# Ligeti, Stockhausen and others...



## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

Hello,
I want to ask you what do you think and how I must listen some moderns composers.
I have never had problems listening to Schoenberg, Webern, Britten or Bartok, they are all among my favorite composers ... Ligeti I am beginning to understand it and I am beginning to appreciate it. For me Stockhausen and Messiaen are unlistenable. I can't follow their music anymore. I would like to ask you for help on what to listen to and how to listen to it ...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JackRance said:


> Stockhausen


Balance.

e;vnlvnfv n


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Stockhausen is a tough nut who I blow hot and cold on. I tend to go for solo piano works for him - his Klavierstuck series (there's a lot of variation in style among it) tend to be where I go - the middle ones including IX / X are his best, I think. 


What have you listened with Messiaen? Turangalila I find to be his most thrilling and easy-to-enjoy work (the Naxos version is cheapish and should be easy to get).


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

fbjim said:


> What have you listened with Messiaen?


I listened to some pieces from Saint Francis and the quatour pour la fin du temps. But now I'm curious to listen to Turangalila


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Balance.
> 
> e;vnlvnfv n


I listened now to it but I can't say sincerely that I liked it...


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

One (obvious) thing I can tell you is that every composer is different, so there's no one secret to how to listen to all of them. You just have to find out the hard way which composers you actually like.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I'll freely admit that Stockhausen does little for me. Messiaen, on the other hand, I find works best in small dosages. I can't listen to his music repeatedly like say many of the post-WWII avant-garde composers like Ligeti or Boulez for example. The problem with so much of Messiaen is the sheer length of some of his works and there's no justifiable reason for them to be so long given their material. Anyway, I tend like his solo piano and chamber works more than the orchestral works. I don't care much about his organ music and here he composed quite a lot of it. My favorite work of his is the _Quatuor pour la fin du temps_. I just seem to respond the most to this work compared to so much other music he wrote.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I think it helps if you look for something behind or aside the notes.

Messiaen's music tends to be religious or otherwise has messages. Turangalia is the merger of two words - time and meaning. It implies motion over time and the cosmos. He famously named a quartet the end of time or end of the world. He wrote about Christ's ascension in a so-named piece. Messiaen is always saying something.

I don't think that is necessarily true with the other two. They are more about the technique or sound worlds they create. Ligeti tends to be atmospheric and moody. I don't know how to describe Stockhausen other than saying it is kitsch.


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

Thank you larold, fbjim and you all. Can you also read and maybe reply to this: Future


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

JackRance said:


> Hello,
> I want to ask you what do you think and how I must listen some moderns composers [.......] For me Stockhausen and Messiaen are unlistenable. I can't follow their music anymore. I would like to ask you for help on what to listen to and how to listen to it ...


Stockhausen doesn't do a lot for me....but Messaien is certainly worth exploring....my favorite work of his is
<<Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum>> [aka "The Gong Show" :lol: ]
really - neat piece, very effective - Boulez has recorded it a bunch of times - I have the Strasbourg Ensemble from '66 which is very fine...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

IMO, the Messiaen works that may be easier to start with include Quartet For The End Of Time, Trois Petites Liturgies, Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, and Eclairs Sur L' Au Dela. As with any other music, listen when you can be free of distractions, and repeat.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Thank you larold, fbjim and you all. Can you also read and maybe reply to this: Future_

I have spoken plenty about the state of music and what we used to know as classical music, both in composition and performance. I'll summarize my opinions if it helps.

I know there are plenty of composers writing music but I don't think we are in a period where classical music is thriving. Regardless of style there hasn't been a new or recent composition that has set the world afire in 30 or 40 years. There have been a few operas this century that are starting to catch on; that ended quite a long drought going back to about World War II.

However I don't think there is a composer writing music now that is considered among the greatest ever; if there is one I don't know whom it would be. The collective result of all this is an art form that is likely not producing new fans, especially new young fans which are the ones that grow its future.

Most people that aren't musicians get classical music from places like radio, streams or recordings. I don't fret over the end of physical media as a way to purchase and listen to music but the reality is not many orchestras or performers are going to make much of a living on streams. I have read a performer only gets about one cent for a stream.

Orchestras, which used to have big endowments and get fat recordings contracts, have pretty much lost the former and are moving more and more to their own media to sell their products. August recording companies like DG, a mainstay in classical music going back to the earliest days of recordings, was subject of a chat around here about its seeming loss of identity.

Some people say the Second Viennese School started things downhill with its music 100 years ago. I don't know about that because classical music was still in popular culture and big business when I came to it about 1970. Its decline mirrored what happened to the recording industry, in my opinion. In this century orchestras everywhere lost endowments and funding and we have pretty much lost all the bookstores and record stores, the places people used to gather to sample, buy and learn about new music and recordings.

Now the Internet has replaced everything and you are pretty much on your own there. So even if the industry is not in decline it has turned the masses to individuals who have to find their own way one person at a time. YouTube is a great place to get free music and has many interesting videos but that in my opinion is not a suitable replacement for what The Penguin Guide and High Fidelity magazine offered me in the day.

And if it has done all this to consumers of music imagine the composers and creators.


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

larold said:


> _Thank you larold, fbjim and you all. Can you also read and maybe reply to this: Future_
> 
> Some people say the Second Viennese School started things downhill with its music 100 years ago.... Its decline mirrored what happened to the recording industry, in my opinion. In this century orchestras everywhere lost endowments and funding and we have pretty much lost all the bookstores and record stores, the places people used to gather to sample, buy and learn about new music and recordings.
> 
> ...


Up until 100 years ago, classical music had the stage pretty much all to itself. Then came two little things: radio and television. The Harlem Rennaisance coincided with radio and The Jazz Age, and just a few years later television brought on a cultural explosion that gave us, among other things, what we now call Pop music. The Internet Age put the final nail in the coffin as you laid out above.

It's too bad because what we still call Classical Music has never been better. The last 100 years have been the most innovative and creative period in WAM and nobody is listening. They are listening to other types of music; names like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner have been replaced by Sinatra, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Madonna, Beyoncé, and Drake. Classical Music will never be as popular as it was 150 years ago, so we should be thankful for the great composers we have today and give the music a chance.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

JackRance said:


> Hello,
> I want to ask you what do you think and how I must listen some moderns composers.
> I have never had problems listening to Schoenberg, Webern, Britten or Bartok, they are all among my favorite composers ... Ligeti I am beginning to understand it and I am beginning to appreciate it. For me Stockhausen and Messiaen are unlistenable. I can't follow their music anymore. I would like to ask you for help on what to listen to and how to listen to it ...


Stockhausen can be safely ignored. Messiaen is an interesting composer but one I could do without. However, Schoenberg, Bartok, Webern, and Ligeti are indispensable-to me.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Red Terror said:


> Stockhausen can be safely ignored. Messiaen is an interesting composer but one I could do without. However, Schoenberg, Bartok, Webern, and Ligeti are indispensable-to me.


We are in agreement with the notable exception of Webern. A composer that even today I still don't have much of an affinity for --- Schoenberg and Berg, on the other hand, are definitely more of 'my thing'


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I spent a long time convinced that I didn't much care for Messiaen. This was based mostly on my hating Turangalila, which seemed just noisy and brash to me at the time. The thing that broke Messiaen for me - and he is now a composer I would rank with the very greatest - was my enjoyment of the music of George Benjamin who had been a pupil of his as a child. After getting to know a few of Benjamin's pieces I suddenly found that Messiaen was "talking to me". The first was the Quartet for the End of Time but lots more followed. I even found myself enjoying the organ works and I don't even warm to Bach's organ music. It had become no more challenging than Beethoven. One thing I disagree with in the above thread is Starthrower's post (#11) -



> As with any other music, listen when you can be free of distractions, and repeat.


That is not the only way - it is not my way, for example - and I find that my understanding of challenging music grows better if I do not concentrate or focus too much. It gets in under my guard.

As for Stockhausen, there are many pieces of his I have come to enjoy but he remains a little outside my "easy to respond to" zone.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

JackRance said:


> Hello,
> I want to ask you what do you think and how I must listen some moderns composers.
> I have never had problems listening to Schoenberg, Webern, Britten or Bartok, they are all among my favorite composers ... Ligeti I am beginning to understand it and I am beginning to appreciate it. For me Stockhausen and Messiaen are unlistenable. I can't follow their music anymore. I would like to ask you for help on what to listen to and how to listen to it ...


You could try short but still substantial *Messiaen* pieces, like *Les offrandes oubliees* and *Un sourire*.

*Stockhausen's* music often has a theatrical element, which can be more interesting if you watch rather than just listen. I once attended a live performance of *Tierkreis* and it had the feel of musicians busking in the street, there was movement and a sense of the performers enjoying being in the moment. It can be played on different instruments, so each performance is different. Some extracts, from different performers:

Sagittarius 



Taurus 



Leo 




Since you're beginning to appreciate *Ligeti*, I'll leave you to it, apart from adding that my favourite works by him are the *Chamber Concerto* and *Etudes*.


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

Neo Romanza said:


> We are in agreement with the notable exception of Webern. A composer that even today I still don't have much of an affinity for --- Schoenberg and Berg, on the other hand, are definitely more of 'my thing'


Webern was the most atonal between the atonals. It's more difficult music, but he's in my heart because of the "Passacaglia", for me one of the best pieces ever written


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

I think of and [rarely] listen to Stockhausen more as sound than music. I filed my SH rips under 'Acousmatic; rather than 'Modern' /post Modern like those other composers you mention. I don't have much so maybe there are productions that have more musicality and would fit better in 'Modern'.
I don't know much about Acousmatic though.


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

Sid James said:


> Sagittarius
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm so sorry but I can't take this music seriously.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

> Stockhausen can be safely ignored. Messiaen is an interesting composer but one I could do without.


Why the dismissive attitude? They are both hit and miss for me but there's plenty of good music. I'm more familiar with Messiaen than Stockhausen. And despite JackRance's comment, I enjoyed the three short pieces uploaded by Sid James. Although in the case of the first one I would prefer to listen to a jazz record by Eric Dolphy.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Neo Romanza said:


> We are in agreement with the notable exception of Webern. A composer that even today I still don't have much of an affinity for --- Schoenberg and Berg, on the other hand, are definitely more of 'my thing'


It's almost the opposite for me! I wonder if liking Webern is inversely predictive of whether or not you'd like the other SVS guys...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

As is the case with most composers it pays to experiment with different recordings and conductors. A lot of Messiaen's stuff has been recorded by Boulez, and Chung, who are fine conductors but I've listened to some recordings by Antal Dorati that really knocked me out.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

You may want to try Stockhausen's _Stimmung_. That piece is beautiful.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Or my favourite at the moment, Luzfers Traum


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

> That is not the only way - it is not my way, for example - and I find that my understanding of challenging music grows better if I do not concentrate or focus too much. It gets in under my guard.


I suppose that with enough exposure the brain will absorb things by osmosis but in my case I really need to concentrate to process and hear what's going on in a piece of music. But judging from your comments on Alwyn and Messiaen the opposite works for you.


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Another Stockhausen recommendation: _Kontakte_. One of my favorite electronic works and probably one of my favorite works period. No, it's not "beautiful" in the traditional sense, but it's an exhilarating experience. You feel like you're traveling in outer space at the speed of light, whizzing past celestial bodies contorting into different shapes and sizes.

Some different recordings:


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

starthrower said:


> Why the dismissive attitude? They are both hit and miss for me but there's plenty of good music. I'm more familiar with Messiaen than Stockhausen. And despite JackRance's comment, I enjoyed the three short pieces uploaded by Sid James. Although in the case of the first one I would prefer to listen to a jazz record by Eric Dolphy.


I really tried with Stockhausen. I spent a significant amount of time going through his oeuvre but came away empty handed. To me he was a scientist experimenting with sound, not a composer in the true sense of the word. His early work can be compelling but the middle and final periods leave me dumbfounded. There are endless stretches in his Licht opera cycle where he seems content to simply toy with his synthesizers, and I fail to hear anything substantial. Maybe it's just me but I much prefer the work of some his contemporaries.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Red Terror said:


> I really tried with Stockhausen. I spent a significant amount of time going through his oeuvre but came away empty handed. To me he was a scientist experimenting with sound, not a composer in the true sense of the word. His early work can be compelling but the middle and final periods leave me dumbfounded. There are endless stretches in his Licht opera cycle where he seems content to simply toy with his synthesizers, and I fail to hear anything substantial. Maybe it's just me but I much prefer the work of some his contemporaries.


Odd how I feel the opposite. I've lost interest in the music before Hymnen but the later stuff seems to me lyrical and expressive, especially Licht and the acoustic music in Klang. Maybe one day I'll get back into the Darmstandt music, Kontakte etc.

Licht, like the Ring, has its high and low points for me though.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Just another mentioning of Les Offrandes Oubliees, cf. above. And Des Canyons aux Etoiles, plus Batagov's recording of Vingt Regards ... for piano.


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

JackRance said:


> Hello,
> I want to ask you what do you think and how I must listen some moderns composers.
> I have never had problems listening to Schoenberg, Webern, Britten or Bartok, they are all among my favorite composers ... Ligeti I am beginning to understand it and I am beginning to appreciate it. For me Stockhausen and Messiaen are unlistenable. I can't follow their music anymore. I would like to ask you for help on what to listen to and how to listen to it ...


If you read music, find the scores somewhere and follow along. Long ago I found Penderecki's Threnody to be unlistenable until I saw a copy of the score and came to understand it a little more. It's been a similar story with Ligeti's piano Etudes. I would say a lot of modern music is tough to love right away, for most people anyway, but if you make a little effort you'll come across some great music. Keep trying.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

For *Stockhausen*, I'd suggest The _Klavierstücke_ (German for "Piano Pieces") constitute a series of nineteen compositions.

Wikipedia has this to say:



> Stockhausen has said the Klavierstücke "are my drawings".[1] Originating as a set of four small pieces composed between February and June 1952,[2] Stockhausen later formulated a plan for a large cycle of 21 Klavierstücke, in sets of 4 + 6 + 1 + 5 + 3 + 2 pieces.[3][4] He composed the second set in 1954-55 (VI was subsequently revised several times and IX and X were finished only in 1961), and the single Klavierstück XI in 1956. Beginning in 1979, he resumed composing Klavierstücke and finished eight more, but appears to have abandoned the plan for a set of 21 pieces. The pieces from XV onward are for the synthesizer or similar electronic instruments, which Stockhausen had come to regard as the natural successor to the piano. The dimensions vary considerably, from a duration of less than half a minute for Klavierstück III to around half an hour for Klavierstücke VI, X, XIII, and XIX.


And here's three recordings to choose from:




























I have no comments regarding Ligeti, since I rarely listen to his music.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Licht, like the Ring, has its high and low points for me though.


It helps to see the Licht operas in performance, albeit full productions are as rare as hens' teeth. I've managed to see Donnerstag and Mittwoch live, and they were both very enjoyable, and not just for me; everybody seems to have left with a smile on their face, whether they were Stockhausen diehards or complete novices. The fact that the vast majority stayed the course says something, too - these are loooooong works - and I can't recall anyone storming out halfway. I've certainly seen far more people walk out of a mainstream opera production.

Of course, that probably had less to do with the music than with the batshit-crazy "plots" and visuals that go with the music, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and that's surely a positive thing.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

JackRance said:


> I'm so sorry but I can't take this music seriously.


No worries. Its not meant to be taken seriously. I only recommended this because its the only Stockhausen I've enjoyed so far, apart from Zyklus 




I can just listen to other music, but Stockhausen's music is different because I feel a need to watch. Youtube is a great resource in this regard, because you can do exactly that.

Feel free to sample other members' recommendations here. Stockhausen's output is quite varied, so there might be something that you too can enjoy.

Incidentally, joen_cph's mention of Vingt Regards reminded me of *Messiaen's Eight Preludes*. Its an early work, with some resemblance to Debussy and Ravel, but as a whole much shorter and less demanding than the Vingt set.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I don't know if any other composer alternates between impenetrable and accessible pieces as much as Messiaen does, and part of the trouble with exploring him is that they're often mixed together in larger works. Listening to the "easier" stuff opened me up to the weirder stuff later. I consider Messiaen one of my top favorites, but I still struggle with his extensive use of repetition, and with the almost too realistic pacing of his birdsong sequences.

One piece of advice I'd give is to not worry too much about always listening to every work from start to finish. Jump around, fast forward, rewind - just explore his music like a soundscape and keep note of the appealing landmarks. Don't assume all the music will be like even the first three recommendations you tried. For instance I always see the Quartet for the End of Time suggested for beginners, but I disliked it at first and still don't like it despite loving the composer now.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I don't know if any other composer alternates between impenetrable and accessible pieces as much as Messiaen does, and part of the trouble with exploring him is that they're often mixed together in larger works. Listening to the "easier" stuff opened me up to the weirder stuff later. I consider Messiaen one of my top favorites, but I still struggle with his extensive use of repetition, and with the almost too realistic pacing of his birdsong sequences.
> 
> One piece of advice I'd give is to not worry too much about always listening to every work from start to finish. Jump around, fast forward, rewind - just explore his music like a soundscape and keep note of the appealing landmarks. Don't assume all the music will be like even the first three recommendations you tried. For instance I always see the Quartet for the End of Time suggested for beginners, but I disliked it at first and still don't like it despite loving the composer now.


It seems to me that your views say more about you, than Messiaen's music. Like you, Messiaen is a favourite of mine, and has been for many years. I've never 'jumped around, fast forwarded or rewound' and based on my own experience, would not recommend such an approach (should I be asked). People's mileage may vary, Messiaen's music is a constant.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JackRance said:


> I'm so sorry but I can't take this music seriously.


Nor could Stockhausen. He dismissed it as empty headed.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

calvinpv said:


> Another Stockhausen recommendation: _Kontakte_. One of my favorite electronic works and probably one of my favorite works period. No, it's not "beautiful" in the traditional sense, but it's an exhilarating experience. You feel like you're traveling in outer space at the speed of light, whizzing past celestial bodies contorting into different shapes and sizes.
> 
> Some different recordings:


I'd have thought that anyone who likes Messiaen's Chronochromie would find Stockhausen's Kontakte worthwhile.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

starthrower said:


> I suppose that with enough exposure the brain will absorb things by osmosis but in my case I really need to concentrate to process and hear what's going on in a piece of music. But judging from your comments on Alwyn and Messiaen the opposite works for you.


Often, yes. Of course, our brain's performance unconsciously is immeasurably more powerful than what we might be conscious of. Often I can listen to something quite distractedly and yet somehow remember it six months later. For me the conscious, focused listening tends to come later if it feels needed.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> ......One piece of advice I'd give is to not worry too much about always listening to every work from start to finish. Jump around, fast forward, rewind - just explore his music like a soundscape and keep note of the appealing landmarks.


That is good advice for listening in general....I don't often listen to an entire Mahler/Bruckner symphony, or Wagner opera in its entirety at one listening session....select specific movements, acts, scenes, pieces...as you say, move around...


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> It helps to see the Licht operas in performance, albeit full productions are as rare as hens' teeth. I've managed to see Donnerstag and Mittwoch live, and they were both very enjoyable, and not just for me; everybody seems to have left with a smile on their face, whether they were Stockhausen diehards or complete novices. The fact that the vast majority stayed the course says something, too - these are loooooong works - and I can't recall anyone storming out halfway. I've certainly seen far more people walk out of a mainstream opera production.
> 
> Of course, that probably had less to do with the music than with the batshit-crazy "plots" and visuals that go with the music, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and that's surely a positive thing.


If the music is any good, it should aptly stand alone without the visual component.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Red Terror said:


> I figure that if the music is any good, one should be able to enjoy it without the visual component. .


I can, but it's silly to draw any conclusions about whether it's any good from whether you enjoy it. _Good _is not the same as _Red Terror enjoys._


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I can, but it's silly to draw any conclusions about whether it's any good from whether you enjoy it.


Which is precisely why I amended what I had initially written, prior to you answer.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ah yes, it's annoying that this medium puts everything in writing!


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## Doublestring (Sep 3, 2014)

There are two ways to approach modernist music: intellectually and intuitively. You can read about their composition methods, read their scores, maybe play the short piano pieces yourself - although they're rhythmically complex. Or you can lie down and listen to a cd, and maybe you will connect to the otherwordly, futuristic mood.

Here are the compositions that gave me the "click".

Boulez: _Le Marteau sans maître_. Because of the poetry and the instrumentation it's more colorful than his piano works.

Stockhausen: _Gesang der Jünglinge_. He's at his best in his electronic music.

Ligeti: _Lux Aeterna/Atmosphères/Aventures_. Rather accessible if you get the poetry of whirling and evolving tone clusters. He's my favorite composer born in the 20th century.

Xenakis: _Rebonds_. The energy of the percussionist is enticing. Worth seeing live.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Red Terror said:


> If the music is any good, it should aptly stand alone without the visual component.


I find the music interesting enough on its own terms, and the visual component merely adds another dimension; we are talking about opera/music-theatre with "Licht", after all. Besides, I've seen similar works by other "difficult" composers which gain from being seen as they were conceived, rather than listened to as pure music. Nothing wrong in that.


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