Karlheinz Stockhausen - Zeitmasse

Zeitmasse, for five woodwind instruments (1955-56)

London Sinfonietta

Zeitmaße (Time Measures) for five woodwinds (1955-56) is a chamber-music work by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Number 5 in the composer's catalog. It is the first of three wind quintets written by the composer (the others being Adieu für Wolfgang Sebastian Meyer of 1966 and the Rotary Wind Quintet of 1997), but is scored with cor anglais instead of the usual horn of the standard quintet. Its title refers to the different ways of treating musical time found in the composition.

Zeitmaße was composed more or less concurrently with three other works in contrasting media, which together formed the basis for Stockhausen's rise to fame in the 1950s. The others were Gesang der Jünglinge for electronic and concrète sounds, Gruppen for three orchestras, and Klavierstück XI for piano.

In order to begin work on a commission for the new orchestral composition which would become Gruppen, Stockhausen interrupted work on Gesang der Jünglinge in August and September 1955 and took the opportunity to retreat to an inexpensive rented room in the attic of a parsonage in Paspels, Switzerland, recommended to him by a colleague in the WDR studio, Paul Gredinger. He had scarcely arrived in Paspels when a message reached him, requesting a short composition to celebrate Heinrich Strobel's tenth anniversary of service at the Südwestrundfunk, Baden-Baden.

"I had to write something quickly, by that evening. I did not allow myself to take any time over it. And then, suddenly, I hear this whole little four-minute piece. I really chuckled to myself about it. It was for voice and wind quintet. Later I replaced the vocal part with a cor anglais, and the 'piece' is the first four minutes of Zeitmaße."

The humorous, caprice-like song—for alto voice, flute, clarinet in A, and bassoon—sets an epigrammatic text written by Strobel, in a French translation by Antoine Goléa:

On cherche pour trouver quelque chose. Mais au fond, on ne sait pas ce qu'on cherche au juste. Et cela est vrai non seulement pour l'Allemagne musicale. (We are seeking to find something. But at bottom, we do not know quite what we are looking for. And that is true not only of German musical life.)

Art by Hermann Finsterlin

[MegaCirse]

Il est remarquable qu'après toutes ces années, cette pièce sonne maintenant comme une merveilleuse étendue de pure mélodie.

[gerardbegni]

This outstanding piece belong to a short series of compositions written by Stockhausen for small highly contrasted ensembles (here 5 instruments). These pieces typically belong to the beginning of the composer's career. Further on, he will enjoy larger pieces for karger intsrumental sets including electronics. Pieces usch as "Zeitmasse" usually question some principles of the nascent generalized serialism in a very creative and imaginative way. By no wys they should be considered as 'studies' or 'drafts'. They are perhaps in the top level of Stocjkhausen's cretions. Here the centrel querqtion is time. The title could be translated as 'measures of time', a title which raises basic questions about the very nature of time in general, and musical time in particular. Another great composer such as Boulez would never have considered the questions related to these musical parameters in a similar way.

[silasollll]

its like the incidental music of Combat!

[mona_seles]

Estou conhecendo a Neue Musik. Ainda desacostumada, estou gostando.

[SE-njcr]

Это конец света, как сказал Саня, из книги "Зелёный шатёр" Людмилы Улицкой.

[christianmendes]

I wish they put this image in fo their tshirts, in a black tshirt

[OrisLover]

Does anyone know the name of the art piece above?