Stockhausen on 9/11 - '..the greatest work of art..ever..'

(Quote: Stockhausen on the 9/11 attack)
'What has happened is - now you all have to turn your brains around - the greatest work of art there has ever been. That minds could achieve something in one act, which we in music cannot even dream of, that people rehearse like crazy for ten years, totally fanatically for one concert, and then die. This is the greatest possible work of art in the entire cosmos. Imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5000 people are chased into the Afterlife, in one moment. This I could not do. Compared to this, we are nothing as composers... Imagine this, that I could create a work of art now and you all were not only surprised, but you would fall down immediately, you would be dead and you would be reborn, because it is simply too insane. Some artists also try to cross the boundaries of what could ever be possible or imagined, to wake us up, to open another world for us.'
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hamburg, September 2001.

Bach - Badinerie (Second Orchestral Suite)
Mozart - Lá ci darem la mano (Don Giovanni)
Beethoven - Eroica Symphony (Nº 3)
Tchaikovsky - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (Nutcracker)
Brahms - Piano Quartet in G minor
Dvorak - New World Symphony (Nº 9)
Debussy - Prélude à l'apres-midi d'un faune
Ravel - Piano Concerto in G major
Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto in C minor
R. Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel
Sibelius - Violin Concerto
Poulenc - Organ Concerto

Stockhausen - Hymnen - 1959
Nono - Sofferte onde serene - 1976
Cage - 4.33 -1952
Schnittke - Cello sonata - 1978
Xenakis - Synaphai - 1969
Berio - Leaf - 1990
Ligeti - Artikulation - 1958
Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring - 1912
Shostakovich - 1st Symphony -1924
Britten - War Requiem - 1962
Barber - Adagio - 1936
Orff - Carmina Burana - 1936
Copland - Appalachian Spring - 1945
Rodrigo - Concerto Aranjuez - 1939
Ives - The Unanswered Question - 1906

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Stockhausen
• 9/11
• World
• Trade
• Center
• Modern
• Art
• Music

[dsteffey77]

Think outside the box dude. All of these are composers in their own right. It's called EVOLUTION. You're probably pro-monarchy and a creationist too. OPEN YOUR MIND!

[richtomes]

@dsteffey77 Not everything 'outside the box' is of interest. You're correct however ! I am pro monarchy, and a 'creationist'. But I don't believe in anything just 'because' - I have very good reasons for the things I believe.

[SirSwerling]

I do dislike the modern 'conservative' composers who write their 'music' in a tasteless and second-rate tonal manner, very often unpleasantly stealing from greater musicians, but the musical 'progressives' are very often tenth-rate artists who have the right connections or get lucky doing something absurd and worthless. As fun as special effects are, why should one go to a concert? That is why I have turned to a method of microtonal scales which preserve the musicality of the tonal system...

[richtomes]

@SirSwerling an interesting comment about stealing, because 'stealing' has always been a recognized and respectable part of this great tradition. As quoted by O.Wilde 'Talent imitates, genius steals'. Though innovation is useful it is not at all the main event. The art tradition has always taken the best ideas of the past and re-issued them in different forms, respecting the original and in this way each time adding new dimensions and making the greatest achievements accessible to new audiences.

[NLMF2011]

I liked the video. I think a lot of group A composers are great living examples of the emperor´s new clothes... One thing that is not quite fair in the way you categorize the composers, everyone in list A was born AFTER 1920 (except John Cage). In List B almost everyone was born right at the turn of the century over 20 years earlier on average. Something important happened in those 20 years that changed. Called the 2nd Vienese School which included Webern, Schoenberg and Berg amongst others.

[richtomes]

@NLMF2011 I omitted the 2nd Viennese School deliberately to show the before and after effect. 20 years in a 500+ year old tradition is almost nothing. Consider the gap between Haydn and Mozart, or between Beethoven and Schubert. So when I see a change take place in so short a time which is so radical that the new style bears no resemblance whatsoever to what has gone before, I'm inclined to think that what has taken place is not really the true continuation of the lineage.

[SirTwitchyferr]

Comp student speaking. Your "Group A" composers are a group with vastly different compositional styles and, I suspect, philosophies and ideologies. You've cast post-tonal music as tyrannical, disgusting, and unartistic. You've misrepresented entire schools of thought. The historical development behind the styles of Xenakis, Cage and Stockhausen is extremely important to understanding their music. You've done anyone interested in 20th- and 21st-century music a disservice.

[lindmusik]

I can't really dismiss anything from this list. Most of the pieces here are either beautiful, daring, inspiring, interesting or fascinating in one sense or another. Or well, Cage is misrepresented here. 4:33 is not a compositional style but more a kind of statement that tells us to also listen to the silence. Cage was very diverse and daring throughout his whole life. And why shouldn't he be? "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." - John Cage

[iantoau]

harry partch once said he spent a great deal of time looking for truth. after that great deal of time he said that there are many truths. his work was reflective of his time. if we had the luxury of composing everything that reflected our time and our concept of truth, no matter how ugly or wonderul that truth may be in our time, how would each piece be received?

[Mellamopableras]

I see you dislike musical evolution, so I wanted to say something about that: If there wasn't musical evolution all we would have right now would be monodic chants and some primitive instruments. So learn something about music and its history before posting a video like this, as you clearly can't notice the gigantic leap between Bach and Ravel, and I don't think you know much about music before Bach.

PS: No one can force anybody to compose in one manner or another.

[alexbericheath]

Well the answer to your question is that we are not pushed in either direction, or at least I was not. I was encouraged to pick and choose from the elements of whatever period I liked, to learn from what I loved to disregard what I disliked. The beauty of the period we are in now is that we can be who we want to be, ears have been trained to appreciate extreme levels of dissonance knowing that a less dissonant passage or consonant passage will bring us greater joy in the grander scheme.

[DarkZekeX]

@TheDavid2222 Uh, its called atonal, not arhythm. Also you obviously don't even understand what rhythm is, saying things like that. Besides, if you don't instantly appreciate a work on first hearing, it doesn't automatically mean there is something wrong with the work. Maybe you've never heard anything like it before, or you don't know what to listen for, what interesting things you should register. People shouldn't always need instant gratification when enjoying art.

[schzx]

lol @ John Cage