Donnerstag aus Licht

In center Michael trumpet, Michael tenor (on gurney), Michael dancer

A full length, fully realized performance of Stockhausen's Donnerstag aus Licht (Thursday from Light) has been presented in Basel and live streamed through sonostream.tv.  If you hurry, you can see it for yourself.  It is important to notice that this work, composed in 1978-80, came very quickly after Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach (1976).  My son assures me there is a full 7 day cycle, but we find one day sufficient.  The two operas, Donnerstag and Einstein, share the feature of having instrumentalists appear on stage as characters.

I notice from reading Wikipedia that the staging presented here does not precisely conform to the description of the action in Wikipedia.  Then I notice that the Stockhausen Foundation for Music has "grave misgivings" about the staging presented here.  With Einstein the opera and the staging are considered one.  Wikipedia also reassures us that "no clear meaning is apparent."

Conductor: Titus Engel
Production: Lydia Steier
Dramaturgy: Pavel B. Jiracek

Michael (tenor): Peter Tantsits (act 1), Rolf Romei (act 3)
Michael (trumpeter):  Paul Hübner
Michael (dancer): Emmanuelle Grach
Eve (mother, soprano): Anu Komsi
Eve (basset horn):  Merve Kazokoğlu
Eve (dancer):  Evelyn Angela Gugolz
Lucifer (father, bass): Michael Leibundgut
Lucifer (trombone): Stephen Menotti
Lucifer (dancer): Eric Lamb

Helicopter String Quartet

This is the Elysium Quartet performing Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet as part of the world premiere of the opera Mittwoch aus Licht by the Birmingham Opera Company 22.08.12. It was written between 1995 and 1997. There are other days in the week, but he didn't finish the whole cycle. It didn't get its premiere until this year, so if you missed it, you may not get a second chance.  Feel free to skip around in the video.

Here is something from someone who went to this in Birmingham.

Hymnen

I have a lot of free time. That means I can sit around and listen to stuff like Karlheinz Stockhausen's (1928–2007) Hymnen, a piece from 1966-67. This is in four channels. I listen to things through earphones, so I get a definite stereo effect. It is supposed to be made up of national anthems, some sung by choruses, with a lot of electronic manipulation.

The first comment says "The problem with all these 60's electronic piece is that they sound dated now as technology has progressed." Some of it sounds like needles on vinyl. That would definitely date it. There are 22 pages of comments.

I've never been in a situation where I could actually listen to this stuff.


Another landmark of the twentieth century is Yannis Xenakis' (1922-2001) Metastasis (1953-4) which created patterns from mathematical probability theory. He studied with Messiaen. I like the way this is displayed in YouTube, but it's pretty tedious. I generally think Messiaen is rather bizarre but interesting. Einstein is blamed.

One is supposed to know about these things.