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Stockhausen: Kurzwellen

Ensemble C.L.S.I., Paul Méfano

There can be no doubt this realisation honours the composer’s intentions while imparting a deftness and even playfulness to the music-making, as sampling any of these 31 individual tracks should...

Stockhausen: Kurzwellen

Ensemble C.L.S.I., Paul Méfano

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There can be no doubt this realisation honours the composer’s intentions while imparting a deftness and even playfulness to the music-making, as sampling any of these 31 individual tracks should...

About

The performers in Kurzwellen react to the completely unforeseeable events which they receive on short-wave radios while performing on their instruments. But this is not improvisation. Stockhausen’s score instructs them how to transform what they hear: how they imitate amd modulate it, make it longer or shorter, how to rhythmically articulate it, higher or lower, louder or softer, darker or more playful. Whether they should play and as solo, duo, trio or quartet, etc. Though not so familiar now, at the time short-wave radios made it possible to listen to live radio stations from all over the world. The transmission was not always clean, but disturbed by noises and interferences. Moving from one station to another one could hear Morse-code signals, amateur radio communications and all kind of electronic sounds and noises. Stockhausen wanted this sound world to be part of Kurzwellen. This new version created by C.L.S.I., premiered at the Stockhausen Summer Course in Kurten on August 10th 2011, is a kind of updating of Stockhausen’s one of the 1960s. It is the first version using computers and multiple live electronic performers. Instead of Stockhausen as sound projectionist doing all live electronics himself, in this version there are four pairs of musicians and electroacousticians.

Contents and tracklist

Work No. 25, System 1 (Realization by Ensemble C.L.S.I.): Introduction Shortwave Radio Quartet
Track length1:20
Work No. 25, System 1 (Realization by Ensemble C.L.S.I.): Introduction Instrumental Quartet
Track length1:39
Work No. 25, System 1: First W Radio Solo, Followed by Instrumental Quartet [4 Synchronous Events]
Track length2:30
Work No. 25, System 1: Radio Followed by Instrumental Trio [5 Synchronous Events]
Track length1:54
Work No. 25, System 1: Instrumental Duo [2 Alternating Events]
Track length0:28
Work No. 25, System 1: Radio Followed by Instrumental Duo [1 Synchronous Event]
Track length0:28
Work No. 25, System 1: Second W Radio Solo Followed by Instrumental quartet [2 Synchronous Events]
Track length3:05
Work No. 25, System 1: Radio Followed by Instrumental Quartet [5 Synchronous Events]
Track length2:23
Work No. 25, System 2: Beginning of System Event Followed by Instrumental Quartet [1 Alternating Event]
Track length0:44
Work No. 25, System 2: Instrumental Duo [1 Alternating Event]
Track length0:22
Work No. 25, System 2: Radio Followed by Instrumental Duo [4 Synchronous Events]
Track length1:46
Work No. 25, System 2: Radio Followed by Instrumental Duo [5 Synchronous Events]
Track length2:03
Work No. 25, System 2: Third W Radio Solo Followed by Instrumental quartet [3 Synchronous Events]
Track length1:45
Work No. 25, System 2: Radio Followed by Instrumental Duo [2 Synchronous Events]
Track length2:22
Work No. 25, System 2: Radio Followed by Instrumental Duo [3 Synchronous Events]
Track length1:33
Work No. 25, System 3: Instrumental Trio [5 Alternating Events]
Track length1:29
Work No. 25, System 3: Radio Followed by Instrumental Trio [1 Synchronous Event]
Track length1:11
Work No. 25, System 3: Radio Followed by Instrumental Trio [3 Synchronous Events]
Track length0:31
Work No. 25, System 3: Fourth W Radio Solo Followed by Instrumental Quartet [5 Synchronous Events]
Track length0:58
Work No. 25, System 3: Radio Followed by Instrumental Trio [2 Synchronous Events]
Track length2:05
Work No. 25, System 3: Instrumental Duo [5 Alternating Events]
Track length1:42
Work No. 25, System 3: Instrumental Trio [4 Alternating Events]
Track length0:30
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental Quartet [4 Alternating Events]
Track length1:22
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental Duo [1 Alternating Event]
Track length2:31
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental Trio [3 Alternating Events]
Track length3:45
Work No. 25, System 4: Radio Followed by Instrumental Trio [6 Synchronous Events]
Track length1:27
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental Duo [2 Alternating Events]
Track length2:16
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental Quartet [3 Alternating Events]
Track length0:51
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental Duo [4 Alternating Events]
Track length1:19
Work No. 25, System 4: Radio Followed by Instrumental Duo [2 Synchronous Events]
Track length0:34
Work No. 25, System 4: Instrumental & Radio Trio [1 Alternating Event]
Track length0:52

Awards and reviews

March 2019

There can be no doubt this realisation honours the composer’s intentions while imparting a deftness and even playfulness to the music-making, as sampling any of these 31 individual tracks should make plain. Moreover, the pan-cultural inclusiveness Stockhausen was at pains to convey is always apparent – the circle for the Liberation of Sound and Image assuredly lives up to its name.
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