page_title: Karlheinz Stockhausen
section_title: 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: Karlheinz Stockhausen / Compositions / 1970s
caption_attribution_description: English: Karlheinz Stockhausen in Sound Studio N, Cologne, on 7 March 2004 during the mix-down of Engel-Prozessionen (Angel Processions) from his opera Sonntag aus Licht.
context_page_description: Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. A critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music". He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, for introducing controlled chance into serial composition, and for musical spatialization.
  He was educated at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and the University of Cologne, later studying with Olivier Messiaen in Paris and with Werner Meyer-Eppler at the University of Bonn. One of the leading figures of the Darmstadt School, his compositions and theories were and remain widely influential, not only on composers of art music, but also on jazz and popular music. His works, composed over a period of nearly sixty years, eschew traditional forms. In addition to electronic music—both with and without live performers—they range from miniatures for musical boxes through works for solo instruments, songs, chamber music, choral and orchestral music, to a cycle of seven full-length operas. His theoretical and other writings comprise ten large volumes.
context_section_description: Beginning with Mantra for two pianos and electronics (1970), Stockhausen turned to formula composition, a technique which involves the projection and multiplication of a single, double, or triple melodic-line formula (Kohl 1983–84a; Kohl 1990; Kohl 2004). Sometimes, as in Mantra and the large orchestral composition with mime soloists, Inori, the simple formula is stated at the outset as an introduction. He continued to use this technique (e.g., in the two related solo-clarinet pieces, Harlekin [Harlequin] and Der kleine Harlekin [The Little Harlequin] of 1975, and the orchestral Jubiläum [Jubilee] of 1977) through the completion of the opera-cycle Licht in 2003 (Blumröder 1982; Conen 1991; Kohl 1983–84a; Kohl 1990; Kohl 1993; Kohl 2004; Stockhausen-Verlag 2010, 10). Some works from the 1970s did not employ formula technique—e.g., the vocal duet "Am Himmel wandre ich" (In the Sky I am Walking, one of the 13 components of the multimedia Alphabet für Liège, 1972, which Stockhausen developed in conversation with the British biophysicist and lecturer on mystical aspects of sound vibration Jill Purce), "Laub und Regen" (Leaves and Rain, from the theatre piece Herbstmusik (1974), the unaccompanied-clarinet composition Amour, and the choral opera Atmen gibt das Leben (Breathing Gives Life, 1974/77)—but nevertheless share its simpler, melodically oriented style (Conen 1991, 57; Kurtz 1992, 192–93). Two such pieces, Tierkreis ("Zodiac", 1974–75) and In Freundschaft (In Friendship, 1977, a solo piece with versions for virtually every orchestral instrument), have become Stockhausen's most widely performed and recorded compositions (Anon. 2007a; Deruchie 2007; Nordin 2004).
  This dramatic simplification of style provided a model for a new generation of German composers, loosely associated under the label neue Einfachheit or New Simplicity (Andraschke 1981). The best-known of these composers is Wolfgang Rihm, who studied with Stockhausen in 1972–73. His orchestral composition Sub-Kontur (1974–75) quotes the formula of Stockhausen's Inori (1973–74), and he has also acknowledged the influence of Momente on this work (Frobenius 1981, 53 + note 59–60).
  Other large works by Stockhausen from this decade include the orchestral Trans (1971) and two music-theatre compositions utilizing the Tierkreis melodies: Musik im Bauch ("Music in the Belly") for six percussionists (1975), and the science-fiction "opera" Sirius (1975–77) for eight-channel electronic music with soprano, bass, trumpet, and bass clarinet, which has four different versions for the four seasons, each lasting over an hour and a half (Stockhausen-Verlag 2010, 24–25).
caption: Stockhausen on 7 March 2004 during the mix-down of the recording of Angel Processions from Sonntag aus Licht, in Sound Studio N, Cologne. (Photo: Kathinka Pasveer).
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