Conversations with Stockhausen

by Mya Tannenbaum, David Butchart (Translator)

Karlheinz Stockhausen, the most controversial composer to have emerged from postwar Germany, has had a powerful influence on contemporary music. This intriguing series of interviews between Stockhausen and Mya Tannenbaum, a reporter for the noted Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera , reveals
the human personality behind the music, touching upon his working methods, his family, his attitudes toward the various arts, and his outspoken views on religion, mysticism, astrology, humanity, and the universe. We hear polemics against many members of the music profession, from the great
conductors and performers to the anonymous electricians and technicians, and yet, despite Stockhausen's intolerant and opinionated criticism of others, one cannot put the book down without having acquired a greater interest in, and sympathy for, his music.

112 pages, Hardcover

First published February 11, 1988

Reviews

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

not the most theoretically dense interviews however some essential quotes from the legend are contained here with regards to his thoughts on the relationship of music to philosophy, particularly his thoughts on reason are very intriguing and the way that informs music for him was sort of a revelatory reading for me as it unveiled a connection and possibility with music and thought I'd previously not considered. Also the dialogues make clear that this idea of the Maestro as an isolationist cook is nothing but salacious fabrication from the very obtuse class of journalists which simultaneously finds themselves flummoxed that their letter is the one Stockhausen isn't replying to. The collection ends predictably with asking Stockhausen to rebuke his haters to which he offers a mild stoic rebuff instead.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

CONVERSATIONS WITH STOCKHAUSEN is a record of several interviews that Mya Tannenbaum held with the German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen from November 1979 to 1981. The book has a long and somewhat complicated genesis. Tannenbaum held the interview in German, but it was translated into Italian for its initial publication and Stockhausen approved the Italian text. Then in 1987, Clarendon Press of Oxford published this English translation of the Italian by David Butchart.

I wouldn't call myself a great Stockhausen fan, but I nevertheless acknowledge his huge influence on modernist music, and I try to gleam what appreciation I can from his output. Unfortunately, this book doesn't really provide many insights for listeners. Stockhausen spends much of his time complaining about how incompetent his orchestral and opera house collaborators are, or how out of tune modern society is with his art. Stockhausen does come across as fully bonkers by this point, so there's a terminus ante quem for those who wonder how the madman/genius of 1980s and 1990s interviews arose. When Tannenbaum tries to steer the composer to comment on his music, he rarely gives specifics and instead sticks to general aesthetic positions.

Still, the book is interesting in documenting the last days of Stockhausen's rapport with Boulez, Berio and the nascent IRCAM, before he was to fully lock himself up in his own little world. The genesis of DONNERSTAG AUS LICHT is sketched, even if actual details of the composition are few.

[darío hereñú · Rating 1 out of 5]

El libro, por momentos, parece mesiánico, edulcorado, cercano al fanatismo.
El periodista, parece ser el primer fanático de Stockhausen, y eso se refleja en las preguntas, y por momentos, en las no repreguntas.
A lo largo de las páginas, sospeché que este libro parece una elegía hacia el entrevistado. Más aun, que éste se hacía las preguntas y asimismo se las contestaba.
Stockhausen parece tener respuesta para todo (sospechoso para mis fueros mentales) y todos. Nada parece escaparle: arquitectura, religión, teología, política, incluso... música!.
Conclusión: lejos de disfrutarlo, quizás este sea su mérito: ser insufrible.


Addenda: los fanáticos de Stockhausen lo adorarán solamente, si es por mí, a la hoguera!!!