Serial music as architecture


"Herbert Eimert, who was a critic of Kölnische Rundschau, was a gentle patriarchal figure whom many people found rather unapproachable. In the following years he was to become Stockhausen's paternalistic sponsor, paving his way for his first performances and employment at WDR (West German Radio). Eimert himself had dabbled in composition. The bases of his musical thinking were measure and number; he was deeply impressed when he later found these features in the construction of the Moorish Alhambra Palace in Southern Spain (above), describing it as 'serial music in terms of architecture'" - from Stockhausen - A Biography by Michael Kurtz (Faber ISBN 057117146). Which is also where the graphic below from Stockhausen's score for Zyklus came from.


The recent release of Stimmung by the Theatre of Voices directed by Paul Hillier has been spending a lot of time in my CD player. This is the first recording of this work for more than twenty years, and follows on from Paul Hillier's recent CD of Terry Riley's In C which was recorded in Copenhagen with the Danish vocal group Ars Nova. Stimmung also comes from Copenhagen, but this time with Theatre of Voices who now include several singers from Ars Nova. It seems that football teams aren't the only ones transferring players.

Now see how Iannis Xenakis composed in glass.
Photo credit Wikipedia. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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