Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away

Karlheinz Stockhausen died on December 5. He was 79.

It is difficult to characterize his music in a couple of lines. He belongs to the great family of radical artists of the twentieth century who made no concession to the public taste and just followed their own roads, setting the new roads of art. Messiaen, Varèse, Webern, Schaeffer, Mondrian, Klee, Cage, Tenney, Brakhage... to give only a few names here, somehow related to Stockhausen... electronic, concrete, stochastic, ergodic music... music, painting, film, with subtle connections between them.

Klang was the title of the cycle of compositions created by Stockhausen after 2003; also the name Tenney gave to the basic musical unit in his seminal Meta Hodos.

Here are four fragments from Stockhausen's creation... tinny drops from his immense work:


Klavierstuecke Ⅹ

HYMNEN integrates a wide variety of national anthems and transforms them electronically (Click here if the video does not appear).

Kontakte (Click here if the video does not appear).

Helicopter String Quartet (Click here if the video does not appear).

(Musica Nova)