez's scores) "overdetermined". and Boulez had a meticulous musical mind.

This is a wonderful capsule OF a great musical mind of this century, and perhaps for those to come.

Excellent collection of articles
This is an excellent collection osf articles wich focuses on differents aspects of Stockhausen musical thinking. Make a good read of "Ponts and groups", "Composing statistically","Moment-forminng and MOMENTE" and "Microphonie". It wasspecially fruitful for me, despite I have benn reading differents booksabout Stockhausen before. It is also strongly recommended for those whowant to read about him for the first time. There are several of allusionsto his bests works, specially the one he composed in the 60's, likeKontakte or Gruppen. It is not a strongly "ego" book like theinterview of Mya Tannenbaum, so you may enjoy it, and, certainly learn alot about him and about music too. ... Read more

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Robin Maconie's overview charts Stockhausen's development from the 1950s, including major work composed since 1970. ... Read more

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Karlheinz Stockhausen Volume 1 ... Read more

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Karlheinz Stockhausen hat die Neue Musik nach 1950 so entscheidend gepragt, daa seine Werke Gegenstand zahlreicher, mitunter uberaus kontroverser Erorterungen geworden sind. Indes sind die Grundlagen seines iuvres, die noch vor das eigentliche Komponist-Sein zuruckdatieren, heute keineswegs schon ausreichend geklart. Anhand der Interpretation fruher schriftlicher Dokumente (darunter der bislang unbekannte Briefwechsel mit Hermann Hesse) und exemplarischer Werk-Analysen werden erstmals die Wurzeln von Stockhausens musikalischem Schaffen offengelegt, zentrale kompositorische Intentionen vermittelt und Ausblicke auf das Gesamtuvre eroffnet: Ein Standardwerk fur jede weitere Beschaftigung mit der Musik Stockhausens sowie mit Neuer Musik uberhaupt. Inhalt:Orientierung an Hermann Hesse - Kompositorische Fundamente (1950-51): Reinheit des Werkes, Form des Kreuzes - Die Botschaft: Ubermittlung gottlicher Vollkommenheit, Verschiedene Gestalten im gleichen Licht - Kriterien der seriellen Komposition (1952): Musik als Tonordnung, Abstrakte Ton-Weltkonzeption - Ausblicke . (Franz Steiner 1993) ... Read more

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Cosmic or Commercial
Not actually written by Mr. Stockhausen, this series of interviews challenges any aspiring musician/composer to be rid of cliches and knee jerk reactions, and to pay homage to the 'sound,' not the dollar. He is faithful to the end to the sovereignty of music, will draw your attention to the banal treatment given to sound design both in and out of the music industry, and will expand your sinusoid apperception, well... to a cosmic level. If you've ever wished you could construct an orchestra hall to meet your composition's specifications, you'll do well to read this extremely insightful dialouge.

Cosmic or Commercial
Not actually written by Mr. Stockhausen, this series of interviews challenges any aspiring musician/composer to be rid of cliches and knee jerk reactions and to pay homage to the 'sound,' not the dollar. He is faithful to the end to the soverignty of music, will draw your attention to the banal treatment given to sound design both in and out of the music industry, and will expand your sinusoid apperception, well... to a cosmic level. If you've ever wished you could construct an orchestra hall to meet your composition's specifications, you'll do well to read this. ... Read more

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Helikopter's of Stockhausen
if you like contemporary music this Issue has an excerpt from LICHT, a massive opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen who passed not long ago, this excerpt is a string quartet, but not sitting on a stage, Stockhausen had a dream of flying musicians also the sound/timbre of airplanes always intrigued him; the piece is where 4 brave musicians(2 Violins, Viola and CEllo) each go inside a Helikopter. The interesting music, lots of tremoli is played from the air hovering inside each helikopter one per musician in sinusoidal waves,very beautiful; what they play is transmitted to the ground where all of it is mixed with the Helikopter noises,(an integral contrapuntal thread of the piece) and very expensive electronic music; it all blends marvelously together.
The music excerpt from LICHT one opera for each day of the week is fairly self-contained,and there have been other pieces "franchised" out to be played as solos away from the cosmological dimensions of the opera;Stockhausen's genius I suppose is that his music can be lifted most of the time out of context;so you really never want to search to see the context of totality;this quartet is from (Mittwoch aus Licht), 'Wednesday', "Middling", "Mid-Week", each opera is about something, a sensibility, a state of something, violence elsewhere timeless,never seen,war,(Dienstag) reflections,numererical things (Samstag) some more animated, some adhering to a higher symbolic order, some hiding, preserving its ideology, other proclaiming it or denouncing it, "Mittwoch" reduces its players to microbes, more animated, musicians are simply "cells", voices of the universe, like Messiaen's "birds", a direct reflection of something that is not entirely human, but flying around in Helikopters makes the players somewhat brave, Wotan-like exploring a situation never encountered by musicians;in the opera players are reduced to nth particles, timbral fragments, never seen, you really never see the quartet,they are above you unless;you see the DVD; (here the Arditti String Quartet has been brave enough to render this work in Holland,1995 excellent film on this,search youtube)In this Issue you also get the full set of instructions, the score cast interestingly in different colours for each part, red,blue, orange, green. . . ... Read more

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Karlheinz Stockhausen, the most controversial composer to have emerged from postwar Germany, has had a powerful influence on contemporary music. This intriguing series of interviews between Stockhausen and Mya Tannenbaum, a reporter for the noted Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, reveals the human personality behind the music, touching upon his working methods, his family, his attitudes toward the various arts, and his outspoken views on religion, mysticism, astrology, humanity, and the universe. We hear polemics against many members of the music profession, from the great conductors and performers to the anonymous electricians and technicians, and yet, despite Stockhausen's intolerant and opinionated criticism of others, one cannot put the book down without having acquired a greater interest in, and sympathy for, his music. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

art & politics: documenting praxis
This a compelling (& still relevant) grouping of criticism, performance history & discussion of compositional choices. The focus on integrating aesthetic production with (some might say subordinating to) active political commitment to social progress is something of an antedote to the melancholic or hibernating sensibility that seems to have haunted & paralyzed much of the avant-garde over the past quarter century. The writing is clear, empassioned and, like the music Cardew et al argue for, concerned with serving its audience - the working class. The almost economistic Marxism is refreshingly very anti-pomo (e.g. the authors see a very clear correspondence between cultural products and the class positions they reveal). Still, what i find most useful about this book is its very provisional, dialectical and self-critical honesty as we are allowed a glimpse of what it is to be a committed artist engaged in active social change. Don't take my word for it; the entire book is available for free download at ubuweb.

Extremist yet what the musical avant-garde needed
While returning home late on a cold night in December 1981, composer Cornelius Cardew was struck by a hit-n-run driver. The situation surrounding his death is indeed opaque, that he may have been murdered bythe extreme right-wing working in London. Cardew led a dangerous life, asan activist Marxist. He was arrested for his activities in Camberwell andfor a time was homeless,living in a train station in the north of London.The last year of his life he was learning various Asian languages,Pakistani,and Indian to work within those communities against a growingracism,where firebombings of homes was becoming a frequent occurence. Healso had an innate gift for organizing rallies and demonstrations againstthe Right-Wing, and that may have been the cause of his demise. Still hewas loved and admired by countless musicians,artists and activists. Therewere numerous memorial concerts after his death in London,Rome,NewYork,Toyko, Australia and Chicago, as well as specific pieces written forhim in remembrance by Skempton,Curran,Lombardi. This work"Stockhausenserves Imperilaism" was like a cup of hot black coffee for soberingthe musical avant-garde when it was written in the early Seventies and itis a shame it is now out-of-print. There is an Italian translation,although next to impossible to obtain.Although Cardew's demeanor, the tenorof his language was a bit extreme, against the avant-garde he once lovedand became an important integral part of in England,he believed in the pathhe had chosen. And here he gives along with Rod Ely and John Tilbury abrief history of The Scratch Orchestra, an odd mixtures of professional andnon-professional musicians,conceptual artists,composers from all walks oflife. One Scratch credo was"to create music for those who needit". And they frequently did this playing Beethoven Symphonies withwhatever means available, piano,two saxophones,one cello, one trumpet andaccordeon. Morton Feldman once said of Cardew, that any advancements,anyprogressive strains for music in England will only come about because ofCardew's efforts. So you might ask "why does Stockhausen serveimperialism?" and not Cage, nor Berio,nor Boulez. Well they all do,and it was Cardew's function here to make known the growing elitism thatwas becoming part of the avant-garde. To make known the role of the artist.Stockhausen was an consummate example for Cardew's diatribe, a careeristcomposer(Stockhausen) who expolited the market and musical genres freelyobsconding with concepts from Cage,and Cardew and whatever was the currentbuzz as his hippy=like "Stimmung" where six vocalists sit in acircle intoning the names of lost Indian and Asian gods, or his excursionsinto graphic notation holdovers from Cage, and more importantly Cardew, his193 page "Treatise" written in with impeccable craftsmanship of ameans toward a structured improvisation. But Cardew's relavance inretrospect of close to 30 years, is he tried to question what theavant-garde was doing and attempted to create a bridge between theadvancements of culture and aesthetics and a politics that craved freedomunpretenciously. Hebegan to set Irish and Chinese revolutionary songs forthe piano, and made music the central means of his activism. No one to datehas really appraised Cardew's political work in culture from within thiscontext, and no one has seriously dealt with the set of problematics of anengaged musical artist. All see him as an ungifted extremist,as criticsJohn Rockwell, Norman Lebrecht,Adrian Jack,Robert Morgan,or Samuel Lipman.In contrast perhaps the current work on Brecht by Frederic Jameson or thewritings of Paolo Freire are more vigorous beginningsin attempting toidentify the conceptual categories envolved for an engaged politicalartist. But the New Left today has ceased having an affinity for activismas Cardew espoused, he is like an ancient preserve of an old lost time thatfew would care to remember or rethink. The opposite theoretical realm ofthis work would be Derrida's "Spectres of Marx" where activism itseems only exists in the performative realm of thought within the safeconfines of the four corners of the page. ... Read more