Opus 1970 - Karlheinz Stockhausen

 

Opus 1970

Opus 1970

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Production and Text: Dr. Wilfried Daenicke

Tone Production Associate: Otto-Ernst Wohlert

Deutsche Grammophon 139 461 SLPM

Printed in Germany by Gebruder Janecke, Hannover

Manufactured by Deutsche Grammophon, Hamburg

Aloys Kontarsky - Piano

Johannes G. Fritsch, Elektrische Bratsche

Harald Boje - Eletronium

Rolf Gehlhaar - Tam-Tam

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Klangregie

From the back cover: Created during a production between the 10th and 14th December 1969 in the Godorf/Cologne Studio.

Recorded without interrupting the course of the music, a combination of takes 5 and 6 finally being adopted, with no other technical manipulations.

Based formally on the composition of "Kurzwellen" (Score: Universal Edition Vienna Nr. 14 806): material is obtained from a regulating system (radio short waves), selected freely by the player and immediately developed.

By "developed" is meant: spread, condensed, extended, shortened, differently colored, more or less articulated, transposed, modulated, multiplied, synchronized (Stockhausen).

Overall term frequently used in this connection by Stockhausen during the production: transformation.

The players imitate and vary, adhering to the sequence of development specified by the score: this process may be described as improvisation only in the quite general sense resulting from the tension between the objectivity of a given model (regulating system) and the subjectivity of spontaneous production.

As regulating system each of the four players has a magnetophone on which, for the whole of the recording period, a tape, prepared differently for each of the players, continuously reproduces fragments of music by Beethoven. The player opens and shuts the loudspeaker control whenever he wishes. Stockhausen has prepared the tapes himself, in such a way that they possess the characteristics of short-wave transmissions.

Stockhausen's intention is not to interpret, but "to hear familiar, old, pre-formed musical material with new ears to penetrate and transform it with a musical consciousness of today" as in his "Gesand der Junglinge", "Kontakte", "Momente", "Hymnen," "Prozession" and "Telemusik".

From Billboard - September 19, 1970: This imaginative avant garde album, recored last December at the Godorf/Cologne Studio, is exciting as well as inventive, ranking with Karlheinz Stockhausen's finest. Hits of Beethoven, tape variety, and a brilliant group of specialists in this far-out material combine for an avant grade, electronic gem.