# For Stockhausen fans



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

http://www.br-online.de/br-alpha/fo...n-mixtur-ID1309337390545.xml?_requestid=28325

Apparently the composer explains/elaborates upon the composition. One of the German speakers among us could could give this monoglot Yankee a clue?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

A slight correction: That's the conductor speaking, not the composer. But I think he's saying, "This ain't Beethoven." 

Interesting use of colors to separate the groups; it helps clarify what's happening. Though they remind me of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, it fits, since it is kind of spacey.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Thanks for the clarification. I thought the white-haired guy looked moderately spacey, and that threw me off.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Well, I don't speak German really but, if he is explaining about _Mixtur_, then he is saying something like: _Mixtur _is written for an orchestra divided into five groups of players, each with a different tonal characteristic (eg pizzicato). Each group is mic'd and their sound is ring-modulated before being fed into the auditorium over loudspeakers. The really brilliant idea is that the sensitivity of the microphones is set so that, if a group is playing softly, the mics don't pick up the players so the audience hears them unmodulated. The level of the output to the speakers is also controlled so that, if a group is playing very loudly, the ring-modulated version is swamped by the natural sound. So KS creates a continuum, determined by dynamic level, which goes from natural through increasingly modulated, then decreasingly modulated back to natural as a group gets louder. Of course, it goes without saying that, at any one time, different groups are at different loudnesses, hence degrees of modulation. Hence the 'mixture'.


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