Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
For many years most of Stockhausen's vast discography has only been available from Stockhausen HQ in Germany - an expensive hassle to access. So it is always a treat when something becomes generally available in the shops / Amazon. Clearly some bright spark at EMI has been going through the vaults & discovered several pieces under EMI license & then put them together really intelligently, conveniently (& cheaply) in this excellent double CD package. Admittedly this is hardcore Stockhausen from his "intuitive music" (ie quasi improvised) period, probably not for the uninitiated, but it will definitely appeal to fans. The first piece is Zyklus for solo percussion performed here by Tristan Fry in 1974. Zyklus was one of the first works with a graphic score allowing the performer some freedom to improvise. In the late 60s Stockhausen developed the idea of scores which determined a process rather than the exact content & his group toured the world playing this music. Several pieces are included here from the latter stages of the intuitive music period: Spiral I & II, Pole, Japan & Wach - all played in 1971 by core members of the group - Eotvos, Boje & Caskel. The difference between "intuitive music" and free improvisation is that free improv usually has free jazz roots with an emphasis on expressive solos & interplay. Stockhausen is more interested in liberating sounds than musicians & his concern seems to be with designing processes that allow sounds to be more dynamic & in a constant state of flux, modification or transformation. Although I like a lot of SME, AMM, Art Ensemble et al I have to say that I think Stockhausen Group music seems more consistently vital, rigorous & less prone to free music cliché. The second disc finishes with a couple of fully composed pieces from the 1990s featuring trumpeter Markus Stockhausen: In Friendship & the popular Tierkreis (zodiac signs for trumpet & organ).
NOTE: I think all the pieces here are different to Stockhausen Edition CD versions. Spiral & Pole are definitely NOT the versions on KS CD 15
NOTE: I think all the pieces here are different to Stockhausen Edition CD versions. Spiral & Pole are definitely NOT the versions on KS CD 15
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I don't want to add much to what HJ has said but, being a mean old Yorkshireman I realised that with his work so hard to collect, this compilation was a must have.
The only things I'd like to add is that the fully written works from the 1970s / 1990s contrast with the more improvisational electronic and percussion works because Stockhausen had become more concerned with developing musical formulas by this stage. In Tierkreis the music often sounds quite modal and tonal with organ working almost as orchestral accompaniement to the trumpet. The sounds Stockhausen gets from the organ are remarkable.
This later music often sounds quite austere and mystic in contrast to the earlier improvisational pieces. Zyklus sounds more than a little Chinese in its use of percussion - why do we only say "East meets West" only when referring to composers from the east?
There's nothing to be frightened of in the early electronic pieces: they still have great impact even if the technology might seem dated - I wouldn't recommend listening to all of the electronic works in one sitting but they all have an excitement of discovery about them even if you soon realise that the BBC Music department plundered the material to accompany "Doctor Who" during the 1970s!
If you have any appreciation of the great post war avant garde composers snap this one up asap.
The only things I'd like to add is that the fully written works from the 1970s / 1990s contrast with the more improvisational electronic and percussion works because Stockhausen had become more concerned with developing musical formulas by this stage. In Tierkreis the music often sounds quite modal and tonal with organ working almost as orchestral accompaniement to the trumpet. The sounds Stockhausen gets from the organ are remarkable.
This later music often sounds quite austere and mystic in contrast to the earlier improvisational pieces. Zyklus sounds more than a little Chinese in its use of percussion - why do we only say "East meets West" only when referring to composers from the east?
There's nothing to be frightened of in the early electronic pieces: they still have great impact even if the technology might seem dated - I wouldn't recommend listening to all of the electronic works in one sitting but they all have an excitement of discovery about them even if you soon realise that the BBC Music department plundered the material to accompany "Doctor Who" during the 1970s!
If you have any appreciation of the great post war avant garde composers snap this one up asap.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Wonderful Performances, Wonderful Mastering
3 Feb 2010
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
The performances on this CD are of the highest order, and the digital mastering from original tapes is excellent. For anyone interested in the most sophisticated musical improvisation imaginable, this CD is impeccable. It also contains works from written out scores, also performed at a transcendental level.
22 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Of mainly historical interest
4 Dec 2009
Format:Audio CD
Over the last 30 years, Karlheinz Stockhausen had bought the rights to the greater part of his recordings away from Deutsche Grammophon and other labels. The composer's music, now available only on Stockhausen's own imprint at high prices, was forgotten by many. Stockhausen's death in late 2007 was expected to unleash a wave of new recordings by labels looking to fill the void and no longer feeling constrained to work with a madman. That hasn't quite happened, but EMI has tested the waters by opening its studio vaults with this 2 CD set of recordings from the 1970s.
Several strands of Stockhausen's work are captured here. The single representative of his early serialist work is "Zyklus" for solo percussion (1959), one of those works of 1950s modernism where the performer can decide where to begin the piece and then proceeds in a circle until he comes back the starting point. This may have been amazing at one point, but when I've got the excellent solo percussion works of Xenakis or Norgard at my fingertips, "Zyklus" has little appeal.
In the late Sixties, Stockhausen stopped composing works as such, but rather sought to produce music based on chance. Somtimes, as in "Wach" and "Japan", the performers would have nothing more to go on than a simple text, a paragraph or two, about what frame of mind they should have. This is dreadful music -- there is a demographic for this kind of improv, but it's not even the contemporary classical one. "Spiral" (1968) and "Pole" (1970) involve one or two musicians responding to sounds received by a shortwave radio. Often the works sound like early musique concrete. Sometimes a steady pulse is reached which vaguely resembles the works of Aphex Twin -- Stockhausen's influence on IDM is hugely exaggerated (most producers had never heard his work), but these pieces may nonetheless have an appeal for fans of that genre.
We then move on to late Stockhausen. "Tierkreis" is a collection of melodies inspired by the signs of the Zodiac. These melodies have been performed more often than one would expect, perhaps because performers can offer a piece by a big contemporary composer on their programmes, but not enrage general audiences. Far removed from the dissonance or bleep-bloopiness of earlier Stockhausen, they are innocuous, but on the other hand, these melodies don't seem to really say anything or go anywhere either. The same can be said about "In Freundschaft" (1977), here in its arrangement for trumpet, which is just endless noodling on a "formula".
To me Stockhausen seems to have become a figure much like Stravinsky: enormously talked about over much of the 20th century, hugely inspirational to later composers and fondly remembered for a certain few pieces (as Stravinsky had the "Rite", Stockhausen has "Gruppen" and "Stimmung"), but whose body of work as a whole is rarely explored by even contemporary music afficionados. I'd have to conclude that, yes, it is OK to be a fan of contemporary music and not have much interest in Stockhausen. I'd recommend this EMI release only to those who have heard Stockhausen's music before and are sure they really like it.
Several strands of Stockhausen's work are captured here. The single representative of his early serialist work is "Zyklus" for solo percussion (1959), one of those works of 1950s modernism where the performer can decide where to begin the piece and then proceeds in a circle until he comes back the starting point. This may have been amazing at one point, but when I've got the excellent solo percussion works of Xenakis or Norgard at my fingertips, "Zyklus" has little appeal.
In the late Sixties, Stockhausen stopped composing works as such, but rather sought to produce music based on chance. Somtimes, as in "Wach" and "Japan", the performers would have nothing more to go on than a simple text, a paragraph or two, about what frame of mind they should have. This is dreadful music -- there is a demographic for this kind of improv, but it's not even the contemporary classical one. "Spiral" (1968) and "Pole" (1970) involve one or two musicians responding to sounds received by a shortwave radio. Often the works sound like early musique concrete. Sometimes a steady pulse is reached which vaguely resembles the works of Aphex Twin -- Stockhausen's influence on IDM is hugely exaggerated (most producers had never heard his work), but these pieces may nonetheless have an appeal for fans of that genre.
We then move on to late Stockhausen. "Tierkreis" is a collection of melodies inspired by the signs of the Zodiac. These melodies have been performed more often than one would expect, perhaps because performers can offer a piece by a big contemporary composer on their programmes, but not enrage general audiences. Far removed from the dissonance or bleep-bloopiness of earlier Stockhausen, they are innocuous, but on the other hand, these melodies don't seem to really say anything or go anywhere either. The same can be said about "In Freundschaft" (1977), here in its arrangement for trumpet, which is just endless noodling on a "formula".
To me Stockhausen seems to have become a figure much like Stravinsky: enormously talked about over much of the 20th century, hugely inspirational to later composers and fondly remembered for a certain few pieces (as Stravinsky had the "Rite", Stockhausen has "Gruppen" and "Stimmung"), but whose body of work as a whole is rarely explored by even contemporary music afficionados. I'd have to conclude that, yes, it is OK to be a fan of contemporary music and not have much interest in Stockhausen. I'd recommend this EMI release only to those who have heard Stockhausen's music before and are sure they really like it.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Buy It While You Can
23 Jun 2010
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Apparently ( according to a friend who works at a classical music store) EMI just announced (June 2010) that they are chopping the number of cd titles in half and I doubt this is one of the ones that will survive the purge. The price is great, the music is great, the performances are great and the sound is great. Don't complain when you have to pay $110 for it used.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
![original ALBUM classics [2009]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419NkCI9cGL._AA60_.jpg)
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
