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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2020
Karlheinz Stockhausen's cycle of chamber and electronic music, KLANG – die 24 Stunden des Tages (SOUND – The 24 Hours of the Day) was one of several music cycles, both realised and planned, in which the composer sought to capture the passage and meaning of time. Stockhausen's death in 2007 left KLANG with only 21 of its proposed 24 pieces composed. This article draws on Martin Heidegger's concept of time as ‘the horizon for the understanding of being’ as a lens through which to examine the musical content and imagery of KLANG and as a means of understanding the notion of being that Stockhausen conveyed in these compositions written at the end of his life. It will suggest a significant difference in Stockhausen's thinking about the nature of life and being, moving from the cyclic concepts conveyed in the earlier time-focused works such as SIRIUS and LICHT to a more linear notion of being in KLANG. Finally, the article will use this analysis to suggest that, despite Stockhausen's stated intentions to compose two more time-focused cycles after KLANG, he had begun to confront his own mortality, while continuing to believe in the possibility, if not the knowability, of hope beyond death.
1 Heidegger indicates that presenting this notion of time is the principle aim of his treatise, Being and Time. See, in particular, Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. Stambaugh, Joan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), p. xxixGoogle Scholar.
2 TIERKREIS (1975) was composed originally for 12 music boxes and consists of 12 melodies. Each melody is based on a unique tone row, most comprising the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, although some repeat notes in different registers, thereby having more than 12 notes. SIRIUS (1975–77), draws primarily on these melodies, developing and combining them in four groups that comprise the four major sections of the work and is scored throughout for trumpet, bass clarinet, soprano, bass, and pre-recorded electronic music. For more detailed analyses of both cycles, see Rudolf Frisius, Stockhausen II: Die Werke 1950–1977 (Mainz: Schott, 2008), pp. 291–304 and pp. 310–17.
3 For detailed explanation of Stockhausen's use of formula composition in LICHT, see Rudolf Frisius, Stockhausen III: Die Werkzyklen 1977–2007 (Mainz: Scott, 2013), pp. 29–513, and Jerome Kohl, ‘Into the Middleground: Formula Syntax in Stockhausen's “Licht”’, Perspectives of New Music, 28/2 (1990), pp. 262–91.
4 Those thematic threads are seen in the TIERKREIS's focus on the 12 signs of the Zodiac, SIRIUS's grouping of those star signs into the four seasons of the year, and LICHT's representation of the seven days of the week, told through the interconnected relationships of the cycle's three archetypal forces of Michael, Eve and Lucifer.
5 The others are the Second Hour, FREUDE (JOY) (2005) and the Third Hour, NATÜRLICHE DAUERN (NATURAL DURATIONS) (2005/06).
6 These titles, from Hours 6 to 12 respectively are: SCHÖNHEIT (BEAUTY) (2006), BALANCE, GLÜCK (HAPPINESS), HOFFNUNG (HOPE), GLANZ (BRILLIANCE), TREUE (FIDELITY), and ERWACHEN (AWAKENING) (all 2007). Of these seven pieces, the only one not scored for a trio, is GLANZ, scored for bassoon, viola, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, trombone and tuba.
7 These texts are either sung by the vocal soloist or, in the pieces where the soloist is an instrumentalist, the text is stylistically spoken by Kathinka Pasveer and incorporated into the pre-recorded layer of electronic music.
8 This largely pitch-oriented application of serialism is extended to duration in a separate piece that accompanies the Fourth Hour of (HIMMELS-TÜR). This is 24 TÜRIN, a work for percussionist, who performs both on the multi-panelled wooden door used in HIMMELS-TÜR and on a set of 24 Japanese rin. In this piece, durations between notes correspond to the pitch intervals of the KLANG tone row
9 Karlheinz Stockhausen, ‘… How Time Passes …’, trans. Cornelius Cardew, Die Reihe, English edition, 3 (1959), pp. 10–40.
10 These processes are explained in detail in Jerome Kohl, Karlheinz Stockhausen: ‘Zeitmaße’ (New York: Routledge, 2017).
11 See, for example, Karlheinz Stockhausen, ‘Entfindung und Entdeckung: Ein Beitrag zur Form-Genese’, Texte zur Elektronischen und Instrumentalen Musik (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1988), pp. 222–58, at p. 250.
12 Aristotle's notion of time is set out most succinctly in his Physics, Book IV, pp. 10–14.
13 Karlheinz Stockhausen, ‘Die Sieben Tage der Woche’, Texte zur Musik Band 6 1977–1984 (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1989), pp. 152–71, at p. 156
14 Karlheinz Stockhausen, Spiral für einen Solisten (score) (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1973), p. 14.
15 Originally, Stockhausen had intended that Hour 5 would include not only the three solo pieces that currently comprise HARMONIEN but also the trio of those three instruments (that is, bass clarinet, flute and trumpet) that now appears as Hour 6 (SCHÖNHEIT). Hour 6 was originally to be COSMIC PULSES (now Hour 13) and the chamber pieces that now comprise Hours 7–12, all continuing to work with the HARMONIEN material from Hours 5, were not part of the original scheme at all. See Jerome Kohl, ‘Harmonies and the Path from Beauty to Awakening: Hours 5 to 12 of Stockhausen's Klang’, Perspectives of New Music, 50/1–2, (2012), pp. 476–523, at pp 477–78
16 A detailed analysis of all these aspects of Hour 4 of KLANG can be found in Richard Toop, ‘Himmels-Tür: Crossing to the Other Side’, Perspectives of New Music, 50/1–2, (2012), pp. 425–75.
17 There is, arguably, however a slight hint of renewal and maybe even rebirth after wailing siren and clashing metal at the end of HIMMELS-TÜR. The score directs, on page 20, that a little girl is to emerge from the audience, walk through the now-open door and mute the siren and percussion. She doesn't reappear, but maybe she provides some indication that the unknowable darkness beyond the door will also find its end through the hope of future that perhaps the little girl signifies. But this can be no more than conjecture. At any rate, her part in the piece is significant enough that the full title Stockhausen gave the piece is HEAVEN'S DOOR for a Percussionist and a Little Girl.
18 Karlheinz Stockhausen, HARMONIEN (Score), trans. Suzanne Stephens (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2008), p. 1.
19 Part of the bottom (slowest and deepest) layer is, however, also retained until the end of the piece.
20 This, indeed, accords with Heidegger's own notion of time as that which is defined more by an awareness of mortality than a belief in eternity. See Alweiss, Lilian, ‘Heidegger and “the concept of time”’, History of the Human Sciences, 15/3 (2003), pp. 117–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Heidegger's notion of the Fourfold is set out especially in his essay, ‘Building Dwelling, Thinking’. See Heidegger, Martin, Basic Writings, ed. Krell, David Farrell (London: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2008) pp. 347–63Google Scholar.