Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen

by Robin Maconie

The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was arguably the most influential figure of the European postwar avant-garde, and unquestionably the most elusive and enigmatic musical thinker of a generation that includes Pierre Boulez, John Cage, and Luciano Berio. His radically new electronic and instrumental music converted Igor Stravinsky to serialism in the 1950s, and has continued to inspire young composers for over fifty years.

This present volume draws on over forty years of the author's close study of Stockhausen and functions as a catalogue raisonee of Stockhausen's complete output. With plentiful citations from the history of radio, film, and sound recording, as well as from contemporary science and technology, the book is laid out in strictly chronological order and contains unusually ample commentary on the composer's sources of inspiration. Each composition is also fully documented within the text, giving full information of each work's publisher, catalogue number, instrumentation, duration, and authorized compact disc.

Any listener will benefit from this work and American music lovers in particular will find it an invaluable guide to the ongoing debate and rivalry over the sources of abstract expressionism and the avant-garde.

Genres: Music

592 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Paul Pirongs]

Too early to write a full review. The book is going to take a long time to read and absorb. Maconie has an enormously broad knowledge base and brings many and diverse strands of this knowledge into his discussions about Stockhausen's life and work. I think this book is a major work.

[Ola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most readable composer-bio's I've worked my way through. Maconie occasionally strides way off target, but then he manages beautifully to let his detours offer fresh and unexpected views on one of the works. The book works best I think, if one already has a general knowledge of Stockhausen's biography. The focus is on the compositions, and not so much on Stockhausen's life and views. All the major Stockhausen-works recieve delightful portraits. But since Stockhausen's music gets a bit tedious towards the end of his career (best enjoyed in small doses), so does Maconie's book loose a bit its merit over the last 150 pages or so. Still, I find it to be worth every single of the five stars. Note that the book was published in 2005, 2 years before Stockhausen's last cycle "Die 24 Stunden des Tages" was finished. It is not discussed here.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

anything on the music of Stockhausen is worth checking out..
this author , Robin Maconie , really has a grasp of the music , and has interviewed the man himself several time....