Stockhausen: Kontakte No12

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
One of the ironies of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's career is the way in which his radical approach to music--once the epitome of the most esoteric avant-gardism--has been filtered into popular culture. The influence of this visionary pioneer of electronic music extended to the studio experiments of the Beatles (particularly in Sgt. Pepper's) and can still be heard in the sampling of today's techno records. The seminal Kontakte (1959/1960) introduced a brave new world of aural experience, replacing traditional music's linear flow of development with the concept of "Moment Form"--Stockhausen's catchphrase for concentrating on the validity of the "now," of each particular musical gesture independent of its larger context. He originally conceived of the work as purely electronic sounds, but this second version introduces two live players (a pianist and percussionist) interacting--in points of "contact"--with a prerecorded array of frequencies. On first impression, Kontakte may seem nothing more than a 35-minute babble of chaotic noises (though it is, paradoxically, planned to a very high level). Forget about the theory, forget about the once-utopian dreams of giving music the prestige of scientific objectivity, and just listen to the stream of electronic burps, squawks, whizzes, and--toward the conclusion--serene cloudlike mists as they metamorphose. It's a stunning soundscape and document of a particularly potent period of revolution in modern music. --Thomas May --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Stockhausen: Kontakte No12, Music, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Christoph Caskel, David Eugene Tudor, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Music for Tape/Electronics and Live Performer(s)

Average customer rating:

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Prefer the Electronic Version

This Is Probably Stockhausen's Best

Certainly the work of a mad man

masterpiece from heaven

Stockhausen: Kontakte No12

Manufacturer: Wergo Germany
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Stockhausen, Karlheinz | ( S ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B000025R06
Release Date: 1993-12-08

Tracks:

Kontakte: Teil 1
Kontakte: Teil 2

Amazon.com

One of the ironies of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's career is the way in which his radical approach to music--once the epitome of the most esoteric avant-gardism--has been filtered into popular culture. The influence of this visionary pioneer of electronic music extended to the studio experiments of the Beatles (particularly in Sgt. Pepper's) and can still be heard in the sampling of today's techno records. The seminal Kontakte (1959/1960) introduced a brave new world of aural experience, replacing traditional music's linear flow of development with the concept of "Moment Form"--Stockhausen's catchphrase for concentrating on the validity of the "now," of each particular musical gesture independent of its larger context. He originally conceived of the work as purely electronic sounds, but this second version introduces two live players (a pianist and percussionist) interacting--in points of "contact"--with a prerecorded array of frequencies. On first impression, Kontakte may seem nothing more than a 35-minute babble of chaotic noises (though it is, paradoxically, planned to a very high level). Forget about the theory, forget about the once-utopian dreams of giving music the prestige of scientific objectivity, and just listen to the stream of electronic burps, squawks, whizzes, and--toward the conclusion--serene cloudlike mists as they metamorphose. It's a stunning soundscape and document of a particularly potent period of revolution in modern music. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews:

..||...........||.......||||.......|...|||||....|...|||...............2007-07-22

Pulsing electronic tones, sustained and modified -- spiky dissonance on piano -- indefinable noises -- a scattered array of percussion sounds. Tied together by a strange logic where neither seems to exist for the sake of the other, rather they have a decisive wholeness, a `unity of opposites'. So goes this recording of Stockhausen's _Kontakte_. Unlike the electronics-only piece, here we have the marriage of electronics and acoustics, and it was a considerable leap for the fifties avant-garde, where movements like serialism were being abandoned and some radical futurists believed electronics the next progression for music. Stockhausen's _Kontakte_ for piano, percussion, and electronic tape is a world where the ostensible contradictions between tradition and modernity do not arise, but are simply realized with the tertiary ingredient being Stockhausen's imagination. Yes, there are relations to other contemporary works by Stockhausen, about which you can read more in other reviews and commentaries. Particularly there is the "movement form", where Stockhausen eschewed dramatic conventions, so his pieces, as he wrote, "lead up to no climax, nor do they have preprared, and thus expected, climaxes, nor the usual introductory, intensifying, transitional, and cadential stages which are related to the curve of development in a whole work; they are rather immediately intense and -- permanently present - endeavor to maintain the level of continued peaks up to the end; forms in which at any moment one may expect a maximum or a minimum, and in which one is unable to predict with certainty the direction of the development from any given point; forms in which an instant is not a piece of a passage of time, a moment not a partical of a measured duration, but in which the concentration on `now', on every `now' makes verticals incisions, which break through a horizontal concept of time, leading to timelessness". It is worth quoting Stockhausen at length here for two reasons - firstly, to call attention to the parallel between this conception and methodology of musical-creation and that of Schoenberg's original forays into atonality, intended to be a more `egalitarian' form of music where every instant was equally as important as every other -- a means of resolving the separateness between the part and the whole. secondly, to say that conventions are always relative, and certain things among the radical artists would have seemed conventional by this time. What I am trying to torturously get across is that _Kontakte_ doesn't just combine existing ideas to make a new idea, but continues the pathbreaking progression without making concessions to the different approach. The music is excellent -- it is like a glimpse into a different world, with long sections of mysterious electronic noise, strange jazz-like sections where percussion and piano crash and plink, ringing bells over rumbling blips, and beautiful emergent dissonances. The acoustic players, pianist David Tudor and percussionist Christopher Caskel, deserve special credit for their attention to the alien nature of the overall soundworld -- you will forget that human players are involved. Being from 1959-60, it precedes many corollary threads like space-rock a la early Tangerine Dream and avant-garde jazz, and it is as good as the upper tiers of such offshoots. This is a powerful and historic work.

Prefer the Electronic Version.......2006-01-07

I much prefer the all-electronic version of Kontakte: it's the same as the electronic parts you hear on this recording, only without the piano or percussion. The interaction of the acoustic instruments with the electronic parts on tape starts to seem predictable--the tape plays for a while then the pianist stabs out some violent staccato bits, the percussionist hammers out some violent staccato bits, then the tape plays a bit longer and the pianist responds with some violent staccato bits, and/or the percussionist hammers out some violent staccato bits...

I have the all-electronic version on an old DG vinyl recording. It can be very lyrical at times, and even though it's supposed to be completely "in the moment", eschewing old-fashioned compositional form, it nevertheless flows and evolves and feels like it has an inner musical logic. Or maybe the musical moments are just more musical. It's remarkable what Stockhausen could coax out of the primitive electronic sound-producing gizmos of the time.

The problem is that the electronic version is available on CD only from Stockhausen Verlag, which means you have to order it directly from Karlheinz himself for $30 plus $18 handling charges. But hey, a 180-page booklet is included! Nevertheless, I'm almost thinking of ordering it; in any event I'd rather spend the extra money to get the electronic version, which has moved me greatly over the years, than to spring for this electro-acoustic version which leaves me completely uninspired.

This Is Probably Stockhausen's Best.......2005-11-13

I like this one or _Mantra_ best out of the ones I've been able to get my hands on. And that's the beauty of Stockhausen: you like each piece on its own terms. Each piece comes from its own set of suppositions, guaranteeing a unique experience every time. This one here is certainly one of the scariest pieces, but this is a horror that is transformative as you realize that the uncanny electric glissandoes are perfectly in tune with the glissandoes of the human psychic mechanism.

Certainly the work of a mad man.......2005-10-30

Stockhausen is without doubt the pioneer of electronic music. I would venture to say that he would be more influential than The Beatles who are often tagged as influencing everyone. But having listened to this work, you can't help but feel, on first listen, that this is an extremely random, alienating listening experience. Is it good? On first listen you may not think so. But with repeated listens it gradually makes a little more sense. But it still feels impossibly random and you don't know where the next sound is going to come from. In a way this is more like a horror movie played through music in that you truly don't know what's going to happen next. And the fact that with repeated listens you still have no clue either makes this a work of eccentric genius that should be hailed or as has being quoted one time whether someone heard of Stockhausen's music " I don't think I've heard any but I believe I have trodden on some." So your ears are needed here to make out what you think is right option.

masterpiece from heaven.......2005-03-16

basicly this a wild and unpredictable ride that never slows down its qa masterpiece from god!

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