Karlheinz Stockhausen: Recommendations?

Every couple of years I look at Stockhausen-Verlag wondering how much I'd have to pay to get a useful cross-section of a forbidding catalogue of work. Is anyone here up to speed with his work? (And by 'up to speed' I mean Licht and Klang as well rather than just Stimmung or Gruppen). I'd like to satisfy my curiosity without just buying blind and only later finding out that I managed to stumble over the five or six least digestible discs in an already indigestible discography.

 

I have a couple albums but one is interesting to me at least, it's on DG German press called Kontakte
and has occasionally funny tape manipulations.

 

It tends to be those early works that have been recorded more widely because of the way Stockhausen (and now his estate) took his publishing into his own hands. What makes it even more difficult is that many of his works would really benefit from surround sound ... I'm not even sure whether two channels is representative of some of these pieces.

 

Nice to see a Stockhausen thread! I'm mostly interested in his early electronic and tape manipulation work so tend to gravitate to Telemusik, Kontakte, Hymnen etc and I prefer them in their purist form, i.e. just the tape with no live accompaniment. All absolute landmarks IMO. I have these and a fair few others on original Wergo and DGG vinyl, the scarcity and price of the CDs has put me off duplicating any digitally. I was lucky enough to see him talk about and perform several of his works including Kontakte and Hymnen at the Barbican many years back, I even got him to sign my concert programme! His talks were fascinating, the amount of thought and sheer constructional effort that went into this work is simply staggering. It is amazing stuff!

 

Hymnen is essential. I have heard bits from the later operas. Can't say I've heard them enough times for the music to sink in.

 

I was fortunate to have a library nearby where they had this on LP when I was growing up.

More recently, I took one of his 70's albums from the library and there is a noise on it that makes the needle on my turntable slide a third of the way across the first side.

 

His early Klavierstück are essential in my book, especially the majestic IX. I like the Herbert Henck version on Wergo (hence the avatar), but just found this video of Pollini playing it in 2002:

 

I have Hymnen with the 6 soloists and I can highly recommend it.

 

I know his work very well, have dozens of CDs from the verlag and have scores as well. Used to perform some of the Klavierstucke. Personally I lose him around the mid 70s, when he becomes 'mystical' and melodic. I have the entire opera but have never gotten through it. One thing I find strange is that he was such a pioneer of electronic sounds but during the last couple of decades of his life he seemed to use standard out of the box DX7 type sounds. Never understood that. I would love to hear some of my favorites in surround sound, never have. Cosmic Pulses would have to be heard in surround sound to be appreciated I would think.

 

Yes, I got Hymnen from my library as well in 1970, along with the entire DGG Avant Garde series. Thank God for libraries. I wonder how many 15 year olds are digging through this material these days like I was?

 

I've gotten stuff at reasonable prices on Discogs used.

 

BTW-BBC is webcasting Hymnen in surround sound this new year. 3rd region will be with live orchestra.

 

Are we ready for a Mauricio Kagel thread?

 

Trans and Helicopter Quartet stand out for me. Trans is rather conventional for KS, as an orchestral piece, which reveals his compositional cops more than you usually get. At least it did for me - it was the first piece I heard of his that really grabbed me. Helicopter Quartet is, well, beyond description.

 

There's at least one performance of this on YouTube but it's a perfect example of a piece that is not satisfactory as a recording: I presume that a lot of the piece is the interaction between the placement and the balance between the transmitted sound of the helicopters and the direct sound audible below: balanced into two channels from the transmitted feed it just sounds like some rather uninteresting string writing being played under the most absurdly expensive & pretentious performance conditions.

Even my wife, who has sat through more experimental music than most long-suffering spouses, rolled her eyes.

 

Looks like I started this thread just in time for this to be drawn to my attention!

 

Song for Youths/Contact for certain

I also enjoy the Mikrophonie LP on CBS, but that may be a case of an introductory album becoming a favourite

 

Stockhausen is Composer of the Week this week (4th-9th January 2016) on BBC Radio 3 for those, like me, with a timely interest in hearing some more of his work.

I listened to the Hymnen broadcast and had a very mixed response to it. In the longer electronic/tape regions (1, 2 & 4) the few inspiringly strange moments came at the hefty expense of sitting through long sections that sound, inevitably, like bad Radiophonics from the 1980s or someone fiddling with a new effects unit. On the other hand Region 3 with the live orchestra had that nice effect of sounds fading in between artificial and instrumental: I'm afraid I show a bourgeois appreciation for 'real' musicianship.

My wife, it should be said, found two and a half hours of this stuff pretty hard going, even though she was doing her best to filter it out. I can't anticipate her being exactly welcoming more Stockhausen into her life.