Gesang Der Jünglinge
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''Gesang der Jünglinge'' (literally "Song of the Youths") is an
electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
work 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 ...
. It was realized in 1955–56 at the
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (; "West German Broadcasting Cologne"), shortened to WDR (), is a German public broadcasting, public-broadcasting institution based in the States of Germany, Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a const ...
studio in
Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog. The vocal parts were supplied by 12-year-old Josef Protschka. It is exactly 13 minutes, 14 seconds long. The work, normally described as "the first masterpiece of electronic music" and "an opus, in the most emphatic sense of the term", is significant in that it seamlessly integrates electronic sounds with the human voice by means of matching voice
resonance Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...
s with pitch and creating sounds of
phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
s electronically. In this way, for the first time ever it successfully brought together the two opposing worlds of the purely electronically generated German ''elektronische Musik'' and the French ''
musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...
'', which transforms recordings of acoustical events. ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' is also noted for its early use of spatiality; it was originally in five-channel sound, which was later reduced to just four channels (mixed to monaural and later to stereo for commercial recording release).


History

In the autumn of 1954, Stockhausen conceived the idea of composing a
mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...
for electronic sounds and voices. According to his official biographer, Stockhausen regarded this mass as a sacred work written from personal conviction, and asked his mentor, the director of the WDR electronic studio Herbert Eimert, to write to the Diocesan office of the
Archbishop of Cologne The Archbishop of Cologne governs the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne in western North Rhine-Westphalia. Historically, the archbishop was ''ex officio'' one of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire and ruled the Electorate of Cologne ...
for permission to have the work performed in the
Cologne Cathedral Cologne Cathedral (, , officially , English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia belonging to the Catholic Church. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archd ...
. Stockhausen was bitterly disappointed when the request was refused on grounds that loudspeakers had no place in church. Although there is no doubt about Stockhausen's ambition to create an electronic mass, nor that he was frustrated by the lack of assurance that a suitable sacred venue or worship service would be sanctioned by the church, it is equally certain that "he never made an official request to the General Vicariate of the Archdiocese of Cologne and, therefore, never could have received an official response from them, whatever the result might have been". Furthermore, there is no evidence at all that Eimert, who was a Protestant, ever broached the subject even informally with Johannes Overath, the responsible official in the Cologne archdiocese at the time (as well as a member of the Broadcasting Council from 2 March 1955), so that the version of the story presented by Kurtz cannot be sustained on the basis of contemporary records.


Materials and form

There are three basic types of material used: (1) electronically generated sine tones, (2) electronically generated pulses (clicks), and (3) filtered white noise. To these is added the recorded voice of a
boy soprano A boy soprano (British and especially North American English) or boy treble (only British English) is a young male singer with a voice in the soprano range, a range that is often still called the treble voice range (in North America too) no m ...
, which incorporates elements of all three types: vowels are harmonic spectra, which may be conceived as based on sine tones; fricatives and sibilants are like filtered noises; plosives resemble impulses. Each of these may be composed along a scale running from discrete events to massed "complexes" structured statistically. The last category occurs in Stockhausen's electronic music for the first time in ''Gesang der Jünglinge'', and originates in the course of studies Stockhausen took between 1954 and 1956 with
Werner Meyer-Eppler Werner Meyer-Eppler (30 April 1913 – 8 July 1960), was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist. Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, ...
at the
University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...
. The text of ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' is from a Biblical story in the
Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th-century BC setting. It is ostensibly a narrative detailing the experiences and Prophecy, prophetic visions of Daniel, a Jewish Babylonian captivity, exile in Babylon ...
where
Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...
throws
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Hebrew names Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) are figures from chapter 3 of the biblical Book of Daniel. In the narrative, the three Jewish men are thrown into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylo ...
into a fiery furnace but miraculously they are unharmed and begin to sing praises to God. This text is presented in a carefully devised scale of seven degrees of comprehensibility, an idea which also came from Werner Meyer-Eppler's seminars.


Influence on popular music

Key aspects of the arrangement of "
Tomorrow Never Knows "Tomorrow Never Knows" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released in August 1966 as the final track on their album ''Revolver'', although it was the firs ...
", the final track of
The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
' 1966 studio album ''
Revolver A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...
,'' were inspired by ''Gesang der Jünglinge''. "Tomorrow Never Knows" is credited as a
Lennon–McCartney Lennon–McCartney is the songwriting partnership between the English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known and most successful musical collabo ...
song, but was written primarily by
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter, musician and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's ...
with major contributions to the arrangement by
Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
. The track included looped tape effects. For the track, McCartney supplied a bag of -inch audio tape loops he had made at home after listening to ''Gesang der Jünglinge''. The Beatles would continue to use similar efforts with "
Revolution 9 "Revolution 9" is a sound collage from the Beatles' 1968 self-titled double album (also known as the "White Album"). The composition, credited to Lennon–McCartney, was created primarily by John Lennon with assistance from Yoko Ono and George ...
", a track produced in 1968 for '' The White Album'' that also made use of
sound collage In music, montage (literally "putting together") or sound collage ("gluing together") is a technique where newly branded sound objects or Musical composition, compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as musique concrè ...
.


References


Cited sources

* * * * * * * *
Part Two


Further reading

* . 2008. ''Sacrificium intellectus: Das Opfer des Verstandes in der Kunst von Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Botho Strauß Botho Strauss (; written as Botho Strauß) (born 2 December 1944) is a German playwright, novelist, and essayist. Early life His father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauss studied German, History of the Theatre a ...
und
Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...
''. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. . * Decroupet, Pascal. 1993. "Bilan intermédiaire: À propos de ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' de Karlheinz Stockhausen". ''Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung'', no. 6 (March): 23–25. * Decroupet, Pascal. 1994. "Timbre Diversification in Serial Tape Music and Its Consequence on Form". ''Contemporary Music Review'', 10, no. 2:13–23. * Decroupet, Pascal. 1995. "Rätsel der Zahlenquadrate: Funktion und Permutation in der seriellen Musik von
Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...
und Stockhausen". ''Positionen: Beiträge zur Neuen Musik'', no. 23 (May): 25–29. * Decroupet, Pascal. 1997. "Gravitationsfeld Gruppen: Zur Verschränkung der Werke ''Gesang der Jünglinge'', ''Gruppen'', und ''Zeitmasse'' und deren Auswirkung auf Stockhausens Musikdenken in der zweiten Hälfte der fünfziger Jahre". ''Musiktheorie'' 12, no. 1 (''Analysieren und Hören neuer Musik'', edited by Rainer Wehinger and Thomas Kabisch): 37–51. * Decroupet, Pascal. 2012. "Le rôle des clés et algorithmes dans le décryptage analytique: L'exemple des musiques sérielles de Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen et
Bernd Alois Zimmermann Bernd Alois Zimmermann (20 March 1918 – 10 August 1970) was a German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera ''Die Soldaten'', which is regarded as one of the most important German operas of the 20th century, after those of Berg. Hi ...
". ''Revue de Musicologie'' 98, no. 1:221–246. * Decroupet, Pascal, and Elena Ungeheuer. 1993. "Son pur—bruit—médiations: Matières, matériaux et formes dans ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' de Karlheinz Stockhausen". ''Genesis'' 4:69–85. * Frisius, Rudolf. 2008. ''Karlheinz Stockhausen II: Die Werke 1950–1977; Gespräch mit Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Es geht aufwärts"''. Mainz, London, Berlin, Madrid, New York, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, Toronto: Schott Musik International. . * Goldberg, Albert. 12 March 1957. "The Sounding Board: Strange Music Heard at Monday Concert". ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', p. 27. * Metzer, David. 2004. "The Paths from and to Abstraction in Stockhausen’s ''Gesang der Jünglinge''". ''Modernism/Modernity'' 11, no. 4 (November): 695–721. * Metzer, David Joel. 2009. ''Musical Modernism at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century''. Music in the Twentieth Century 26. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. . * Plumb, Robert K. 24 June 1956. "Experts on Sound Pull New Strings: Congress on Acoustics Hears Electronic Music, Discusses Deceptive Tape Recording". ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', p. 80. * Sangild, Torben. 2005. "Elektronisk avantgarde—Stockhausens Gesang der Jünglinge" In ''En tradition af opbrud: avantgardernes tradition og politik'', edited by Tania Ørum, Marianne Ping Huang, and Charlotte Engberg, 192–202. Hellerup: Forlaget Spring. . * Schonberg, Harold C. 17 June 1956. "Splitting the Octave: I.S.C.M. Composer Believes He Can Break It Down into 42 Segments". ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', p. 105. * Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1998. "Elektronische Musik seit 1952". In his ''Texte zur Musik'' 8 (1984–1991: ''Dienstag aus Licht''; Elektronische Musik), edited by Christoph von Blumröder, 399–504. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. . * Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2009. ''Kompositorische Grundlagen Neuer Musik: Sechs Seminare für die Darmstädter Ferienkurse 1970'', edited by Imke Misch. Kürten: Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik. . * Toop, Richard. 1981. "Stockhausen's Electronic Works: Sketches and Worksheets from 1952-1967." ''Interface'' 10:149–197. * Ungeheuer, Elena, and Pascal Decroupet. 1996. "Technik und Ästhetik der elektronischen Musik". In ''Musik und Technik: Fünf Kongreßbeiträge und vier Seminarberichte'', edited by Rudolf Frisius and Helga de la Motte-Haber, 123–142. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung Darmstadt 36. Mainz: Schott Musik International. . * Ungeheuer, Elena, and Pascal Decroupet. 1998. "Materialen und Dramaturgie in Karlheinz Stockhausens ''Gesang der Jünglinge''". ''Mitteilungen: Eine Publikation der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Elektroakustiche Musik DEGEM'', no. 30 (September): 27–39.


External links


''Gesang der Jünglinge'' page from the score: vocal complex IV

Analyse perceptive de ''Gesang der Jünglinge'' de Karlheinz Stockhausen
by Sandrine Baranski *
''Gesang der Jünglinge'': History and Analysis
, notes by John Smalley, for concert series, Masterpieces of 20th-Century Electronic Music: A Multimedia Perspective. The Columbia University Computer Music Center, presented by Lincoln Center (July 2000) .

(history, text, scores, equipment) Sounds in Space * ,
Samuel Andreyev Samuel Andreyev (born Samuel Curnoe Andreeff; 15 April 1981) is a Canadian-French composer, singer-songwriter, poet and educator. As of 2021, he had completed about 30 works, nearly all of which have been recorded commercially. His YouTube channe ...
, 23 May 2017 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gesang Der Junglinge 20th-century classical music Compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen 1956 compositions Serial compositions Spatial music Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Electronic compositions Musique concrète