This is one of the first photographs I ever saw of avant-garde culture, as a teenage reader of Paul Griffiths's Modern Music. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died on Wednesday, is in the foreground at what appears to be a mixing desk. It was taken in 1970 at the World Expo in Osaka, and the building featured is 'the world's first, and so far only, spherical concert hall' , built by Germany and based on artistic concepts provided by Stockhausen. As a teenager I thought Stockhausen was the most rigorous of artists (composer seems too limited a term), but I know only a few pieces by him, though they happen to be two of my favourites: the Klavierstucke cycle (begun 1952) and Mikrophonie I (1964). See here for Paul Griffiths's obituary for Stockhausen in the New York Times.
0 comments:
Post a Comment