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Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Sound

Biography

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is most known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition, and musical spatialization.

Known For

Apostrophes
8.5

Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.

Apostrophes

1975
The Culture Show
6.6

A weekly BBC Two magazine programme focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture and more.

The Culture Show

2004
Walkabout
7.3

Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.

Walkabout

1971
Good Morning, Mr. Orwell
8.1

In his book "1984", George Orwell saw the television of the future as a control instrument in the hands of Big Brother. Right at the start of the much-anticipated Orwellian year, Paik and Co. were keen to demonstrate satellite TV's ability to serve positive ends-- Namely, the intercontinental exchange of culture, combining both highbrow and entertainment elements. A live broadcast shared between WNET TV in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, linked up with broadcasters in Germany and South Korea, reached a worldwide audience of over 10 or even 25 million (including the later repeat transmissions).

Good Morning, Mr. Orwell

1984
Electronic Vibrations: A Sound Changes the World
7.0

The amazing story of electronic music: its epic journey from its origins in Europe, at the hands of the great artists of the post-war classical avant-garde, to the great post-industrial cities of the USA, where this genre of genres took over music stores, shady clubs and, eventually, the big stages.

Electronic Vibrations: A Sound Changes the World

2022
Modulations
7.2

Less a documentary than a primer on all electronic music. Featuring interviews with nearly every major player past and present, as well as a few energetic live clips, Modulations delves into one of electronica's forgotten facets: the human element. Lee travels the globe from the American Midwest to Europe to Japan to try to express the appeal of music often dismissed as soulless. Modulations shows that behind even the most foreign or alien electronic composition lies a real human being, and Lee lets many of these Frankenstein-like creators express and expound upon their personal philosophies and tech-heavy theories. Lee understands that a cultural movement as massive and diverse as dance music can't be contained.

Modulations

1998
Rapport fra "Nr. 24"
N/A

No description available.

Rapport fra "Nr. 24"

1994
In Absentia
6.5

A woman sits alone on a chair at a table in a room on one of the top floors of an asylum. Bright spot lights dot the night, sometimes shining on her window. She sharpens pencils and writes on a page in a copy book. The pencil point often breaks under her fingers' force. She places broken points outside the window on the sill. A satanic figure is somewhere nearby, animated but of straw or clay, not flesh. She finishes her writing, tears the paper from the pad, folds it, places it in an envelope, and slips it through a slot. Is she writing to her husband? "Sweetheart, come."

In Absentia

2000
Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko
8.0

For the past ten years Zappa in composing has turned away from Rock and Roll music - for which he first became famous - and has been working on new, contemporary, orchestral electronic music; in solitude and beyond any commercial conventions or commitments. It is the first time that Zappa has allowed a film crew to study him during compositional work, actually filming the first moments of a new compositional process. By contrast, in a staged interview Zappa gives comments on music. This film seeks to reveal the sensetivities of Zappa's personality and character also beyond narrative content.

Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko

1991
No image
N/A

The second act of Stockhausen's dramatic music work "Donnerstag Aus Licht" (Thursday from Light), which was the first composed entry of his 7-part, 29-hour opera cycle "Licht" (Light).

Michaels Reise um die Erde

2009
Migration
N/A

A series of migrants who at times narrate and impersonate shards of myths, among them the Great Goddess, the Virgin of Bach’s Magnificat, the Sulamite of Stockhausen’s Song of Solomon (“I am black but comely”), tales by Herodotus, Kafka, Villon (as set to music by Ezra Pound). Third part of the Flower of Eryngium cycle.

Migration

1970
The Great Rehearsals: Momente
N/A

Filmed during rehearsals for the premiere of Stockhausen's monumental work Momente. The revealing rehearsal sequences are interspersed with Stockhausen speaking of his youth, work process and the genesis and meaning of Momente.

The Great Rehearsals: Momente

1966
L'Infonie Inachevée
7.0

No description available.

L'Infonie Inachevée

1974
No image
N/A

This fascinating film documents the U.S. premiere production of Originale, a Happening by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Filmed at the "2nd Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York," which was produced by Norman Seaman and Charlotte Moorman, the stage production was directed by Allan Kaprow. Performers include Nam June Paik, Moorman, Jackson Mac Low and Allen Ginsberg, among many others.

Stockhausen's Originale: Doubletakes

1964
Helicopter String Quartet
6.0

One morning, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen awoke from a dream that told him to take to the sky. Stockhausen envisioned four helicopters swirling in the clouds, with each of a quartet’s members tucked inside his own chopper, communicating through headsets, stringing away in sync to the rotor-blade motors. He immediately set forth to make that dream a reality. In 1995, Dutch film director Scheffer followed Stockhausen in the days leading up to the premiere performance of his Helicopter String Quartet in Amsterdam. The resulting film offers a rare glimpse of Stockhausen as he patiently dictates every agonizingly detailed measure to the Arditti Quartet.

Helicopter String Quartet

1996
Cornelius Cardew: 1936-1981
N/A

Assesses the contribution made by British avant-garde composer, Cornelius Cardew, to contemporary music. Includes interviews with Stockhausen and other composers, and extracts from Cardew's own works.

Cornelius Cardew: 1936-1981

1986
Mikrophonie I
N/A

Studio recording of Mikrophonie I with the Stockhausen-Ensemble. Short introduction by Stockhausen in French and German.

Mikrophonie I

1966
Sonntag aus Licht
N/A

Sonntag aus Licht (‘Sunday of Light’) is the final installment of Stockhausen’s monumental Licht, a cycle of seven cosmic operas performed over an entire week! In this twenty-nine hour musical work—focusing on the characters of Eve, Michael, and Lucifer—each opera corresponds to a day of the week, in turn associated with a planet. Sonntag, Day of the Sun, is the most dense and impressive score in the cycle. Premiered after the composer's death, the piece focuses on the mystical union of Eve and Michael, while exploring the concepts of space-time and the ‘spatialisation’ of sound. The brilliant staging of Le Balcon and Maxime Pascal, who also conducts the musicians of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, plunges us into an immersive experience where we can discover the captivating world of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Sonntag aus Licht

2023
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5.3

Olivier Assayas’ Eldorado is a riveting documentary chronicling the efforts of Ballet Preljocaj to choreograph an otherworldly icon of 21st century music: Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ethereal Sonntags-Abschied.

Eldorado

2008
The Seventh Door
N/A

A documentary about the life and work of the Hungarian composer and conductor, Peter Eotvos.

The Seventh Door

1998