Stockhausen: Kontakte

Day 301

Stockhausen: Kontakte

Ensemble Musikfabrik

In my student days Stockhausen was one of the leading - perhaps the leading figure in European avant- garde music. His standing has rather declined since then, particularly when compared with Boulez, partly I think because he developed megalomaniac tendencies and became interested in all sorts of fringe movements and ideas.

I remember attending a live performance of Stimmung which, despite a few laugh out loud moments at the absurdity of the text was a really compelling experience. I also remember hearing recordings of Gruppen and some of the piano pieces - overall I must have heard a fair amount of his music as a student. I think that I might have heard an extract from Kontakte before but I am sure I never heard the whole thing.

Kontakte is one of the landmark pieces in integrating electronic sounds with live music. The performers were were a pianist, who also has to play some percussion, and a percussionist who has to play a multitude of instruments, including gongs, tam-tams, wooden drums, xylophones and cymbals. The sound world Stockhausen conjours up is astonishing. I don’t know precisely how the electronics work - I didn’t have access to a score - but they were an integral part of the texture and added much of real interest. There were a few times when the effects jarred or sounded comic, but these were rare. Equally there were a few moments of fairly random ‘bashing’ of the percussion instruments, which sounded out of place, but for the most part the peice was gentle and introspective.

There is about half an hour of music here and the problem is trying to discern any shape of structure to the music. Without any rhythmic pulse or sense of harmonic direction there is nothing to give an overall feel for where the music is going or where it is going to end. The piece could have been over in 15 mins or go for for two hours. That to me is one of the real problems with music of this nature. The individual sound world can be fascinating and compelling but there is, at least to me, no sense of the wider whole. 

Still is it extraordinary to think that this music is now more than 60 years old. It still sounds fresh and new.