# Licht by Stockhausen



## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

Just bought Samstag of this epic. Pretty expensive, but hey booklet has 200 pages . I definately would like to see one of these Licht operas live, especially Mittwoch with Helicopter String Quartet.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Samstag sounds interesting, just from the clips I've heard. I hope you enjoy it.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

I have never heard anything by Stockhausen. Sometimes I get curious about the Licht cycle since I have liked other contemporary works, but I haven't decided to take the plunge yet. A quote by a famous conductor (I forgot which one, but people here will recognize the quote, it's quite well known) keeps ringing in my ears. He was asked "have you conducted much Stockhausen?" to which he replied, "No, but I've stepped in some.":lol:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Alma, you might actually like _Stimmung_, and considering it is performed by Paul Hillier and the Theater of Voices you will be getting a top notch performance.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Thanks for the recommendation, Stlukes, I'll check it out.


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

Now I have listened this through. I am not a huge fan of contemporary operas, but an opera with orchestra strike can't be bad . Actually I like this a lot. Fourth scene is pretty hypnotic and it is absolutely my favorite. Check this out :


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

I've been starting to get to know some parts of the Licht cycle recently, and it is all magnificent music. I've listened to Michaels Reise um die Erde from Donnerstag as well as the Helikopter-Streichquartett from Mittwoch and the Luzifers-Abschied from Samstag that you posted above. There's a lot of things I don't understand about the opera yet (including the symbolism and most of the storyline) that I plan on familiarizing myself with within my lifetime. No doubt that this is one of the great operatic masterpieces of all time and will be recognized as such in due time. 29 hours is a lot of music to digest though.

Sometimes I think that what's so fascinating about contemporary music such as this is that I really _don't_ understand it - it's a giant enigma that simply leaves me in awe and fascination.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

29 hours is far too long for me. Even Wagner's _Ring Cycle_, which is less than that, is too much. Would there be a highlights discs or maybe 2 disc set of _Licht_ for the more "feint hearted" like myself? I have enjoyed the works by Stockhausen which I have heard -_ Zyklus _for solo percussion, _Tierkreis_ (a chamber work which is a lot of fun live - saw it twice!), some of the chance-based electro-acoustic works (eg. _Japan, Wach, Spiral, Pole_), & a set of the _Klavierstucke_ which is highly innovative and sounds pretty cool (Stockhausen invented new dynamic markings in this work). Heard his _Helicopter Quartet_ one night on radio & went wtf!!! Too wierdish and out-there for me. _Stimmung_ I have also heard (the very disc mentioned by Stlukes above) & it was good as a one-off listen at least. As for _Licht_, a disc or two of highlights wouldn't go astray for me, especially if it wasn't too expensive...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

We'll be lucky if we get to see the whole damn _Licht_ cycle recorded and released on visual medium. Supposedly 29 hours of the damn thing, it better be fascinating to say the least. I'll be willing to give it all a go, but like any opera, I believe in sitting through the whole thing, not just a preview/highlight here and there, which doesn't really do justice to appreciating any opera. Obviously comfortably spread out between seven days ideally. I think it would be quite an experience.

We shall wait for a cycle.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

I don't think I'm ready for this yet. I may never be. What kind of batty crazy person composes a 29-hour opera??? Twice as long as the Ring! (whose composer *was* a certified nutjob). I'm curious, but I don't think I'll put myself through the entire thing anytime soon, even if it's made available on visual medium.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I'm not a big fan of _Licht_.

The conceptual thing, the cycle, is attractive enough, but the music itself, is somewhat dull and uninspired. Of course, you can find everything in so many hours, but in general terms you can largely give it a miss, unless you are pretty interested in contemporary opera or in Stockhausen himself.

Talking about opera and cycles, I wonder if some of you know about Burkhard Stangl's _Venusmond_.

Stangl (an austrian citizen) and the poet Oswald Egger are creating something called "oper als topos", a work in which they are adding scenes in different cities, with several years between one and the other. As of this moment, _Venusmond_ counts with five scenes: New York, Krems (in Austria), Chicago, Copenhagen and Berlin. The blend of opera and electroacustic music is well balanced, and makes for a fascinating hearing. Of course, this kind of work is seating right there at the frontier of what we can call "opera" in the 21th century.... like _Licht_.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

For purely selfish reasons I'd like to give it a go just to say I did it but I have real doubts as to whether I could handle listening to the seven segments without a stonking great break in between each (i.e. a week). Did Stockhausen leave instructions as to whether they are to be performed/heard on seven consecutive days or can they be 'enjoyed' in isolation?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

schigolch said:


> I'm not a big fan of _Licht_.
> 
> The conceptual thing, the cycle, is attractive enough, but the music itself, is somewhat dull and uninspired. Of course, you can find everything in so many hours, but in general terms you can largely give it a miss, unless you are pretty interested in contemporary opera or in Stockhausen himself.


:lol: Not much of Stockhausen appeals to me anyway (utterly pretentious examples of stuff in his music). _Licht_ sounds fascinating, maybe to a fool like me willing to give it a go spread out over days/weeks. (If I end up hating the damn thing, at least I'm qualify to bash it). 

Breaking a work into different sessions is nothing new of course. J. S. Bach's _Christmas Oratorio_ from the Baroque was first performed over the six feasts days of Christmas, into its six parts when folks went to church.

I did a search. Nothing on visual medium appears to have ever been released. Funny that.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

This comes from a very recent production (April, at Cologne), staged by La Fura dels Baus, a spanish collective that are among the most exciting theatre directors in Europe. It is in german (and a little bit of spanish), but I think everyone can get the basics of the production. It was a good experience, even if in purely musical terms, not so great a thing.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> :lol: Not much of Stockhausen appeals to me anyway (utterly pretentious examples of stuff in his music).


:lol:

That is why I think its so hilarious you want to listen to all 29 hours of Licht. It'll be probably also quite side-busting reading your reviews afterwards  ...

but who knows maybe this will be the work that will convert you to modern music?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I think I could only stomach about 5 minutes of this **** a day, listening to the thing would take me about a year.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> A quote by a famous conductor (I forgot which one, but people here will recognize the quote, it's quite well known) keeps ringing in my ears. He was asked "have you conducted much Stockhausen?" to which he replied, "No, but I've stepped in some.":lol:


It was Sir Thomas Beecham - not one of his more perceptive remarks


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Sid James said:


> 29 hours is far too long for me. Even Wagner's _Ring Cycle_, which is less than that, is too much. Would there be a highlights discs or maybe 2 disc set of _Licht_ for the more "feint hearted" like myself? I have enjoyed the works by Stockhausen which I have heard -_ Zyklus _for solo percussion, _Tierkreis_ (a chamber work which is a lot of fun live - saw it twice!), some of the chance-based electro-acoustic works (eg. _Japan, Wach, Spiral, Pole_), & a set of the _Klavierstucke_ which is highly innovative and sounds pretty cool (Stockhausen invented new dynamic markings in this work). Heard his _Helicopter Quartet_ one night on radio & went wtf!!! Too wierdish and out-there for me. _Stimmung_ I have also heard (the very disc mentioned by Stlukes above) & it was good as a one-off listen at least. As for _Licht_, a disc or two of highlights wouldn't go astray for me, especially if it wasn't too expensive...


It's important to recognise that each act or scene of _Licht _is a self contained work so can be enjoyed on its own. All the operas are available direct from the Stockhausen Verlag (both on CD and in score) and _Wednesday _and _Sunday _(particulary long) are only on separate CDs, so you might try one or two of those discs, though I wouldn't say they were the best introduction to _Licht _as a whole. Better to start with _Tuesday _which is only two discs and consists of two strongly contrasted and accessible acts, plus an opening _Greeting_. The booklet is sumptuous. _Michael's journey round the world_ [_Thursday_, act 2] is an imaginative trumpet concerto (and available on an ECM CD). Scene 1 of _Saturday _is reworked slightly as_ Klavierstuck XIII_ and the notorious _Helicopter Quartet_ from _Wednesday _is also available on a single CD.

To answer another post, the basic structure of _Licht _is this:
_Licht _has three characters, the archangel Michael, Eve and Lucifer.
In the order the operas were written:
_Thursday _is Michael's day and is the day of learning
_Saturday _is Lucifer's day and is the day of death
_Monday _is Eve's day and is the day of birth
_Tuesday _is the day of the war between Michael and Lucifer
_Friday _is the day of the temptation of Eve by Lucifer
_Wednesday _is the day of cooperation between Michael, Eve and Lucifer
_Sunday _is the day of marriage between Michael and Eve

Run the operas in day order in your mind and you'll piece togther the plot line.

The complexity of the staging makes it unlikely that a venue could mount different operas on each day of the week. However, the idea of different venues doing different operas, making it possible to hear them within the week is an attractive one, though it strikes me that a more sane way to mount the cycle would be to do it the order of composition, each opera on its own day. Late in his life Stockhausen recommended _Sunday _be performed over three consecutive nights.

_Japan, Wach, Spiral, Pole_ aren't chance based. In the first two, players intuitively respond to a brief verbal text; in the latter, the structure is determined by non-musical symbols that create contrast and union (+ means longer or higher or louder or more, etc, - means shorter, lower, softer, fewer, etc, and so on) the players responding to them and to each other intuitively.

_Wach_ [Awake] consists of the following text: _ Star constellations / with common points / and falling stars / with secret wishes / and nocturnal forest / with dialogues / Abrupt end_
The recording by Boje, Caskel and Eotvos on EMI is magical.

---

One extraordinary aspect of the composition of _Licht _is that, in 1978, Stockhausen committed the next 25 years of his life (as long as his compositional career had been to that date) to the project and completed the final work, _Sunday_, in December 2003.

And, if that isn't enough, it's worth noting that _Der Jahreslauf _[_The course of the years_] (1977, but later incorporated as act 1 of _Tuesday_) is about the progress of the centuries within millenia, the decades within centuries and the years within decades. _Sirius _is about the four seasons of the year and _Tierkreis _is about the (astrological) months of the year. _Licht _is about the days within the week. _Klang _[_Sound_] was to be 24 compositions, one for each hour of the day - Stockhausen completed 21 of these - and there was indeed going to be a work about the minutes within the hour! So an even longer meta-work than _Licht_, started in 1974 with _Tierkreis _and unfinished at the time fo the composer's death in 2007.

And an even longer sweep of works is the _Klavierstucke_. Stockhausen orignally pledged in *1952* to write 21 Piano pieces. The intention was to publish them in six books of 4, 6, 1, 5, 3 and 2 pieces respectively. I-IV were duly written that year and V-X followed in 1954-55. XI came out in 1956. It's sometimes said that Stockhausen abandoned the cycle once he had committed to _Licht_, but that's not true. XII is the examination piece Michael plays in _Thursday_, XIII is, as previously noted, scene 1 of _Saturday_, and XIV is a little divertissement played by a budgerigar in _Monday_. So these three, one for each protagonist of _Licht_, constitute the next book. The five pieces, XV-XIX, of the next book are drawn from the remaining four operas of _Licht_, though they are all for synthesisers and other electronic instruments - Stockhausen left the piano behind here. That leaves the final book of two pieces which were uwritten at the time of Stockhausen's death. It's not clear how these could have been drawn from _Klang_, certainly none of the 21 hours that were written fit the bill.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Quite informative, Jeremy, thanks!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

It seems as if one were to study Stockhausen, it would require a significant portion of one's lifespan dedicated to one composer's works. The concept is daunting.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> It seems as if one were to study Stockhausen, it would require a significant portion of one's lifespan dedicated to one composer's works. The concept is daunting.


I suppose I have an advantage - I started in the sixties and kept up with him as he went along.

The point of his works pre-_Licht _was that, axiomatically, every one of them was in a completely new form and structure. So, for example, _Gruppen _and _Inori _- both for orchestra - are utterly different.

One _would _need a substantial part of one's life to study any composer - but Stockhausen wasn't that prolific. It is this sense of having a tabula rasa, having to start all over again with every work, which will take the time. To get to a worklist of some 370 items requires a lot of multiple counting. For example, _Tuesday _is counted as a work, but so are each of its component acts. _Oktophonie_, which is the electronic backing music for act 2 is a work in its own right as is the _Tuesday Farewell _(also part of act 2). _Synthi-Fou_, which is the synthesiser part of_ Tuesday Farewell_ is yet another work in its own right. The point is these works are all integral, performable-in-theory entities in their own right.

In practice there are ten acknowledged early works, 81 other completely different works (of which 32 are solely text based, entirely improvised pieces), plus the seven operas of _Licht _(which are made up of 32 completely different acts, scenes, greetings and farewells) and the 21 'hours' of _Klang_. Of these, some bear more attention than others - I am afraid that there are tracts of _Licht_, particularly in the later operas, which are tendentious and tedious, and the 32 text-based works require such strong control if they are to be echt-Stockhausen that I believe that, now the man is no longer with us, they have effectively died too as viable works to be performed in the future.

If you spent a year studying twelve pre-_Licht _works - one a month - supplemented with some lighter listening to other works in that time, and then spent a second year on _Licht_, you'd have got pretty deeply into the composer by the end of that time. Spend the next five years widening and deepening that study, pulling in _Klang_, of course, and many of the other works and, after a total of seven years, you'd problably only have a few thousand other humans, out of all the billions of us on the planet, with an understanding of the composer as good as yours. And, because the music is so diverse, so deliberately wideranging, you would never be bored. Imagine going from the incredible complexity of _Gruppen _(requiring three conductors) one month to a single note and its overtones (_Stimmung_) the next.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> I suppose I have an advantage - I started in the sixties and kept up with him as he went along.
> 
> The point of his works pre-_Licht _was that, axiomatically, every one of them was in a completely new form and structure. So, for example, _Gruppen _and _Inori _- both for orchestra - are utterly different.
> 
> ...


Jeremy, I'm just curious, feel free to ignore my question, but why so much interest in Stockhausen? Did you pay him this much attention as part of some sort of professional capacity? Are you a musician or a professor of contemporary music, something like this?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> The point of his works pre-_Licht _was that, axiomatically, every one of them was in a completely new form and structure.


That's probably why I'm resisting diving in. I've heard individual pieces and been interested, but all the groundwork to appreciate it, then having to move on to the next, with more groundwork, makes me draw back, at least now.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> That's probably why I'm resisting diving in. I've heard individual pieces and been interested, but all the groundwork to appreciate it, then having to move on to the next, with more groundwork, makes me draw back, at least now.


OK. Serious suggestion. Select _Gruppen _(difficult, ultra-serial, but exhilarating), _Mantra _(brilliant formula work - as _Licht _was going to be - or _Inori _if you want something easier in the same vein) and _Hymnen _(fun, electronic, easy to hear Stockhausen's transformational processes due to the use of familiar tunes). Get into these and you'll find many of the other works easier to grasp on casual acquaintance.
There are good performances of _Gruppen _on the Budapest Music Center label and of _Mantra _on Naxos. For _Hymnen _you'll have to go to the Stockhausen Verlag (www.stockhausen.org) - it's a 4CD set, so you might want to settle for _Telemusik _instead. 
Well worth buying the scores. _Gruppen _is published by Universal, the others by the Stockhausen Verlag.
Other people will have different ideas for what to study. These works have been chosen for their ability to shed light on Stockhausen's compositional processes, they are not necessarily the 'greatest' works (though _Gruppen _is).
Even though I see you're in Tennessee, it's worth joining the UK Stockhausen Society (www.stockhausensociety.org) - a useful source of free recordings of performances not commercially released and of the commercial CDs.

To answer Almaviva, although I _am _a composer, my interest in KS is merely casual, though grown over many years. However, I probably have a deeper knowledge of his entire output than that of any other composer (Mahler apart, but he only wrote 17 works). Thanks for asking.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> OK. Serious suggestion. Select _Gruppen _(difficult, ultra-serial, but exhilarating), _Mantra _(brilliant formula work - as _Licht _was going to be - or _Inori _if you want something easier in the same vein) and _Hymnen _(fun, electronic, easy to hear Stockhausen's transformational processes due to the use of familiar tunes).


I have a download of Gruppen. That's the one inspired by mountains, right? I'll give it a listen.

I have Adieu, Kreuzspeil, and Kontra-Punkte. Are those good also?

I understand he was Catholic. Outside of Licht, do you find spritual references in his music, or does he pretty much divorce the two?


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## petrarch (Apr 2, 2011)

Manxfeeder said:


> I have a download of Gruppen. That's the one inspired by mountains, right? I'll give it a listen.


No, it has a passage where the contour of the notes follows the contour of the mountains he saw from his desk.



Manxfeeder said:


> I have Adieu, Kreuzspeil, and Kontra-Punkte. Are those good also?


Those are good too; Kreuzspiel and Kontra-Punkte are what could be called 'classic' Stockhausen, the sort of works that deserve a mention in any text about the composer.



Manxfeeder said:


> I understand he was Catholic. Outside of Licht, do you find spritual references in his music, or does he pretty much divorce the two?


If you look at the score of Gruppen, he ends with a note 'Deo gratias'. But the music itself doesn't have that many explicit references until the 1970s.


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## petrarch (Apr 2, 2011)

Also, for anyone interested in getting into the music, there is the excellent Robin Maconie book:

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Planets...3566/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309571172&sr=8-1

It is essentially an updated revision of his very thorough early 70s book on Stockhausen, now with material up to and including Licht.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> I understand he was Catholic. Outside of Licht, do you find spritual references in his music, or does he pretty much divorce the two?


I suppose it depends on what you mean by spirituality, but I think it's fair to say his whole output has a dimension of spirituality, albeit mediated by his own rather personal ideas.

_Inori _(1973-74) is a composed prayer, complete with an "unmeasured, transcendental moment" - but it is also a resume of the development of music (!). _Gesange der Junglinge_ (1955-56) sets a text from the book of Daniel, while Hours 13-21 (2006-07) of _Klang _are based on the _Book of Urantia_, a rather tendentious spiritual work. I chose these as coming form different parts of KS's career. 
Lots on the internet if you're interested.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Thanks, Petrarch and Jeremy, for your comments.


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