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(Choruses for Doris), after poems by
Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine ( ; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolism (movement), Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' ...
, is a three- movement
a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
choral composition 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 and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
, written in 1950 and later given the number 1/11 in the composer's catalogue of works. The score is dedicated to the composer's future wife Doris.


History

During his third year of music-education studies at the
Musikhochschule Köln A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger in ...
, free stylistic exercises in composition were part of the program of training. Along with
fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...
s,
chorale prelude In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for pipe organ, organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque music, Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works ...
s,
sonata In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...
s, and song arrangements in various traditional styles, and a scherzo in the style of
Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
, Stockhausen wrote a number of choral pieces for the school choir in which he himself sang. Amongst them were these three ''Chöre nach Verlaine'' (Choruses after Verlaine), later retitled ''Chöre für Doris''. The first and third choruses were completed on 3 and 1 August 1950, respectively. The exact date of composition of the second is unknown. Stockhausen, who had not considered himself a composer up to this point, decided shortly after finishing these choruses to attempt something more ambitious in his subsequent score, the '' Drei Lieder'' for alto voice and chamber orchestra. All of these student works and a number of later ones remained unpublished until 1971, when Stockhausen rediscovered his early work '' Formel'' for chamber orchestra, and noticed affinities with his then-just-completed ''
Mantra A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...
'' for two pianos and electronics. When Maurice Fleuret asked for a new piece to be performed at the Journées de Musique Contemporaine, Stockhausen offered ''Formel'', and filled out the programme with a selection of other early compositions, including the ''Drei Lieder'' and the Sonatine for violin and piano. On this same programme, on 22 October 1971 at the
Théâtre de la Ville (; "City Theatre") is one of the two theatres built in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann at Place du Châtelet, Paris, the other being the Théâtre du Châtelet. It is located at 2, place du Châtelet in the 4th arrondissement. Included a ...
in Paris,
Marcel Couraud Marcel Just Théodore Marie Couraud (20 October 1912 in Limoges – 14 September 1986 in Loches) was a French orchestral and choral conductor and organist. Biography Couraud studied organ with André Marchal in Paris where he attended the Ecol ...
's chamber choir sang the ''Chöre für Doris'' for the first time, together with the contemporaneous ''Chorale'' ("Wer uns trug mit Schmerzen"). ''Chöre für Doris'' are the earliest of these works that Stockhausen allowed to be published.


Analysis

The three choruses are: # Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale) # Armer junger Hirt (A Poor Young Shepherd) # Agnus Dei The first and last pieces are scored for
SATB In music, SATB is a scoring of compositions for choirs or consorts of instruments consisting of four voice types: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Choral music Four-part harmony using soprano, alto, tenor and bass is a common scoring in classic ...
choir (with a solo
soprano A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...
added to the first), while the central chorus is for eight voices, SSAATTBB. According to another opinion, the second movement is for a mixed choir subdivided in up to seven parts. The texts employed are all German translations from Verlaine's French. The first two are translated by , and the third is in the translation by
Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...
. The three texts have little in common to connect the three movements, though they all concern faith, hope, and love, in various ways. "Die Nachtigall" is a poem concerning a lone nightingale singing melodiously against a crowd of noisy, frightened birds. Vring's German translation of the text of employs assonance and alliteration in a manner that recalls medieval poetry. The solo soprano, as the nightingale, represents the lost beloved, who remains alive only in remorseful memory. In the first stanza, she asserts
melisma Melisma (, , ; from , plural: ''melismata''), informally known as a vocal run and sometimes interchanged with the term roulade, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in ...
tic independence against the syllabic setting of the chorus. The second stanza, a variant of the first, closes with a long soprano solo. In the third stanza the chorus, as a symbol of nature and personal memory, steps into the foreground, creating in the image of the moon a contrast with the image of the bird in the first two stanzas. "Armer junger Hirt" may be thought of as the scherzo of the cycle. It has a pastoral theme, about a young shepherd who fears being kissed as if it might be like the sting of a bee. There are five stanzas of five lines each, where the last line of each stanza repeats the first, and the fifth stanza is a repetition of the first stanza. Instead of following the patterns in the text, Stockhausen varies his musical settings. For example, the opening line is presented softly in two mid-range voices, but returns at the end of the stanza loudly in five voices, subsiding again to the quiet sound of single, low-range voices. On the larger scale, the final stanza is made to begin like a slight variation of the first, but continues quite differently to achieve a powerful conclusion. The three stanzas in between are rich in tone painting, using the full choir in rising and falling movements and ostinato formations. The third movement, "Agnus Dei", opens with an archaising two-voice texture for the first stanza, followed by a four-voiced choral texture in the following stanzas. The text of the first two stanzas portray the lamb. The rhythmic independence of the voices and suggestions of polyphony contrast sharply with the homophonic, chordal setting of the remainder of the movement, which follows the conventional text arrangement of the liturgy: the penultimate stanza invokes the
Agnus Dei is the Latin name under which the "Lamb of God" is honoured within Christian liturgies descending from the historic Latin liturgical tradition, including those of Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism. It is the name given to a spec ...
(Lamb of God) three times, together with the plea for mercy (miserere nobis), while the final stanza corresponds to the Dona nobis pacem. Stockhausen sets each invocation of the lamb a
semitone A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between ...
higher than the previous one, each time followed by an expanded- tonal cadential construction, characterising the gentleness of the lamb. This periodic interruption of the lyrical flow breaks the dramatic mood and suggests windows into a different world. The chorus comes to a close on an archaic open fifth, recalling and balancing the pseudo-medieval duet that opened the movement.


Discography

* Karlheinz Stockhausen: ''Chöre für Doris'', ''Choral'', ''
Atmen gibt das Leben ''Atmen gibt das Leben'' (''Breathing Gives Life''), is a choral opera with orchestra by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1974 and expanded in 1976–77. It is Number 39 in the catalogue of the composer's works, and lasts about 50 minutes in pe ...
'', ''
Punkte ''Punkte'' (Points) is an orchestral composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, given the work number ½ in his catalogue of works. History ''Punkte'' originated as a punctual orchestral work which was begun in September in Hamburg and had reached a ...
''. Irmgard Jacobeit, soprano; Susanne Denman, soprano; Ulf Kenklies, tenor; NDR Chor;
NDR Symphony Orchestra The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra () is a German radio orchestra. Affiliated with the ''Norddeutscher Rundfunk'' (NDR; North German Broadcasting), the orchestra is based at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany. Earlier the ensemble was call ...
(in ''Punkte''); Karlheinz Stockhausen, cond. ''Chöre für Doris'' recorded 14 May 1975. LP recording, 1 disc, 33⅓ rpm, stereo, 12 in. Deutsche Grammophon 2530 641. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon, 1976. ''Chöre für Doris'' Reissued on CD, together with ''Choral'', '' Drei Lieder'', Sonatine for violin and piano, and ''
Kreuzspiel (Crossplay) is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen written for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and four percussionists in 1951 (it was later revised for just three percussionists, along with other changes). It is assigned the number 1/7 in the c ...
''. CD recording, 1 sound disc: digital, stereo. 12 cm. Stockhausen Complete Edition CD1. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2002. * ''Modern Choral Masterpieces''. Chór Kameralny 441 Hz; Anna Wilczewska, cond. "Die Nachtigall" from ''Chöre für Doris'', with works by eleven other composers. Recorded at the Resurrection Church in Gdańsk, 16–18 June 2014. CD recording, 1 sound disc: digital, stereo, 12 cm. DUX 1177. Warsaw: DUX Recording Producers, 2014. * ''Pupils of Messiaen''. Danish National Radio Choir; Jesper Grove Jørgensen, conductor. With works by
Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...
and
Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; , ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and enginee ...
. ''Chöre für Doris'' recorded 2 February 1998, Danish Radio Concert Hall. CD recording, 1 sound disc: digital, stereo, 12 cm. Chandos, CHAN 9663. Colchester, Essex, England: Chandos, 1999.


References


Cited sources

* * * *


External links

* Nordin, Ingvar Loco
Stockhausen Edition no. 1 (Chöre für Doris, Kreuzspiel etc)
Sonoloco Reviews (Accessed 15 June 2013).
Work details
incl. audio sample,
Universal Edition Universal Edition (UE) is an Austrian classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, it originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market. The firm soon expanded to become one of t ...
* , Irmgard Jacobeit (soprano), NDR Choir, Karlheinz Stockhausen conducting {{DEFAULTSORT:Chore fur Doris Compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen 1950 compositions Choral compositions Music dedicated to family or friends