Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen for 3 orchestras will be performed on 23 December at the Miyakomesse in Kyoto by the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra with conductors Junichi Hirokami, Ken Takaseki and Tatsuya Shimono.

The work was performed for the very first time in March 1958 when it was conducted by Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna and Stockhausen himself.

Tonight and tomorrow, the Bochumer Symphoniker and ChorWerk Ruhr perform Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Carré for 4 orchestras and choirs at the Ruhrtriennale under conductors Rupert Huber, Matilda Hofman, Florian Helgath and Michael Alber.

We’ve uploaded the full score of Orchestra I for you.

View the score of Carré – Orchestra I

Find out more about the performance on the website of the Ruhrtriennale.

musica-viva presents the five-day Stockhausen-Festival in Munich, which will be running from 21 until 25 October and featuring seven concerts with the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Among the pieces performed will be his piano pieces 1–11 (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, pno) and Zyklus (Dirk Rothbrust, perc).

Find the festival’s full programme on the website of musica viva.

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen for three orchestras: Petr Kotík, Johannes Kalitzke and Rolf Gupta will conduct the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ostravská banda at the Ostrava Days on 23 August.

View the festivals full programme

Mosell confronts this music fearlessly, shaping the smaller-scale pieces (the shortest, Klavierstück III, lasts just 38 seconds) as elegantly as she can, taking their technical challenges in her stride and above all conveying the sense of cutting-edge invention and innovation that is so characteristic of Stockhausen’s early music. (Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 10 June 2015)

High praise from Andrew Clements of The Guardian for Vanessa Benelli Mosell’s album [R]evolution.

The recording features eight piano pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen and was published earlier this month by Decca.

Read the full review

fascinating percussion works, meticulously performed (Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 7.1.2015)

Mode Records has recently released a trailer for their DVD “Karlheinz Stockhausen: Complete Early Percussion Works”, which includes the UE works Mikrophonie, Zyklus, Refrain and Schlagtrio. The recording is available as 2-CD set.

Watch the trailer on YouTube:

Stockhausen’s early percussion music is among the most visionary of the percussion repertoire. This unique collection features some works which are almost impossible to find elsewhere. (Mode Records)

Mode Records has recently released “Karlheinz Stockhausen: Complete Early Works for Percussion”, which includes the UE works Mikrophonie, Zyklus, Refrain and Schlagtrio.

Among the performing artists are Steven Schick (percussion and director) James Avery, Pavlos Antoniadis, Katalin Lukács and the percussion ensemble red fish blue fish.

The recording is available as 2-CD set or as a DVD, featuring a full video performance and interviews with Schick.

Here it is: the full study score of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Carré for orchestra I. The work for 4 orchestras and choirs will be performed tomorrow, 28 March, at the Cité de la Musique.

Michel Tabachnik, Ulrich Pöhl, Nathalie Marin and Kaisa Roose conduct the Brussels Philharmonic and Les Cris de Paris (choirmaster: Geoffroy Jourdain).

View the full score:

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Carré for 4 orchestras and 4 choirs will be performed on 28 March at the Cité de la Musique. Michel Tabachnik, Ulrich Pöhl, Nathalie Marin and Kaisa Roose will conduct the Brussels Philharmonic and Les Cris de Paris (choirmaster: Geoffroy Jourdain).

Stockhausen on Carré:

This piece does not tell a story. Each moment can stand on its own. One must take ones time if one wishes to absorb this music. Most of the changes take place very discreetly INSIDE the tones. I hope that this music may afford a little inner stillness, breadth and concentration; the consciousness that we have much time if we take it – that it is better to come to oneself than get beside oneself, for the things that happen need someone to happen to; someone has to catch them.

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Carré
for 4 orchestras and 4 choirs (4 conductors) | 36'
28.03.2014, Cité de la Musique, Paris; Brussels Philharmonic; Les Cris de Paris; cond. Michel Tabachnik, Ulrich Pöhl, Nathalie Marin, Kaisa Roose

Tom Service of The Guardian writes about last Saturday’s Hear and Now on BBC Radio 3. The programme focused on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen and took “a closer look at the German composer's electronic masterpiece from the same period, Gesang der Jünglinge,” featuring excerpts from previously unbroadcast session tapes. The stream will be online until Sunday.

Talking about Gruppen: here is Andrew Clement’s review of the London Sinfonietta’s performance of the piece for 3 orchestras (the orchestra was joined by the Royal Academy of Music’s Manson Ensemble), conducted by Martyn Brabbins, Baldur Brönnimann and Geoffrey Paterson. Plus there is a collection of reviews from the orchestra’s own blog.

Today, Karlheinz Stockhausen would have celebrated his 85th birthday.

On the photo: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bruno Maderna and Pierre Boulez conducting the rehearsals for the world première of Gruppen on 24 March 1958 in Cologne.

Find out more about Stockhausen and listen to his music.

Tom Service’s guide to Stockhausen.

Tom Service’s highly recommendable contemporary composers series ended this week with “the most divisive figure of them all:” Karlheinz Stockhausen.

But what made this composer so polarizing? Service provides a link to a very entertaining YouTube-channel where we can experience the composer’s “infectious combination of charisma, blazing intellect and force of will” and points out the importance of intuition and experience in his music.

You can read the full article on Tom Service’s Blog.

The New York Philharmonic moves into the Park Avenue Armory in New York tonight for a Philharmonic 360 concert – “Spatial Music from Mozart’s Don Giovanni to Stockhausen’s Gruppen”.

The 55,000-square-foot Thompson Drill Hall (photo) has been turned into a unique concert space, with the orchestra in three groups surrounding the audience.

Alan Gilbert, Magnus Lindberg and Matthias Pintscher conduct the New York Philharmonic.

Programme:
Pierre Boulez: Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna
Mozart: Finale of Act I from Don Giovanni
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen
Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question

Alex Ross reports that the New York Philharmonic will be performing Stockhausen's Gruppen in June 2012 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. The concert also includes Boulez' Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna.

The concert is not on the NYPhil website yet, but we'll keep our eyes peeled.