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MATHEMATICS AND MAGIC: THEIST AND ATHEIST IDENTIFICATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL MUSIC OF KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2019

Ian Parsons
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Abstract

Stockhausen's idiosyncratic spiritual beliefs, and the vigour with which he expressed them in his compositional processes, have sometimes been an obstacle to both musicians and audiences in engaging with his music. I explore the extent to which the ability to appreciate Stockhausen's music is predicated on a sympathy with his spiritual world view. I pose a broad view of Stockhausen's spirituality, not reliant on theism, through drawing on three key sources: the composer's own commentary on spirituality and its connections with his serialist compositional techniques; Rudolf Otto's notions of an intrinsically human awareness of ‘the holy’; and the connections of mathematics with human truth drawn by Alain Badiou. I argue that a broader understanding of Stockhausen's spirituality enables a pathway into his music that can be shared by both theists and atheists, and that this can produce a rich fodder for each in their curiosity about human place in the world.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Information
Tempo , Volume 73 , Issue 288 , April 2019 , pp. 59 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 Stockhausen, Karlheinz, ‘Am Himmel Wandre Ich …’ (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1977), xiGoogle Scholar.

2 Peters, Günter, Holy Seriousness in the Play: Essays on the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2003), p. 162Google Scholar.

3 Maconie, Robin, ‘Saving Faith: Stockhausen and Spirituality’, Tempo, 72, no. 283 (2017), p. 16Google Scholar.

4 Maconie, ‘Saving Faith’, p.13.

5 Maconie, ‘Saving Faith’, p. 13.

6 See Ulrich, Thomas, Stockhausen: A Theological Interpretation, trans. Obst, Jayne (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2012)Google Scholar; idem., Stockhausens Zyklus Licht: Ein Opernführer (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2017); Henkel, Georg, Kosmisches Lachen: Synthi-Fou Und Der Närrische Humor in Karlheinz Srockhausens Openzyklus Licht (Hamburg: Tredition, 2012)Google Scholar; and Peters, Holy Seriousness.

7 See, for example, Paper 15, ‘The Seven Superuniverses’, in The Urantia Book (Chicago: The Urantia Foundation, 1955), pp. 154–83.

8 See, for example, Stockhausen, Karlheinz, Jahreskreis – Circle of the Year, trans. Stephens, Suzanne, et al. (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2012), p. 263Google Scholar. Here a handwritten text from Stockhausen is reproduced proclaiming a respect for the world's religions as diverse, but limited, channels for God: ‘In all of them YOU have met me, divided and diversified, masked, YOU God, YOU who are all gods and much more, the Whole, the One, the Indivisible, including me’.

9 Stockhausen, Jahreskreis, p. 423.

10 See, in particular, Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy, trans. Harvey, John W (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1958), pp. 8–24Google Scholar.

11 For a fuller description of the fourfold see, in particular, the essay, Martin Heidegger, ‘Building Dwelling, Thinking’, in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Hofstadter, Albert (New York, Sydney: Harper and Row, 1975) pp. 143–61Google Scholar, and then Ballard, Bruce W, ‘Heidegger, Otto, and the Phenomenology of Awe’, Philosophy Today, 31, no. 1 (1988), p. 68Google Scholar.

12 Kierkegaard, Søren, Either/or Part II, trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 206Google Scholar.

13 See, for example, Stockhausen, Karlheinz, ‘Komponist und Kosmos’, in Texte zur Musik 1984–1991, vol. 10, ed. von Blumröder, Christoph (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1998), p. 222Google Scholar.

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18 Badiou and Haéri, In Praise of Mathematics, p. 96.

19 Badiou and Haéri, In Praise of Mathematics, p. 105.

20 Stockhausen, Karlheinz, ‘Artful Birds’, in Texte zur Musik 1998–2007, vol. 17, ed. Misch, Imke (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2014), p. 375Google Scholar.

21 Stockhausen, ‘Artful Birds’, p. 375.

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23 For a discussion of the role of inserts in Stockhausen's music, see Assis, Gustavo Alfaix, ‘Structure and Exception: Evaluating the Concept of Einschub in Stockhausen's Compositional Process’, in The Musical Legacy of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Looking Back and Forward, ed. Grant, M.J. and Misch, Imke (Hofheim: Wolke-Verlag, 2016)Google Scholar.

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25 Each opera of LICHT focuses on one, or one unique combination of, the characters: hence, MONTAG focuses on Eve, DIENSTAG on Michael and Lucifer, DONNERSTAG on Michael, FREITAG on Eve and Lucifer, SAMSTAG on Lucifer, and SONNTAG on Michael and Eve. MITTWOCH focuses on all three together

26 Stockhausen explains his connection with HU, and quotes Khan's references to it, in Stockhausen, Karlheinz, Vortrag Über Hu (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1979), p 15Google Scholar. This is essentially a composed lecture, intended to explain the structure and performance of INORI, in which ‘HU’ is shouted by its soloists at the piece's climax.

27 Kohl, Jerome, ‘Into the Middleground: Formula Syntax in Stockhausen's “Licht”’, Perspectives of New Music, 28, no. 2 (1990), pp. 262–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Cott, Jonathan and Stockhausen, Karlheinz, Stockhausen : Conversations with the Composer (London: Robson Books, 1974), pp. 108–9Google Scholar.