Stockhausen: "Gesang der Junglinge"

YouTube via NewMusicXX | October 31, 2008

"Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Gesang der Junglinge" (Song of the Youths) (1955-56). A piece of electronic music utilizing both synthesized and vocal sounds. The vocal syllables are derived from the "Song of the Youths in the Fiery Furnace" from Daniel. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints of youtube videos, the last couple of minutes of this beautiful and historically important work of Stockhausen,were deleted from this recording."

You can find a great interview with Stockausen here, sent my way via Z of New Alliance East. Stockhausen was given some music by Aphex Twin, Plasticman, Scanner and Daniel Pemberton. You can find his critique in the interview.

As this site is primarily about the gear:

"Going back to Kreuzspiel - that was around the time you first started using
technology...

'Yes. 1952 I started working in the studio for musique concrete, of the French radio. Because I was very intrigued by the possibility to compose one's own sound. I was allowed to work in the studio of Pierre Scaeffer: I made artificial sounds, synthetic sounds, and I composed my first étude: Étude Concrète. At the same time, I was extremely curious, and went to the musée de L'homme in Paris with a tape recorder and microphones, and I recorded all the different instruments of the ethnological department: Indonesian instruments, Japanese instruments, Chinese instruments; less European instruments because I knew them better, but even piano sounds... Then I analysed these sounds one by one, and wrote down the frequencies which I found and the dynamic level of the partials of the spectra, in order to know what the sound is made of, what the sound is, as a matter of fact; what is the difference between a lithophone sound or, let's say, a Thai gong sound of a certain pitch. And very slowly I discovered the nature of sounds. The idea to analyse sounds gave me the idea synthesize sounds. so then I was looking for synthesizers or the first electronic generators, and I superimposed vibrations in order to compose spectra: timbres. I do this now, still, after 43 years.'"

Update:

Stockhausen on 'sounds', 1972

golfthewlis | August 06, 2007

"Excerpt from Karlheinz Stockausen's May 1972 lecture to the Oxford Union on 'Four Criteria of Electronic Music'. It proved to be astonshingly priescent. If you like this, get the whole lecture from Stockhausen-Verlang.

http://www.stockhausen.org/video_kass..."