Studie II
Study II is a single channel (mono ), electronic music composition with a length of 3:20 minutes of Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1954 and, together with the study I his work number 3 the composition commission gave the then NWDR in whose studio for electronic Music in Cologne, the piece was created. The premiere took place on October 19, 1954 in the series Music of Time, along with study I, and works by other composers, in Cologne.
The work was significant because it was made without the use of (electronic ) instruments, but from pure sine waves; here a complete compositional control and the tone was achieved for the first time; it is organized serially on all musical levels and it was published as the first score of electronic music.
Prehistory
1952 Stockhausen studied in Paris with Olivier Messiaen. At the invitation of Pierre Schaeffer, he learned in the "Studio for Concrete Music " by the French broadcasting work with the tape, then still a young technology, know. In weeks of work with " Tailoring and Kleberei " was his piece Etude. He learned the mastery of durations by calculation in meters tape know. The sound material consisted of differently prepared from sound, battered with iron deep piano strings.
In contrast to the musique concrète Stockhausen took then before, " not to use electronic sound generating sources already assembled sound spectra ( Melochord, Trautonium ), but only pure tones of a frequency generator ( 'pure', obertonfreie tones )" (p. 23 ), ie neither electro-acoustic instruments still use other corpus of sounds. His ideal is to produce every sound in every detail synthetically and thus to determine for themselves was: " The conscious musical order penetrates into the micro- acoustic range of sound material. " (P. 22)
He tried first with study I, sound synthesis with sine waves. It took an aesthetic problem: " Instead of a fusion of the pure tones to complex new sounds each sine wave components appear separately audible and are therefore easily identifiable. The result instead of a new sound quality rather the impression of formed from pure tones chords. On the other hand, the individual sine waves obtained thanks to their ready identifiability own sound quality, roughly equivalent to the specific sound of a simple musical instrument somewhere between flute and special pipe organ registers. " This sound impression described by Theodor W. Adorno: " It sounds as wore one Webern on a Wurlitzer organ before. "
In order to obtain more complex sounds, Stockhausen thought in the design of study II initially to the method of sound analysis, namely the " decomposition of the white noise 'into' colored noise ' " ( p.22), to but electronic filter systems would have been necessary, which did not exist at that time.
General
Characteristic of the work is - in the words of the composer - a pursuit of " unity of sound matter and its form." (P. 22) Every sound and every sound can be represented by Fourier transformation as a superposition of sine waves. They can therefore as the elements to be the smallest, irreducible parts of the acoustic phenomena are considered. The simultaneous sounding of pure tones gives clay mixtures. Unlike realized in August 1953 Study I, the tones in study II were to " parent [n ] Tones" (p. 44) grouped and merged. In this sense, higher order occur to the fore in this piece form criteria; Stockhausen speaks of "Series Variations on a clay mixture " (p. 44 ) enabled ( see subsection aesthetics). The work is assigned to serial music, as not only pitch and duration, but also mathematically aufschlüsselbare details of timbre are composed by series of techniques, which determine the structure (shape) of the piece: "The technical realization has made it possible that the the smallest detail to the overall shape of a strict, yet uniform and highly differentiated in itself number structure is effective. "
In the composition, the practical experiences are received at the Stockhausen had made in the realization of electronic music: instead of the clay mixtures to create by stacking copying, which would make very much the tape hiss, he used a reverberation chamber, which simultaneously mixes the sine tones. This " wanted Stockhausen at least indirectly come closer to a sound result, which directly (for lack of sufficiently differentiated filter) is technically not allowed to realize. The faded clay mixtures with their different interval widths should be similar to sound like different widths filtered noise bands ," emergence Pungent are the beats between the sine tones in the low frequency range ( below 200 Hz).
Another important design element of the piece is the dynamic course of the sounds. Envelopes that describe this course, lead to new sonic structures by defining the comings and ( into each other ) Walk the individual sounds. Unlike in Study I were so dynamic envelopes and Verhallungen part of the composition.
It is the first piece of electronic music, from which a score was published ( by Universal Edition Vienna). "It gives the engineer all the necessary for a sonic realization data and may serve musicians and lovers as a study score, especially in conjunction with the music " (p. 37).
Material
For this piece of Stockhausen introduced a 81 -stage equidistant pitch scale that starts at 100 Hz and ranges up to about 17,200 Hz. The intervals between successive pitches are all based on the frequency ratio - in other words, the interval 5:1 ( two octaves plus a pure major third ) is divided into 25 equal parts. This differs from the traditional tempered tone system in which an octave of twelve sections, the distance between two levels is thus defined by the ratio. The unit interval in Stockhausen Tonraster is about 10 % larger than the tempered semitone of the twelve-tone system.
Stockhausen produced clay mixtures, which are defined as " composed of tones of any frequency sound ." In this case, the frequencies were not arbitrary, but based on serial proportions. These clay mixtures consist of five partial tones ( sine waves ) that vary widely in the range of 81 - point scale are spread, so different sized intervals form (namely 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 times ) For example. :
- Clay mixture 1 - here the unit interval is multiplied by 1 - consists of the tones: 100 - 107-114 - 121-129 Hz
- Clay mixture 6 - here the unit interval is multiplied by 2 - consists of the tones: 100 - 114-129 - 147-167 Hz
- Clay mixture 11 - here the unit interval is multiplied by 3 - consists of the tones: 100 - 121-147 - 178-217 Hz
Stockhausen thus receives 193 different such clay mixtures that form the sound material of the piece.
The individual sine tones were with equipment of measurement - were common in the former Broadcasting Technology - creates and recorded on tape. First Stockhausen took the 5 tones equal interval spacing, which he wanted to use on separate bands on, then cut it into 4 cm long pieces and glued them together, so that he received a 20 cm long tape, which he enjoyed with white belt to a small loop made. With a running speed of 76.2 cm / sec, the 5 tones were played in a time of 0.26 seconds, and passed into an echo chamber, where they mingled; the resulting sound he recorded on another tape. This working process he repeated until he had the 193 clay mixtures together.
The five pure tones had the same volume; which the clay mixtures was then on a 31 -step intensity scale can be varied (between 0 and -30dB ). The envelopes are designed either rising or falling, on the principles of arrangement Stockhausen has not expressed.
Aesthetics
The general problem of electronic compositions is in the " inseparable interlocking interaction of detail, ' microscopic ' arrangement and parent ' macroscopic ' conception of form. " (P. 58) In this sense, must be the electronic music a " comprehensive new onset systematization process " (p. 59) provide. The situation in which the musicians and supporters of this " unprecedented " music are, brings with it the responsibility to meet this historic task, because that decision will show " the direction in which the newly to be applied in large gamut. " ( p 59)
Stockhausen here represents the position that the development of electronic music is a continuation of the history of music, contrary to the - in his view - amateurish opinion of some composers, their essence on effects such as the " expansion of the sound space " or the increasing " opportunities for the sound imagination " reduce. With continuation of the history of music is not meant to take conventional form of presentation, but the relationship between the individual and the whole, the element and shape - how it strives to perfect for centuries the history of music - at micro and macro level to consciously shape. In Stockhausen's words, " the individual sizes are each multiples of a common smallest unit, they are related to each other. How, then, of a number a work as a whole is growing, as in group rows tones to sounds, sounds to subordinate form of units, they return to the parent form units and these are finally composed the entire work unit, so that the whole work, the magnification of the original series is [ ... ] this problem has probably to satisfy any composer. "(p. 60)
This new perspective is exemplary performed in Study II. One could see it as timbre composition because Stockhausen " distinctness of different tones " in favor of a "higher tone " gives up the link in a " parent timbres series" is again. (P. 61) The phonetic shape of Study II is the consequence of such a structure thought. However, in the 1960s, has a different meaning for the term " tone composition" established ( cf. sound composition ).
Reception
Study II was the very first " concert - presentation of the resultant in the Cologne studio of NWDR compositions". That evening, the public first heard a purely electronic piece based on sine waves. Correspondingly unpredictable and was the novel effect of the noise and sounds and the associated methods of composition of the audience.
In the further course of study II was not only a milestone in Stockhausen's early career, but in the history of electronic music in general. In his " Song of the Youths " he used in addition to the electronic sounds and vocal sounds; later he built on Gottfried Michael Koenig's method of " transforming unification of the originally Various -like " on, as he also ( in the orchestral piece mix and in the instrumental or vocal ensemble pieces microphonic I and microphonic II) also played live sounds or ( in the tape composition Telemusik ) traditional music recordings produced einbezog in the ring modulation.
Publications
Study II was first published in other electronic compositions by Deutsche Grammophon to record ( DG 16133 ); within the CD complete edition of the Stockhausen -Verlag it is contained on Disc 3 with the study I, the Song of the Youths, contacts ( electronic version ) and Etude. The work is on a companion CD of the book also included on the compilation "Music in customer examples " ( DG 136322 ) and " Music of Time 1951-2001 " ( cloud -Verlag Hofheim ).