stockhausen

I’ve just heard of the death of Stockhausen. This is very saddening news.

I was hoping to get to his 80th birthday concert series next year, having managed to attend a concert in last year’s series. That performance, of Komet amongst other pieces, was very much a staged work, not just music, and I wanted to see more.

I love his music, even naming a poem for a piece that directly inspired it (with his permission, I might add). I bought CDs directly from his home business. My next purchase was going to be the Licht operas, so far as possible given a couple remain unrecorded.

There are a lot of stories turning up around the man, which make him sound somewhat cuckoo. Ignore them, just listen to the music. It’s wonderful.