Kontakte (Stockhausen)

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Kontakte ("Contacts") is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958-60 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) electronic-music studio in Cologne.

The title of the work “refers both to contacts between instrumental and electronic sound groups and to contacts between self-sufficient, strongly characterized moments. In the case of four-channel loudspeaker reproduction, it also refers to contacts between various forms of spatial movement” (Stockhausen 1964, 105). The composition exists in two forms: (1) for electronic sounds alone, and (2) for electronic sounds, piano, and percussion.

According to the composer, “In the preparatory work for my composition Kontakte, I found, for the first time, ways to bring all properties [i.e., timbre, pitch, intensity, and duration] under a single control” (Stockhausen 1962, 40), thereby realizing a longstanding goal of total serialism. The most famous moment, at the very center of the work, is a potent illustration of these connections: a high, bright, slowly wavering pitch descends in several waves, becoming louder as it gradually acquires a snarling timbre, and finally passes below the point where it can be heard any longer as a pitch. As it crosses this threshold, it becomes evident that the sound is comprised of a succession of pulses, which continue to slow until they become a steady beat. With increasing reverberation, the individual pulses become transformed into tones once again.

Stockhausen also made advances over his previous electronic composition, Gesang der Jünglinge, in the realm of spatial composition, adding the parameters of spatial location, group type, register, and speed (Toop 2005, 170). Kontakte is composed in four channels, with loudspeakers placed at the corners of a square surrounding the audience. With the aid of a "rotation table", consisting of a rotatable loudspeaker surrounded by four microphones, he was able to send sounds through and around the auditorium with unprecedented variety.

[edit] Sources

  • Heikinheimo, Seppo. 1972. "The Electronic Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Studies on the Esthetical and Formal Problems of Its First Phase". Translated by Brad Absetz. Acta Musicologica Fennica 6. Helsinki: Suomen Musiikkitieteellinen Seura.
  • Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1962. "The Concept of Unity in Electronic Music (Die Einheit der musikalischen Zeit) ". Translated by Elaine Barkin. Perspectives of New Music 1, no. 1 (Autumn): 39–48.
  • Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1963a. “Momentform: Neue Beziehungen zwischen Aufführungsdauer, Werkdauer und Moment”. In his Texte zur Musik, vol. 1, pp. 189-210. Cologne: DuMont Schauberg.
  • Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1963b. “Erfindung und Entdeckung”, in his Texte zur Musik, vol. 1, pp. 222–58. Cologne: DuMont Schauberg.
  • Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1964. Texte vol. 2. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg,
  • Toop, Richard. 1981. "Stockhausen's Electronic Works: Sketches and Worksheets from 1952–1967." Interface 10:149-97.
  • Toop, Richard. 2005. Six Lectures from the Stockhausen Courses Kürten 2002. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag.