Karlheinz Stockhausen - Wach (from Für kommende Zeiten), (2/2)

Für kommende Zeiten, 17 texts of "intuitive" music for ensemble (1968-1970)

Harald Bojé, electronium
Christoph Caskel, percussion
Peter Eötvös, electrochord

Wach, like Japan, comes from a set of 17 pieces written between 1968 and 1971 entitled Für kommende Zeiten. These scores are abstract in the extreme, and as much to do with the working processes that Stockhausen had in mind at the time rather than anything that can be 'read' in a conventional sense today. In this way, these recordings are an authentic artefact of something comparable to 'authentic' early music interpretation. The music may seem to have a strange remoteness and a language which is hard to interpret, but this must have something to do with the very personal nature of the composer's intentions, and the unique synthesis between composer and performer. --Dominy Clements

Art by A. R. Penck