Skip to main content

Music

cArRÉ

Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bochumer Symphoniker
ChorWerk Ruhr

Archiv der Stockhausen-Stiftung

Karlheinz Stockhausen spent his entire life exploring musical space. As early as his ‘Gesang der Jünglinge’ from 1956, a work which heralded the future of electronic music, the German avant-garde composer arranged for the audience to hear the sound from four different directions.

In ‘COSMIC PULSES’ from 2007, one of the last works which Stockhausen completed before his death, no fewer than 24 musical layers circulate through the space in different directions, at different heights and at different speeds. The listener is sucked into a spectacular, immaterial tunnel of sound. In common with many of Stockhausen’s works ‘COSMIC PULSES’ is also laden with cosmic and religious symbolism.

In ‘Carré’ from 1960, four orchestras and four choirs are seated on different sides of the audience. Because of the unusual configuration of the space, opportunities to experience ‘Carré’s forceful shifts of sound live are rare. In an extended evening concert of Stockhausen’s spatial music, ChorWerk Ruhr and the Bochumer Symphoniker perform this monumental masterpiece under the musical direction of four conductors. The Bochum Jahrhunderthalle provides an ideal venue for Stockhausen’s expansive musical rituals.

Karlheinz Stockhausen on ‘Carré’:
“This piece tells no story. Each moment can exist independently. One must take one’s time if one wishes to absorb this music; most of the changes happen very gently WITHIN the notes. I wish that this music might provide a little inner calm, breadth and concentration; an awareness that we have a lot of time if we are prepared to take it – that it is better to recover oneself than to be beside oneself; because the things which happen need someone for them to happen to, someone has to gather them.” (Karlheinz Stockhausen)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)
GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE (1956), electronic music 
CARRÉ (1960), for 4 choirs and 4 orchestras
- Intermission -
CARRÉ (1960), for 4 choirs and 4 orchestras
COSMIC PULSES (2007), electronic music

Cast

Orchestra - Bochumer Symphoniker
Choir - ChorWerk Ruhr

Tickets