The Classical Music Book

306

HE HAS CHANGED OUR

VIEW OF MUSICAL

TIME AND FORM

GRUPPEN (1955–1957), KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN

I

n 1955, Westdeutscher

Rundfunk (WDR, the Studio for

Electronic Music of the West

German Radio) commissioned

a new work from the German

composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

That August, he rented a room in

Paspels, eastern Switzerland, and

planned a large and ambitious new

piece. Although he initially aimed

to write an electronic piece, he

abandoned this idea in favor of

conventional instrumentation,

eventually conceiving a large-scale

work for three orchestras playing

simultaneously. Titled Gruppen

(“Groups”), it became well known,

both for the way it developed

compositional technique and for

its huge orchestral soundscape.

Structure and space

The key compositional technique

of Gruppen lies in its structure.

In the 1920s, composers such as

Arnold Schoenberg had devised

a way of writing music based

on set rows of 12 pitches. Later

composers, such as Pierre Boulez

and Stockhausen, took this

technique further, using series or

groups of notes that determined not

only pitch but also musical elements

such as the notes’ volume and

duration—a method often known

as total serialism. The title of

Gruppen refers to this technique,

as the work is based on 174

formulae (short groups of notes).

Yet this was not the only influence

on its structure: the contours of the

mountains that Stockhausen saw

from his window in Switzerland

inspired his organizational

diagrams for the piece.

Stockhausen scored the work for

three orchestras, each with its own

conductor and playing at a different

tempo, thereby transforming the

usual conception of musical time.

The orchestras are arranged in a

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Total serialism

BEFORE

1948 In Paris, Pierre Schaeffer

gives concerts of musique

concrète, featuring prerecorded

sounds electronically altered

and manipulated.

1950–1951 Nummer 1 for two

pianos and Nummer 2 for 13

instruments by Karel

Goeyvaerts pioneer the

technique of “total serialism.”

AFTER

1970 Mantra, for two pianos

and electronics, begins

Stockhausen’s preoccupation

with melodic-line formulae.

1980 Stockhausen finishes

Donnerstag (“Thursday”),

the first of his Licht cycle

of operas. The operas are

composed using the serial

technique of “superformulae.”

Repetition is based on

body rhythms, so we

identify with the heartbeat,

or with walking, or

with breathing.

Karlheinz Stockhausen

US_306-307_Stockhausen.indd 306 26/03/18 1:01 PM