Etude (Stockhausen)
Encyclopedia
The Konkrete Etüde is the earliest work of electroacoustic tape music
by Karlheinz Stockhausen
, composed in 1952 and lasting just three-and-a-quarter minutes. The composer retrospectively gave it the number "⅕" in his catalogue of works.
, and by March had become familiar with composers such as Pierre Boulez
, Jean Barraqué
, and Michel Philippot
who were working with musique concrète
at Pierre Schaeffer
's Club d’Essai. Beginning in November, Stockhausen was able to work in the studio, but only recording and cataloguing natural sounds, mainly of percussion instruments. In December, at last, Stockhausen was allowed to make his own piece. Using sounds recorded from a prepared piano
, he cut the tape into short pieces, spliced the pieces together, and superimposed the results (Toop 1976, 295–96). This involved taking the attack segment of each sound and repeating it to produce a relatively constant sound (Toop 1979, 387). The result was then transposed using a transposition machine called a phonogène (Stockhausen 1992, 5 and 95). The entire process was accomplished in twelve days, concluded on 15 December 1952 (Blumröder 1993, 92). It was the first piece by a non-French composer made in the Paris studio (Frisius 2008, 61). Even before completing the piece, Stockhausen was becoming disillusioned with musique concrète (Toop 1979, 388), and in a letter to Henri Pousseur
written only a few months later, Stockhausen described the Etude as a "negative result" (Toop 1976, 297).
Long thought to have been lost, the tape of the Etude was, according to one source, rediscovered by Rudolf Frisius (Kurtz 1992, 56); according to another, it was found by the composer himself, "in a pile of old tapes" (Stockhausen 1992, 7 and 97). Even after its rediscovery, Stockhausen did not permit the work to be published until 1992 (Frisius 2008, 64).
There are references to another, earlier and possibly unrealised musique concrète project, Studie über einen Ton (Study on One Sound), in two parts (Kurtz 1992, 56, 261). However, this same title, only in French—Étude sur un seul son—had been used by Boulez for the first of his two concrète études, realised in 1951. Pierre Schaeffer, in an interview conducted many years after the fact, refers to both of these works by the same title and recalled that the tape of Stockhausen's Study on One Sound was only about 50 centimeters long—lasting less than one second at 76.2 cm/sec. (Kurtz 1986, 16–17). The situation is further complicated by an entry in a published catalog of Schaeffer's studio, Répertoire acousmatique 1948–1980, naming the last production of 1952 as a work by Stockhausen lasting only 1 min. 13 secs., and titled Étude "aux mille collants" (Étude of a Thousand Splices) (Frisius 2008, 61–62). Stockhausen also mentions a failed first attempt at realising the Etude:
Each row of the square is a transposition onto the successive members of the original row (Toop 1981, 158). Durations are based on divisions of tape-length units of 216 cm, which comes to just about three seconds, but is a convenient number for reckoning subdivisions, since 23 × 33 = 216 (Toop 1976, 298).
Each section is assigned a number of sounds from one to six. Once the number of sounds has been determined, the distribution of sounds within each section is specified by a set of what Stockhausen called "modes". Sounds may start or end together, duration and pitch may be linked (the higher the shorter) or not, and successive sounds may precede or follow silences, yielding six different modes which can be manipulated according to the same number square. These modes were to dominate Stockhausen's works for the next few years, in compositions such as Kontra-Punkte, Studie I
, and Studie II
(Toop 1976, 300).
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
, composed in 1952 and lasting just three-and-a-quarter minutes. The composer retrospectively gave it the number "⅕" in his catalogue of works.
History
In January 1952 Stockhausen travelled to Paris to study with Olivier MessiaenOlivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
, and by March had become familiar with composers such as Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Jean Barraqué
Jean Barraqué
Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué was a French composer and writer on music who developed an individual form of serialism which is displayed in a small output of highly complex but passionate works.-Life:...
, and Michel Philippot
Michel Philippot
Michel Paul Philippot was a French composer, mathematician, acoustician, musicologist, aesthetician, broadcaster, and educator.-Life:...
who were working with musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
at Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...
's Club d’Essai. Beginning in November, Stockhausen was able to work in the studio, but only recording and cataloguing natural sounds, mainly of percussion instruments. In December, at last, Stockhausen was allowed to make his own piece. Using sounds recorded from a prepared piano
Prepared piano
A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers....
, he cut the tape into short pieces, spliced the pieces together, and superimposed the results (Toop 1976, 295–96). This involved taking the attack segment of each sound and repeating it to produce a relatively constant sound (Toop 1979, 387). The result was then transposed using a transposition machine called a phonogène (Stockhausen 1992, 5 and 95). The entire process was accomplished in twelve days, concluded on 15 December 1952 (Blumröder 1993, 92). It was the first piece by a non-French composer made in the Paris studio (Frisius 2008, 61). Even before completing the piece, Stockhausen was becoming disillusioned with musique concrète (Toop 1979, 388), and in a letter to Henri Pousseur
Henri Pousseur
Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
written only a few months later, Stockhausen described the Etude as a "negative result" (Toop 1976, 297).
Long thought to have been lost, the tape of the Etude was, according to one source, rediscovered by Rudolf Frisius (Kurtz 1992, 56); according to another, it was found by the composer himself, "in a pile of old tapes" (Stockhausen 1992, 7 and 97). Even after its rediscovery, Stockhausen did not permit the work to be published until 1992 (Frisius 2008, 64).
There are references to another, earlier and possibly unrealised musique concrète project, Studie über einen Ton (Study on One Sound), in two parts (Kurtz 1992, 56, 261). However, this same title, only in French—Étude sur un seul son—had been used by Boulez for the first of his two concrète études, realised in 1951. Pierre Schaeffer, in an interview conducted many years after the fact, refers to both of these works by the same title and recalled that the tape of Stockhausen's Study on One Sound was only about 50 centimeters long—lasting less than one second at 76.2 cm/sec. (Kurtz 1986, 16–17). The situation is further complicated by an entry in a published catalog of Schaeffer's studio, Répertoire acousmatique 1948–1980, naming the last production of 1952 as a work by Stockhausen lasting only 1 min. 13 secs., and titled Étude "aux mille collants" (Étude of a Thousand Splices) (Frisius 2008, 61–62). Stockhausen also mentions a failed first attempt at realising the Etude:
Analysis
Stockhausen built the work on a six-by-six number square (Toop 1976, 298):| 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 6 |
| 4 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 1 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| 6 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 2 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
Each row of the square is a transposition onto the successive members of the original row (Toop 1981, 158). Durations are based on divisions of tape-length units of 216 cm, which comes to just about three seconds, but is a convenient number for reckoning subdivisions, since 23 × 33 = 216 (Toop 1976, 298).
Each section is assigned a number of sounds from one to six. Once the number of sounds has been determined, the distribution of sounds within each section is specified by a set of what Stockhausen called "modes". Sounds may start or end together, duration and pitch may be linked (the higher the shorter) or not, and successive sounds may precede or follow silences, yielding six different modes which can be manipulated according to the same number square. These modes were to dominate Stockhausen's works for the next few years, in compositions such as Kontra-Punkte, Studie I
Studie I
Studie I is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1953. It lasts 9 minutes 42 seconds and, together with his Studie II, comprises his work number 3.-History:...
, and Studie II
Studie II
Studie II is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1954 and, together with his Studie I, comprises his work number 3...
(Toop 1976, 300).
Discography
- Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Elektronische Musik 1952–1960. Etude, Studie IStudie IStudie I is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1953. It lasts 9 minutes 42 seconds and, together with his Studie II, comprises his work number 3.-History:...
, Studie IIStudie IIStudie II is an electronic music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen from the year 1954 and, together with his Studie I, comprises his work number 3...
, Gesang der JünglingeGesang der JünglingeGesang der Jünglinge is a noted electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog of works...
, KontakteKontakte (Stockhausen)Kontakte is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958–60 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig .-Work history:The title of the work “refers both to contacts between instrumental and...
. Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 3. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1992. - Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez: New Directions in Music. Él Records ACMEM193CD. Stockhausen, Konkrete Etüde (1952), ZeitmaßeZeitmaßeZeitmaße for five woodwinds is a chamber-music work by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Number 5 in the composer's catalog...
(1955–56), Klavierstück XI (1956, four versions, David Tudor, piano); Boulez, Le Marteau sans maîtreLe marteau sans maîtreLe marteau sans maître is a composition by the French composer Pierre Boulez. It is a setting of the surrealist poetry of René Char for alto and six instrumentalists. It was first performed in 1955.-Movements:...
. London: Él in association with Cherry Red Records, 2010.
Sources
- Blumröder, Christoph von. 1993. Die Grundlegung der Musik Karlheinz Stockhausens. Beihefte zum Arkiv für Musikwissenschaft 32, series edited by Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht in connection with Reinhold BrinkmannReinhold BrinkmannReinhold Brinkmann was a German musicologist.Brinkmann was born in Wildeshausen and studied at Freiburg im Breisgau. His dissertation was about Arnold Schönberg's Klavierstücke op. 11. He started working on the faculty of Freie Universität Berlin in 1970...
, Ludwig Finscher, Kurt von Fischer, Wolfgang Osthoff, and Albrecht Riethmüller. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 3-515-05696-3. - Decroupet, Pascal, and Elena Ungeheuer. 1994. "Karel Goeyvaerts und die serielle Tonbandmusik". Revue Belge de Musicologie 48:95–118.
- Frisius, Rudolf. 2008. Karlheinz Stockhausen II: Die Werke 1950–1977; Gespräch mit Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Es geht aufwärts". Mainz, London, Berlin, Madrid, New York, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, Toronto: Schott Musik International. ISBN 978-3-7957-0249-6.
- Kurtz, Michael. 1986. "Interview mit Pierre Schaeffer (Paris 25.4.1984)". Zeitschrift für Musikpädagogik 11, no. 33 (January): 5–21.
- Kurtz, Michael. 1992. Stockhausen: A Biography, translated by Richard Toop. London and Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571143237 (cloth) ISBN 0-571-17146-X (pbk)
- Maconie, RobinRobin MaconieRobin Maconie is a New Zealand composer, pianist, and writer.Robin Maconie studied with Frederick Page and Roger Savage at the Victoria University of Wellington, receiving a Master of Arts in the History and Literature of Music in 1964...
. 2005. Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 0-8108-5356-6. - Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1992. "Etude (1952): Musique Concrète". Booklet for Karlheinz Stockhausen: Elektronische Musik, 5–7 (German) and 95–100 (English). Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 3. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag.
- Toop, Richard. 1976. "Stockhausen's Konkrete Etüde". The Music Review 37, no. 4 (November): 295–300.
- Toop, Richard. 1979. "Stockhausen and the Sine Wave: The Story of an Ambiguous Relationship". The Musical Quarterly 65, no. 3 (July): 379–91.
- Toop, Richard. 1981. "Stockhausen's Electronic Works: Sketches and Worksheets from 1952–1967". Interface 10:149–97.