Stockhausen's crazy comments

Composer/theoretician Herbert Kellner was concerned about
Stockhausen's recent comments equating the murders at the World Trade
Center with "great, cosmic, art" and I answered him as follows:

> Asked at a press conference on Monday for his view of
> the events, Stockhausen answered that the attacks were
> "the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole
> cosmos."

Hello Herbert...

I had mentioned this in one of my posts in passing... Yes, this
doesn't do much for the "cause" of contemporary or microtonal music,
for sure, since Stockhausen was definitely a microtonalist
(sometimes).

However, it is not all that surprising. When I met Stockhausen in
the mid 1970's he was already a supreme egotist and megalomaniac.
You could see it in his eyes. He was a little "nuts" even then.

HOWEVER, he *had* written some good works, like, in particular
_Gruppen_, _Stimmung_, and some of the earlier pieces, like
_Kontrapunkte_, _Kontacte_ (a great electronic piece), and at the
time I met him at Darmstadt he was banging the H*ll out of gongs...

This post is still "on topic" since, as many people know, many of his
early pioneering efforts were in microtonality, such as _Studie II_
and others, which used non-octave equivalence. See Brian McLaren's
_Microtonality, Past, Present, Future_ for more details.

Stockhausen visited San Francisco in the 1960's and that really did
something to him. My impression is that he ingested various chemical
substances with great vigor, and he was never quite the same
thereafter.

His works became *spectacular,* non-music, more theatrical than
anything.

Deutche Grammaphone dropped his contract. That was incredible in
itself, since he was considered at one point the *next great German
composer* which is, of course, always something thought about over
there... His CDs are still available, and he even has a website, but
he charges $80 per CD. He obviously believes he deserves to price
them this way. It seems that few people agree...

So if art=spectacle, I guess that's where he's getting off with
this... Although it is pretty amazing that he could say something
like this without considering the "humanitarian" consequences...

Of course, I don't really believe Stockhausen could ever have been
considered a "humanitarian..."

It was that look in his eyes.

For me, personally, a boycott is appropriate...

_________ __________ _____________
Joseph Pehrson