''Sternklang'' (Star Sound), is "park music for five groups" composed in 1971 by

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...

, and bears the work number 34 in his catalogue of compositions. The score is dedicated to his spouse,

Mary Bauermeister Mary Hilde Ruth Bauermeister (born 7 September 1934) is a German artist who works in sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and music. Influenced by Fluxus artists and Nouveau Réalisme, her work addresses esoteric issues of how informati ...

, and a performance of the work lasts from two-and-a-half to three hours.

History and concept

''Sternklang'' is "park music", to be performed outdoors at night by 21 singers and/or instrumentalists divided into five groups, at widely separated locations. The sounds from each performer are separately amplified and projected over loudspeakers. "Sound runners" transport musical "models" from one group to another, while a percussionist stationed at a central position helps synchronise the groups to common tempos at ten points in the piece. The piece has been described as "a twilight fantasy … an extended outdoor ''

Stimmung ''Stimmung'', for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work nu ...

''". From a technical point of view, it tackles and solves the problem of coordinating independent harmonic groups. Although ''Sternklang'' was first conceived in 1969, it was only composed two years later, on a commission from

Sender Freies Berlin Sender Freies Berlin (; abbreviated SFB ; ) was the ARD public radio and television service for West Berlin from 1 June 1954 until 1990 and for Berlin as a whole from German reunification until 30 April 2003. On 1 May 2003 it merged with Ostdeu ...

. The first performance took place from 8:30 to 11:30pm on 5 June 1971 in the Englischer Garten of the Tiergarten, Berlin, near the Akademie der Künste. The performers were the Collegium Vocale Köln, an expanded version of Stockhausen's touring ensemble, Hugh Davies and his group, The Gentle Fire from London, and

Roger Smalley John Roger Smalley (26 July 1943 – 18 August 2015) was an Anglo-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley was a senior honorary research fellow at the School of Music, University of Western Australia in Perth and honorary ...

and

Tim Souster Tim Souster (29 January 1943 – 1 March 1994) was a British composer and writer on music, best known for his electronic music output. Biography Education Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Souster was educated ...

's ensemble, Intermodulation, from Cambridge. About four thousand people attended the performance. Despite the unusually difficult performance requirements, there have been a number of subsequent performances: * 29 and 31 August 1972, at the Englischer Garten in Munich during the 1972 Summer Olympics * 8 September 1972, in the Parc Delgosha as part of the Shiraz Arts Festival in Iran * 2 July 1974, in the Parc Franck-Delmas at the La Rochelle Festival * 20 and 22 June 1975, in the Parc de Saint-Cloud in Paris-St. Cloud * 26 and 27 July 1980, in the Beethovenhalle, Bonn * 18 and 19 June 1984, as part of the 1984 Summer Olympics, Olympic Arts Festival of Contemporary Music, Los Angeles * 23 November 1988, as part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Performers from five British universities prepared by Peter Britton and supervised by the composer * 14 July 1992, in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham (UK), performers from the Birmingham Conservatoire, the Midlands Arts Centre, Anglia Polytechnic, Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College, and Birmingham University, with the university's electro-acoustic sound system, BEAST, under the composer's direction * 7 September 2010, in the Killesbergpark, Stuttgart, by the ensembles of the Netzwerk Süd: ascolta, gelberklang, , and Suono Mobile, under the auspices of Sounding D—Neue Musik in Deutschland * 16 September 2016, in Ekebergparken Sculpture Park, Ekebergparken, Oslo. Part of the Ultima Festival, performers from Nordic Voices and the Norwegian Academy of Music. * 27 August 2022, in Schlosspark Brühl, Brühl (Germany). Part of the Acht Brücken Festival, performers from Nordic Voices, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Das Neue Ensemble, with musical direction by Stephan Meier. The two Bonn performances in 1980 had been planned for outdoor performance in the . The loudspeaker towers were scheduled to be set up in the park on 21 July, five days before the first performance, but by that time uninterrupted rain had been falling for a week with no improvement in sight, so the decision was made to relocate the performance indoors, into the large auditorium of the Beethovenhalle. Stockhausen found that there were certain advantages to an indoor venue (better auditory contact among the performers, improved control of the just tuning of the harmonies, etc.), and so decided henceforth to authorise such performances and drew up special instructions for those conditions. In connection with this extension of performance practice Stockhausen decided also that even a single group out of the five specified in the score, or any combination of two to five groups may perform freely selected excerpts from ''Sternklang'' in concert.

Analysis

''Sternklang'' creates a sense of "non-progressive or circular time by blurring complex relationships between pitch and rhythm based on the overtone series so that the structure is perceived as inexhaustible and thus appears static". The entire composition is based on five just-intoned harmonic sounds, each containing eight tones corresponding to the second through ninth partials of the overtone series. One of these tones in each chord is the E above middle C, tuned to 330 Hz. In the first chord this functions as the ninth partial, in the second chord as the eighth partial, and so on to the fifth chord, where it is the fifth partial. Compositionally, the harmonic structure fluctuates between an extreme situation in which all five groups share the same chord and the opposite extreme where each group's chord is different. The rhythms, tone colours, and pitch intervals in the "models" are directly derived from star constellations observed in the sky and integrated as musical figures. The self-similarity of the time and pitch structures recalls the same composer's ''Gruppen''.

Reception

At the Birmingham performance in 1992, the composer observed members of the audience: The overall response of the audience attending was described by another observer:

Discography

* ''Karlheinz Stockhausen: Sternklang''. Group 1 (Intermodulation): Peter Britton (synthesizer),

(electric viola with synthesizer), Robin Thompson (bassoon with synthesizer),

(synthesizer); Group 2: Annette Meriweather (soprano); Wolfgang König (trombone with synthesizer), Hans-Alderich Billig (bass), (electronium); Group 3: Helga Hamm-Albrecht (mezzo-soprano), Wolfgang Fromme (tenor), Helmut Clemens (tenor), Peter Sommer (trombone with synthesizer); Group 4 (Gentle Fire): Stuart Jones (violin with synthesizer), Hugh Davies (clarinet with synthesizer), Graham Hearn (synthesizer), Michael Robinson (cello with synthesizer); Group 5: Markus Stockhausen (trumpet with synthesizer), Suzanne Stephens (clarinet with synthesizer), Atsuko Iwami (alto voice and recorder), Michael Vetter (bass and recorder); Richard Bernas (percussion, from Gentle Fire). 2-LP recording. Recorded in the Studio des Dames, Paris, June 24–26, 1975. Polydor 2612 031 (2335 116 and 2335 117). [Germany]: Polydor International; Deutsche Grammophon 2707 123 (2531 281 & 2531 282). [Hamburg]: Deutsche Grammophon, 1976. Reissued on 2-CD set, Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 18A–B. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1992.

Filmography

* 1980. ''Omnibus: Tuning in with Stockhausen and the Sing Circle''. BBC TV. [Includes excerpts from ''Sternklang''.]

References

Cited sources

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

* Nordin, Ingvar Loco. n.d.
Stockhausen Edition No. 18 (''Sternklang'')
. Sonoloco Reviews (Accessed 14 February 2012). * W., A. 1980.
Karlheinz Stockhausen: ''Sternklang''
. ''Gramophone (magazine), Gramophone'' (August): 44 (Accessed 14 February 2012). {{Authority control Compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen 20th-century classical music 1971 compositions Serial compositions Spatial music Music dedicated to family or friends