Hymnen

Hymns (electronic and concrete music) is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized from 1966 to 1967 and 1969 again modified. In Stockhausen's catalog raisonné she wears the number 22 The work is marked by a world musical character by finding about 40 national anthems as sound objects use that serve as the foundation for electronic modulation and transformation and are thus linked to one unit.

As the only non- government song the workers' song " The Internationale" was processed beyond the Nazi Horst Wessel song.

Versions

Stockhausen's work exists in three versions:

• Hymns (Electronic and concrete music) for 4- track magnetic. , 4x 2 speakers, mixer and sound direction (about 114 minutes)
• Hymns ( electronic and concrete music with 4 soloists) with eg Trumpet and synthesizer / Trombone, Euphonium and Synthesizer / fanfare and several other instruments / synthesizers, samplers and piano to 4- track magnetic. , 6x 2 speakers, 4 monitor speakers, instruments by soloists, mixer and sound direction (about 126 minutes)
• Hymns (third region ), Electronic music with orchestra and conductor to 4 -track magnetic. , 28 Mikofone, 12 speakers, mixer and sound direction (approx. 42 min)

Formation and breakdown

The quadraphonic, electronic and concrete music originated in the Electronic Music Studio of the WDR in Cologne and was first performed on 30 November 1967 as a version with soloists in the Apostle School in Cologne- Lindenthal.

Stockhausen divided the work into different regions which have the following national anthems as the focus:

The composer took into consideration to making further regions to which indeed exists collected material, but were ultimately not implemented:

• Region 5: The countries of the former Eastern Bloc.
• Region 6: Arabia.

Central idea

As a compositional trend-setting ideas Stockhausen were at work on the hymns of the following, he formulated guiding principles:

" Hide what do you compose, in what you hear. Canopies what you hear. Place something besides what you hear. Location a bit far outside of what you hear. Support what you hear. Put an event that you hear for a long time away. Transform an event up to unrecognizable. Can you turn an event that you hear, in the previous one, that you have composed. Compose, what do you expect next. Often compose, but also listen for longer times to what is already composed, without composing on. Mix all instructions. Accelerate increasing the power of your intuition. " ( Lyrics to music from 1963 to 1970, p 99)

Introduction to the work

" National anthems are the best-known music that you can imagine. Everyone knows the anthem of his country and maybe some others, at least their beginnings. Integrating well-known music in a composition of unknown new music, so you can hear very well, as it was integrated: untransformed, more or less transformed, transposed, modulated, etc. The more natural the what, the more attentive you will be for the how " (. K. Stockhausen, CD - booklet of hymns, p 26)

Stockhausen used the national anthems, which to him " the popular thing there at all " were when the what his composition. By posing this commonly - cultural knowledge in a new constellation and by adding further found objects such as fragments of speech and radio events created new sound combinations, he opened up the possibility to re- listen to the "old" hymns. Here, the work can not be seen simply as collage-like compilation of various national anthems. Rather, the sound objects are connected by electronic modulations of rhythm, harmony and dynamics together so that moving the degrees of visibility from raw material to beyond recognition.

Hymns accesses a new idea of world music: The two-hour work in four regions gegliedertem Stockhausen pursued a desire to write music that involves the people of all ethnic groups and nations. In this sense, hymns is also utopian as a future vision of the co-existence of people of all nations to understand. This view followed Stockhausen already in 1966 resulting composition Telemusik and led them with hymns even further.

" The composition of so many national anthems to a common musical time and space polyphony could make the unity of the peoples and nations in a harmonious human family experienced as a musical vision. " (K. Stockhausen, CD booklet of hymns, p 28)

This dimension of meaning emphasized Stockhausen especially in the American premiere in 1971 in New York with the words: "America, land of refugees, displaced persons, the motley: I have written you this music to the body. You could be a model for the whole world, if you lived the way this music heralds. If you 'd give a good example ... "( lyrics to music from 1970 to 1977, p 79)

This engages the composer on the later of him further in-depth idea of ​​a world parliament, which he concretized in opera Wednesday from the cycle light on.