Music in Space: Stockhausen's "Inside Light" at the Park Avenue Armory
In music, as in life, there are certain things that are so rare and essential, it's worth dropping whatever else you have going on to make way for them. One of those things is the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen - specifically, his electronic music, which he developed in presentations of increasing complexity over some six decades, from 1956's electroacoustic masterpiece Gesang der Jünglinge (Song of the Youths), to the cyclonic 24 track Cosmic Pulses, premiered seven months before his death in 2007. (I was there.) Due to the specific sound fields Stockhausen creates, where the music seems to be coming at you from all directions, this is not the sort of thing you can listen to at home (though we are getting closer.) The only way to experience this music is to hear it live, and the only way for that to happen is with the permission of the Stockhausen Verlag, which has sanctioned all performances of Stockhausen's music worldwide since 1975.
So, when I heard that the Park Avenue Armory would be presenting some five hours of electronic music from Stockhausen's seven-opera cycle Licht (Light), I cleared the decks. This is not the first time the Armory has presented Stockhausen's music: in 2012, the NY Phil performed his three-orchestra work Gruppen (1957), on a concert that also included works by Boulez, Ives and (weirdly), Mozart. The following year, the Armory presented Oktophonie (1991), a 70 minute excerpt of electronic music from Licht, with Stockhausen's longtime collaborator (and companion) Kathinka Pasveer doing the sound projection, having learned the craft from Stockhausen himself starting in 1982.
Pasveer, now 65, was back in New York over the past two weeks (June 5-14) to run the soundboard for "Inside Light", devised by Park Avenue Armory Artistic Director Pierre Audi as part of a larger - though still incomplete - presentation of Licht for the Holland Festival in 2019. The "light" in the title refers not just to Stockhausen's magnum opus, but also to the cinematic light display designed by Urs Schönebaum, aiming high beams at criss-cross angles across the cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Despite Stockhausen's stated aversion to visuals accompanying his electronic music - he actually preferred that the audience sit in complete darkness, though he eventually allowed for a hazy projection of a moon to keep audiences from "going paranoid" - Schönebaum's monochromatic lighting is subtle and abstract, enhancing the music rather than detracting from it. (The same, unfortunately, can't be said of Robi Voigt's video projections, which bounced along to the music like a light-up Karaoke machine.)
But, as striking and Instagram-ready as the visuals were, the real reason to go to "Inside Light" was the chance to immerse yourself in Stockhausen's spatially-realized sound world, in a space where the eight channel music is able to achieve real separation. I was eager to hear as much as I could, so I opted for the Saturday Marathon (6/8), lasting some 6 1/2 hours with two intermissions and an hour-long dinner break. (For more sane individuals, there were midweek performances that broke the music in half, clocking in at 2 1/2 hours each.) Upon entering the Drill Hall, audiences had a choice of upright seats placed around the perimeter, or low trail chairs in the middle; I experimented with both, and found that the low seats close to the center offered the best aural experience.
There have been some grumblings that "Inside Light" is somehow betraying Stockhausen's intentions by presenting these electronic portions of Licht out of context. (Licht runs some 29 hours in total.) But, the truth is that Stockhausen himself would often do just that: on the same concert at which Cosmic Pulses received its world premiere (itself an excerpt from his extended work Klang), he offered "Mittwochs-Gruss" ("Wednesday Greeting") from Licht, which also appears in "Inside Light." To me, the message was clear: Stockhausen didn't care a whit whether or not you knew the complicated backstory. He just wanted to blow your mind.
Most of the music on "Inside Light" was written to be performed before ("Gruss/Greeting") or after ("Abscheid/Farewell") each of the operas. "Montags-Gruss" (Monday Greeting, 1988), which opened the program on Saturday, is supposed to sound as if you’re underwater: fuzzy, out of focus, full of decay (not unlike Jerskin Fendrix's Oscar-nominated score to Poor Things), interjected with the occasional sloshing sound of water. As with many of Stockhausen's scores, Kathinka herself can be heard on piccolo, alongside Stockhausen's other longtime collaborator/companion, Suzanne Stephens on basset-horn.
The only music on the "Inside Light" that wasn't a "Greeting" or "Farewell" was"Unsichtbare Chöre" (Invisible Choir, 1981), an extraordinary tape piece from Donnerstag (Thursday) featuring a swirl of cappella voices. Lasting some 50 minutes, voices singing in German and Hebrew seemed to come from everywhere: high women pulsing, low men droning. At one point, the voices started making tongue-clicking sounds; later, a clarinet came in, building in intensity alongside the voices. The ever-increasing complexity of the score - at one point, Stockhausen superimposes 192 voices - called to mind some of Ligeti's anxiety-inducing choral music.
Besides Kathinka, I was probably one of the few people in the Armory on Saturday who'd already heard a live performance of "Mittwochs-Gruss" (Wednesday Greeting, 1998). Although my memory of that 2007 performance is fuzzy at best, I'll never forget the startling moment when Stockhausen's ghostly voice calls out the work's title, in both German and English, while a drone plays underneath. The placement of the speakers in the far corners of the Drill Hall did a far better job of separating the octophonic sound than they did in Rome: mechanical drills came from the right; a Buck Rodgers ray gun sounded way off to my left; a woman's voice could be heard laughing (or was it crying?) - naturally, the voice was Kathinka's. Throughout, synths bounced around, sounding a bit dated until you remembered it was all created from scratch.
After an hour dinner break, I came back for Part II, consisting of "Freitags-Gruss" (Friday Greeting, 1991) and "Freitags-Abschied" (Friday Farewell, 1992). (Full disclosure: I returned last Thursday, 6/13, to hear Part II again, having run out of gas before "Freitags-Abscheid.") Collectively known as "Weltraum" (Outer Space), it contains some of the most beautiful, rapturous music from all of Licht. Based on a one minute "formula", the music is stretched out for more than two hours, causing you to lose your sense of time. (In the printed score, Stockhausen allows for a break "after ca. 66 1/2 minutes.") And yet, the music is never less than completely engaging: as Kathinka said in conversation the following afternoon with longtime Stockhausen scholar/advocate Joe Drew, "You don’t remember a note that was played 30 seconds ago, but, somehow you feel all the notes make sense."
In "Freitags-Gruss," swirling, oscillating sounds bounced around the drill hall, emanating from eight precisely placed speakers at varying heights that created a hive-like intensity. The music was ominous, stark, punctuated by the occasional "BWANG." After an hour, Kathinka's voice appeared laughing, almost cackling, like some kind of banshee floating above us: left to right, then back again. The music gets more intense towards the end, as if something’s going to happen, then quickly fades as a man's voice is heard chanting.
"Freitags-Abscheid" was a bit bouncier at first, the synths sounding as if they'd been borrowed from Depeche Mode. Rhythmic, structured overtones gave way to hypnotic, almost ambient sounds. The work ends with a male voice counting, repeating "Dreizehn" ("Thirteen") over and over into a long slow fade with droning underneath. As Kathinka revealed on the artist talk, "Thirteen was Lucifer’s number. Thirteen was always the moment where something changes, a transformation takes place."
People can talk all they want about the complicated math and technical intricacy behind Stockhausen's music, which is indeed impressive if you have the time and inclination to break it all down. But, as a pure sonic experience, this music is shattering, captivating - even transformational. “(Stockhausen) had this absolutely beautiful quote," Kathinka said, "which was, ‘Whenever we hear sounds, we are changed.’”
"Inside Light" was as authentic an experience of Stockhausen's music as you are able to have in 2024, and we New Yorkers are incredibly fortunate to have a venue such as the Park Avenue Armory that has both the physical space and the means to bring it here, guided by those who were directly associated with him. I don't know if or when it will happen again, but afterwards, I had the chance to chat with Kathinka and Suzee at the soundboard, and mentioned I was at the premiere of "Cosmic Pulses."
“Oh, I was just thinking we should do Cosmic Pulses here,” Suzee said excitedly. “It needs this kind of space!”
Stay tuned.
More pics at the photo page.