Page 308 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained
P. 308
306
HE HAS CHANGED OUR
VIEW OF MUSICAL
TIME AND FORM
GRUPPEN (1955–1957), KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN
n 1955, Westdeutscher both for the way it developed
IN CONTEXT Rundfunk (WDR, the Studio for compositional technique and for
I Electronic Music of the West its huge orchestral soundscape.
FOCUS German Radio) commissioned
Total serialism
a new work from the German Structure and space
BEFORE composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The key compositional technique
1948 In Paris, Pierre Schaeffer That August, he rented a room in of Gruppen lies in its structure.
gives concerts of musique Paspels, eastern Switzerland, and In the 1920s, composers such as
concrète, featuring prerecorded planned a large and ambitious new Arnold Schoenberg had devised
sounds electronically altered piece. Although he initially aimed a way of writing music based
and manipulated. to write an electronic piece, he on set rows of 12 pitches. Later
abandoned this idea in favor of composers, such as Pierre Boulez
1950–1951 Nummer 1 for two conventional instrumentation, and Stockhausen, took this
pianos and Nummer 2 for 13 eventually conceiving a large-scale technique further, using series or
instruments by Karel work for three orchestras playing groups of notes that determined not
Goeyvaerts pioneer the simultaneously. Titled Gruppen only pitch but also musical elements
technique of “total serialism.” (“Groups”), it became well known, such as the notes’ volume and
duration—a method often known
AFTER as total serialism. The title of
1970 Mantra, for two pianos Gruppen refers to this technique,
and electronics, begins as the work is based on 174
Stockhausen’s preoccupation formulae (short groups of notes).
with melodic-line formulae. Yet this was not the only influence
Repetition is based on on its structure: the contours of the
1980 Stockhausen finishes body rhythms, so we mountains that Stockhausen saw
Donnerstag (“Thursday”), identify with the heartbeat, from his window in Switzerland
the first of his Licht cycle or with walking, or inspired his organizational
of operas. The operas are with breathing. diagrams for the piece.
composed using the serial Karlheinz Stockhausen Stockhausen scored the work for
technique of “superformulae.” three orchestras, each with its own
conductor and playing at a different
tempo, thereby transforming the
usual conception of musical time.
The orchestras are arranged in a
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