The death was announced recently of the German 'Experimental' composer Karleinz Stockhausen. Sibelius and Stockhausen might be considered unlikely bed-fellows--Sibelius the towering Symphonist and master of organic growth and Stockhausen the guru of electronic music and Aleatory [controlled chance] in Serial composition.
Although Sibelius was largely out of sympathy with much of the new music during his lifetime, he was not against radical developments as such. He new that composers must find their own voice.
In this months Gramophone, that scathing critic of Sibelius's music Mr. P Quantrill devotes two pages too Stockhausen. In a glowing tribute, Quantrill waxes lyrical on the Germans achievements and with no trace of any disent.
I began to think about both Sibelius and Stockhausen as lone wolfs in the history of music. Sibelius was described as the worlds worst composer [Leibowitz] and was it Beecham who once remarked that he had just trodden in some Stockhausen! But one paragraph caught my eye, and I quote:
'Frankly, who could imagine that a single composer could write works as different from each other, and from anything else, as Gruppen, Stimmung and Freude, and yet retain the marks of a personal, engrossing and quixotic language?'.
I think that I can offer another--the Symphonies of Jean Sibelius.--kullervopete.

I am greatly surprised that my feature on Sibelius and Stockhausen has so far failed to generate any interest on the forum. Edward Clark [UK Sibelius Society President] wrote an illuminating piece in our Newsletter last January on the two S's. Edward made the point that in the 1930's, Sibelius was seen by many as the 'voice of the future', but fast forward to the 1960's and Sibelius had virtually disapeared amongst the Cognoscenti of musical taste. Stockhausen, incomprehensible as he seemed to many people, was the star of the future.--perhaps because he was incomprehensible!
This year marked the passing of Stockhausen and it seems to me that whereas interest in the electronic Guru has wained, apart from Mr. Boulez, Sibelius has come full circle and is once again a vital influence on living composers. Any Stockhausen fans out there?.--kp

Stockhausen was just a novelty act and, I'm sorry, a load of BS. That helicopter string quartet, for example, is a stunt and about as musical as shoving a violin down a garbage disposal. What divine sound!

I'm sorry, but music is should have SOME amount of order to differentiate it from random, meaningless sound. Even Schonberg is often more "musical" than Stockhausen!

I think Sibelius proved you can be modern and still produce real music whereas composers like Stockhausen make name for themselves by being provocative by creating cool sound effects.

I'm sorry, Pete, if you are a Stockhausen fan, but his art simply does not mean a thing to me and I do not see a connection at all between him and Siblius.

Me a Stockhausen Fan! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING. As the guy died this year I just wondered what forum members thought about the two S's. I once turned the radio on and heard the most ghastly noise eminating from it. It turned out to be 'Gruppen' or something. I had trodden in some Stockhausen!--kp

I am SO relieved Pete! For a while there, I thought it possible that you were a fan of this "composer".

The only thing these two composers hve in common is that their names begin with S. Other than that...they are worlds apart.

Yeah, I too have heard 'Gruppen." Who listens to stuff like that and walks away have had an enriching musical experience? I'll bet people who say that like that kind of music are all lying...they just say they like it to come off as "avant-garde" and "artsy fartsy".

I, too, have trodden in Stockhausen and it smelled (and sounded) bad...!

I had to listen to Stockhausen, once, for a University assignment. I for one don't mind chaotic music if I feel that it is expressing something. When the chaos becomes self-serving, the music loses any appeal it may have had for me.

One interesting thing about Stockhausen: Miles Davis, of all people, listened to him frequently.

I'm with Sir Thomas Beecham when it comes to Stockhausen, i.e. :-
I think I trod in some once.

Kurki mentions Miles Davies, its interesting that the electronic guru seems to have made a mark on a number of 'pop' musicians from Bjork to the Beatles. Paul McCartney and John Lennon seem to have been fans. Stochausen's image even appeared on the cover of the 1967 album 'Sgt Pepper's lonely hearts club band'.
That fine Sibelian, Esa Pekka Salonen described Stockhausen 'as the Rock star of my youth'. I think a lot of this Stockhausen 'worship' was maybe born out of youthful rebellion against what they perceived as old fashioned music of the time.
Stockhausen actually visited Finland several times. He was so facinated by the country during his first visit in 1958 that he had a plan to buy an Island in central Finland and move there..--kp

Sibelius rises above Stockhausen like the Sun over a stinking polluted city...I cannot stand Stockhausen and all that avant garde pretentious merde that somehow has been slipped into the Classical Music repertoire. Makes me mad!

I like this analogy. Sibelius truly is something higher, more powerful on his worst day than Stockhausen would be on his best day.

I literally crack up laughing whenever I listen to a radio broadcast of some modernist piece that sounds like monkies have raided the music room at the local high school and, at the end of the piece, there is this reverent (?) applause. Like the people listening REALLY enjoyed the piece...yeah right. To me, it sounded like crap.

If Stockhausen deserves applause after one of his works, what does Sibelius deserve...your soul?

This is a true story but, for the sake of propriety, I have concealed the names of the people and places involved.

A lady of a certain age whom I know (not a great music fan, admittedly) once attended a concert at a very prestigious London venue which a string quartet performed a modern Finnish work alongside some Sibelius. At the end of the modern piece there was - as Tapkaara has noted – the usual reverent applause from the VIPs and specialist listeners. This particular lady, though, said in a loud and piercing voice that could surely be heard throughout the room:
‘That was worse than going to the dentist!’

Recently in the thread 'I listen to Sibelius because...' [General Discussion] (

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) our friend Moldyoldie revealed a liking for several pieces of Stockhausen and he has promised to elaborate his enthusiasm's in this thread. As until now we have not had an advocate for the electronic guru's music on this forum, I look forward to Moldyoldies comments.

Why have I failed to connect with Stockhausen?

All my life I have worked in Industry and in a very noisy environment. When I came home to relax it was classical music that I turned to. Listening to music from the likes of Dvorak, Sibelius and many others. What these composers had in common was an ability to transport me from the noise and cacophony of my everyday existance into a world of beauty and aesthetic wonder. However certain composers, and here I must include Mr. Stockhausen took me back to that which I must escape.--kp

Stockhausen: Hymnen (Anthems for Electronic and Concrete Sounds)
Electronic Realization from WDR - Cologne, West Germany
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON (2 LPs)
Avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (d. 2007) had his fifteen minutes of quasi-fame in the late-'60s/early-'70s during the height of Cold War tensions and the Vietnam War. It's difficult to fathom how his musique concrète struck a chord with listeners of serious music at the time since much of it comes off today sounding kitschy and contrived. One could probably look to the prevailing Zeitgeist which also spawned Dark Side of the Moon and its various offshoots. I have to say, however, that I was always held spellbound by two of his lengthy works first heard on late-night public radio, Hymnen being one. It combines samplings of several familiar national anthems with the random sounds from shortwave radios and intermittent studio voices to make for a fascinating two-hour journey into the Zen of worldwide electronic communication (or near instantaneous travel) via various electronic filters, mixers, and potentiometers -- it's quite a trip! I like to think it's metaphorical to a sort of "world anthem". I hadn't heard this for many years until recently, but even today it fascinates - there's a surprise around every corner!

The work is divided into four "regions" centered around a specific national anthem or conglomeration of anthems. Around these "centers" are juxtaposed electronically generated sounds and voiced multi-lingual phrases; i.e., a commingling of the "known" with the abstract and unknown. From the composer's notes: "When one integrates in a composition known music with unknown new music, one can hear especially well how it was integrated: untransformed, more or less transformed, transposed, modulated, etc. The more self-evident the WHAT, the more attentive the listener becomes to the HOW. Naturally, national anthems are more than that: they are "loaded" with time, with history - with past, present, and future. They accentuate the subjectivity of peoples in a time when uniformity is all too often mistaken for universality. One must also make a clear distinction between subjectivity - and correspondence between subjective musical objects - and individualistic isolation and separation. The composition Hymnen is not a collage"

However arcane the methodology of its composition, I was personally mesmerized and “attentive” throughout. Perhaps it's my lifelong fascination with broadcasting which is responsible -- those shortwave band passes are "music" to my ears!

A detailed online discussion of Hymnen can be found

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and

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.

For the curious, the great bulk of Stockhausen's '60s/'70s discography is no longer available commercially (Deutsche Grammophon dropped its entire Stockhausen discography in the '80s), but recordings of several other works, including my other "spellbound" favorite Stimmung, are available through various online retail sources. There's one work called the Helicopter String Quartet where each musician goes up in one of four helicopters and their playing is piped back into the concert hall! One can still order CD transfers of the entire large discography directly through

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, but at outrageously expensive prices and only pre-paid by check plus an exorbitant handling fee.

By the way, Stockhausen is fifth from the left in the back row on the cover of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the one leaning with chin in palm.

Now, what any of this has to do with Sibelius mostly eludes me. Whereas Stockhausen's Hymnen strives for and explores a certain "global connectivity" in the 20th century, both Sibelius' muse and mindset were seemingly entrenched in Finland, despite his music's universal appeal.

First of all a big thank you to Moldyoldie for putting up a brave argument in support of the electronic guru. As I am not familier with 'Hymnen' I will limit my remarks to Moldyoldies concluding paragraph. He seems to imply that whereas Stockhausen preaches a Global message, that of Sibelius is confined to his native Finland, and that in his isolation he expresses a powerfull but essentialy parochial voice. Of course I do not question Moldyoldies love of Sibelius but it seems to me that what Stockhausen stands for is alien to a composer such as Sibelius. For the Finnish Master, music that is concieved mechanically by mathematics, electronics or even by chance is not real art. Sibelius sought to express truth in music and it can be equally understood in Helsinki or Timbuktoo!--kp

Stockhausen looking for some sort of "global appeal?"

*Cough* *Coughs again*

Music by composers such as Stockhausen seeks to alienate people more than embrace them. There are not great numbers of people who appreciate music like Stockhausen's and he was no doubt aware of that.

Composers that write music of such blatent disrgard for the more "popular' views of what "music aesthetics" should be write pretty much for themselves and people who wear berets and sip espresso and "prentend" to enjoy the experience of listening to meaningless screeches and bangs that "artists" such as these "compose." (Run on sentence, I know.)

Sibelius was a proud Finn through and through and much of his oeuvre takes direct inspiration from his native land, be it a tone poem about a Nordic sunrise or a work based on texts from the Kalevala. However, to think that Sibelius lived in a sort of Finnish/Noridc bubble and did not need for his music to be embraced outside of northern Europe seems silly to me.

In his 7 symphonies (certainly the later ones), Sibelius seems to tap into a "musical subconscious" and creates music of organic growth and perfection; perfect music for its own sake. With these works, I think he was striving to speak the most international of all languages in a way that is so eloquent and precise that he was striving to create the some of the finest music ever written. An ultimate music of the world, perhaps? And you better believe he wanted other to hear and appreciate it! I cannot think of music less "entrenched" than Sibelius's.

It was Stockhausen who was entrenched. Entrenched in being provocative, entrenched in rigid and artificial compositional styles and entrenched in an idiom that no one seems to care much for outside of elitist, semi-intellectual circles.

Not attacking you, my dear Moldy, just vigorously countering one of your points.

'Always remember that even the best orchestration ceases to be good as soon as it becomes the aim of the composer instead of remaining a means.' – JS to Bengt von Törne.

Just something to bear in mind when imagining string quartet players in helicopters. I hope they paid their carbon offset charges.

Firstly, Pete, thank you for the "thank you". Secondly, I don't think Stockhausen was "preaching" anything. In Hymnen, for example, he was merely encountering a transcendental communion with, and thus creating art from, those implements which were "technologically connecting" constructs of his time. And before any of you start visualizing a self-absorbed nutjob performing a laying on of hands in some sort of Vulcan mind meld with a radio, I'm talking about a communion with the very objective result of that technology - near instantaneous global communication - not the implement itself. If anything, its consideration is inherently personal and hardly global, and likewise, any "message" may be construed and considered on a personal level. It's about the sizzle and not the steak, so to speak.

A definition of art which has served me well is the following: A medium through which there's a deliberate or consequential transference of insight, truth, or beauty - however defined - on the part of the artist. The success or failure of this transference is what determines "good" or "bad" vis-à-vis the sensibility of the beholder.

As to Hymnen and a few others by Stockhausen, and as one might have said a few decades ago, I grok.

And Tapkaara, you're deliberately projecting things into the discussion which weren't implied. I don't believe Stockhausen was "looking for global appeal", only that his use of global communications technology as an "instrument" speaks to his insight into what the very existence and result of that technology conveys as universal expression, especially when used in juxtaposition with the "known" anthems of the world and all they subjectively connote. This insight can tap directly into one's subconscious as effectively, and I dare say as "beautifully and universally", as that conveyed in any work of art -- the works of Sibelius included.

I also dare say that the above speaks to the fine quote Andrew supplies.

This listener believes comparing Stockhausen and Sibelius is akin to comparing the internet with the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria; or perhaps more aptly, James Joyce with Homer -- mostly a case of "apples and oranges" and irrelevant except in historical context.

For me, there is a distinct line between Art and Science. It seems to me that Stockhausen had closer ties with the latter. I think that the most succinct definition of Art came from Aristotal 'Art completes what nature cannot bring to finish'.
Jean Sibelius made an interesting remark regarding his task as an artist ' Its as if God the Father had thrown down the tiles of a mosaic from Heavens floor and asked me to put them together'.
It has been said that given enough time, a monkey playing on a keyboard could eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare. Now here is my distinction between the works of Sibelius and Stockhausen.

I would contend that a reasonably talented Monkey given the task of randomly pressing switches to produce electronic sounds with perhaps some radio interference added, could soon produce something that most people would be unable to distinguish from a major work of Stockhausen. By the same token, and given suitable facilities our aspiring Monkey would never come up with anything remotely on a par with the music of JS even if given until the end of time!--kp

Perhaps I was projecting something, Moldy, that you were not implying, but my position on Stockhausen is indeed the same!

I liked Stravinsky's self deprecating remark that "composers combine notes. that's all"