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{shtohk'-how-zen}
The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, b. Aug. 22, 1928,
has been a leader in avant-garde music since the mid-1950s.
He studied at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, at the University
of Cologne, and was a pupil (1952-54) of Olivier Messiaen
in Paris. There he met Pierre Boulez and worked with the experimental
composition technique known as musique concrete, in which
tape-recorded natural sounds are manipulated through splicing,
reversal, speed alteration, and other techniques. He then
became music director of the Studio for Electronic Music in
Cologne . The study of phonetics and communication theory
has further influenced his work.
His earliest music reveals traits of Bartok, Schoenberg, Stravinsky,
and Webern; it was Webern's music that pointed the way to
his subsequent innovations. To Webern's theory of presenting
the notes of the chromatic scale in series, Stockhausen added
the serial ordering of other musical dimensions, such as volume,
duration, and tone color. He expanded Webern's concept of
points of interest to what he termed "group composition,"
in which several groups of materials, each having its own
character, are linked together, sometimes leaving the order
of presentation to the performer, as in Klavierstuck XI (1956).
Stockhausen's imaginative use of electronic and acoustic materials
and elements of chance has produced such innovative works
as Gruppen (1955-57), Telemusic (1966), Autumn Music (1974),
and Michael's Youth (1978-79). Light, begun in 1977, is a
7-part opera, one part for each day of the week. Thursday
was performed in New York in 1985.
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