THE DEVIL AND THE DETAILS: NEGOTIATING VIRTUOSITY, AGENCY,

AND AUTHENTICITY IN KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN’S KATHINKAS

GESANG ALS LUZIFERS REQUIEM FOR SOLO FLUTE

Wayla Joy Ewart Chambo, B.M., M.F.A.

Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS

May 2015

APPROVED:

Terri Sundberg, Major Professor Elizabeth McNutt, Committee Member David Bard-Schwarz, Committee

Member John Holt, Chair of the Department of

Instrumental Studies Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate

Studies of the College of Music James Scott, Dean of the College of

Music Costas Tsatsoulis,Interim Dean of

Toulouse Graduate School

Chambo, Wayla Joy Ewart. The Devil and the Details: Negotiating Virtuosity,

Agency, and Authenticity in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers

Requiem for Solo Flute. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), May 2015, 210 pp., 2

figures, 13 musical examples, bibliography, 95 titles.

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem presents

mental, physical, and musical challenges that go beyond the usual expectations of an

instrumentalist, extending and redefining the traditional idea of virtuosity. Using firsthand

performance experience, score and recording study, and flutist interviews, this

document explores the effects of some of these heightened demands and argues that

the particular performance situation presented by Kathinkas Gesang brings up critical

questions about the performer’s role, the nature of performance and of the musical

work, and the existence of an authoritatively “authentic” interpretation.

Employing an expanded definition of virtuosity that includes interpretation and

encompasses both choices and actions, the document discusses the extensions of

virtuosity into two main areas: first, memory; and second, staging and movement,

covering both practical suggestions and larger implications. Finally, it examines how the

performer’s negotiation of these challenges relates to questions about authenticity and

agency. Performance is defined here as a creative and collaborative act, not attempting

to duplicate previous performances or recordings, but rather to give the best realization

of the piece possible in the given circumstances, according to the individual’s

interpretation of the score’s directions. There is no single “authentic” interpretation, but

rather a rich multiplicity of possibilities, and the performer’s creative agency and

personal authenticity are necessary for the full realization of the work.

ii

Copyright 2015

by

Wayla Joy Ewart Chambo

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful appreciation is extended to the Stockhausen Foundation for Music,

Kürten, Germany (www.karlheinzstockhausen.org). All examples in this dissertation are

excerpts from the score of Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem by Karlheinz

Stockhausen, and are used with their permission.

I would like to thank my teachers and committee members, Prof. Terri Sundberg,

Dr. Elizabeth McNutt, and Dr. David Bard-Schwarz, for their help and encouragement

throughout my doctoral studies. Due to our close work together and her area of

expertise in contemporary music, Dr. McNutt has made especially significant

contributions to the development of many of the ideas expressed in this document.

I am grateful to Kathinka Pasveer for graciously answering questions and

supplying research materials, and to all of the flutists interviewed: Lise Daoust, Patricia

Spencer, Mary Stolper, Claire Genewein, Karin de Fleyt, Ellen Waterman, Carlton

Vickers, and Zara Lawler. Thank you to all who assisted with my production of

Kathinkas Gesang: Dr. Andrew May, Ben Johansen, Patrick Peringer, L. Scott Price,

and Mark Oliveiro (director and staff of UNT’s Center for Experimental Music and

Intermedia); Lily Sloan (choreography and makeup assistance); Heidi Klein (vocal

coaching); and Laurie Chambo (costume).

Grateful acknowledgement is also made to Leslie Ewart for generous assistance

with French translations, and to Catherine Maguire and Penny Chang for encouraging

my work with flute and dance. Finally, thank you to the friends and family who have

supported me throughout this project, especially James and Laurie Chambo, Ariel

Vanderpool, Lisa Bost-Sandberg, and David Stephenson.

http://www.karlheinzstockhausen.org/

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... vii

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES .................................................................................... viii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1

Significance and State of Research ............................................................................. 2

Method ....................................................................................................................... 10

What is Virtuosity? : Towards a Working (Re)definition .............................................. 12

Virtuosity, Perfection, and Effort(lessness) ................................................................ 18

Contextual and Dramatic Background ....................................................................... 24

Structure of Kathinkas Gesang .................................................................................. 28

“Extensions of Instrumental Practice” ........................................................................ 34

Goals and Scope of Study ......................................................................................... 37

CHAPTER 2 MEMORY ................................................................................................ 41

Memory and Virtuosity ............................................................................................... 43

The Experience of Memory ........................................................................................ 47

Initial Strategies for Memorization.............................................................................. 50

Recommended Resources for Memorization Strategies ............................................ 53

Special Considerations in Kathinkas Gesang ............................................................ 56

Sections that Challenge Memory ............................................................................... 58

v

Additional Memorization Strategies for Kathinkas Gesang ........................................ 71

Memory in Performance ............................................................................................ 75

CHAPTER 3 STAGING, DRAMA, AND MOVEMENT .................................................. 81

Interpretation of Staging Instructions ......................................................................... 84

Composer’s Intentions ............................................................................................... 86

Interpretive Decisions ................................................................................................ 92

Stockhausen’s Staging Instructions ........................................................................... 93

Dramatic Context ....................................................................................................... 97

Elements of Staging: Character and Costume ......................................................... 100

Character and Individuality ................................................................................... 102

Elements of Staging: Set ......................................................................................... 107

Elements of Staging: Movement .............................................................................. 113

Moving While Playing the Flute: How to Begin? ................................................... 114

Movement Exercises ............................................................................................ 117

Movement Directions in “Kathinkas Gesang” ....................................................... 119

Movement Characteristics .................................................................................... 124

Movement Notation .............................................................................................. 125

Comparison of Movement Choices/Realizations .................................................. 127

Why Movement? Reasons, Influences, and Effects ............................................. 134

Risks and Sacrifices ............................................................................................. 137

vi

Effects of Movement in Performance ................................................................... 139

Benefits of Interdisciplinary Practice .................................................................... 140

Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................................. 140

CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION: AGENCY AND AUTHENTICITY .................................. 143

What is Performance? ............................................................................................. 144

Control of the Musical Work ..................................................................................... 153

Authenticity .............................................................................................................. 161

Performer’s Role, Agency, and Interpretation .......................................................... 170

Collaboration ........................................................................................................... 184

Study with Original Performers ................................................................................ 188

“Elle Les Créera Toutes” (She Created All of Them) ................................................ 190

Particular Relevance to Kathinkas Gesang ............................................................. 195

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 199

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 204

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

All figures are © Stockhausen Foundation for Music, Kürten, Germany

(www.karlheinzstockhausen.org) and are reproduced with permission.

Page

1. Stockhausen, introduction to Kathinkas Gesang, xvi: Mandala 1 ....................... 94

2. Stockhausen, introduction to Kathinkas Gesang, xvii: Mandala 2 ...................... 95

http://www.karlheinzstockhausen.org/

viii

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

All examples are © Stockhausen Foundation for Music, Kürten, Germany

(www.karlheinzstockhausen.org) and are reproduced with permission.

Page

1. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 12 ............................................ 4

2. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 10 ............................................ 4

3. Stockhausen, “Lucifer Formula,” introduction Kathinkas Gesang, xi .................. 29

4. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, flute part, 1 (Section 1) ................................. 31

5. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, flute part, 8 (Section 23) ............................... 59

6. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, flute part, 9 (beginning of Section 24) ........... 63

7. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 10 (end of Section 24 and

beginning of “Release of the Senses”) ............................................................... 64

8. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 1 (“Salute”) ............................ 64

9. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 12 (end of “Release” into

beginning of “Exit”) ............................................................................................. 67

10. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 12 (end of “Exit”) .................... 68

11. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 1 (“Salute”) .......................... 120

12. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 1 (“Salute”) .......................... 130

13. Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 10 (beginning of “Release of the

Senses”) ........................................................................................................... 132

http://www.karlheinzstockhausen.org/

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In a performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers

Requiem (Kathinka’s Chant as Lucifer’s Requiem) the flutist must play a long and

complex score from memory while simultaneously moving around the stage and

embodying the theatrical character of a strange, supernatural black cat. The piece is

approximately thirty-three minutes long and employs a variety of extended flute

techniques. The composer specifies that it must always be played from memory, and

gives instructions for the set, lighting, movements, and costume.

Kathinkas Gesang (1983) is the second scene of Stockhausen’s opera Samstag

aus Licht (Saturday from Light), and can also be performed as an independent concert

piece in several versions: flute with six percussionists, flute and electronic music, flute

and piano, or solo flute. As Richard Toop notes, “the flute part is virtually the same in all

versions, though the version with percussion has some theatrical dimensions missing in

the others, and since there are moments in the non-solo versions where the flute is

silent, obviously these are elided in the solo version.”1 This document focuses primarily

on the version for solo flute, though many of the topics discussed are also relevant to

other versions.

The piece is inspired in part by Stockhausen’s study of The Tibetan Book of the

Dead, a collection of rituals, prayers and instructions designed to help the dead on their

journey to liberation or rebirth.2 In addition to fulfilling the requirements described above,

1. Richard Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem,” in Six Lectures from theStockhausen Courses Kürten 2002 (Kürten, Germany: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2005), 107n7.

2. Patricia Spencer, “How Kathinka’s Chant as Lucifer’s Requiem by Karlheinz StockhausenRedefines the Nature of Performance,” The Flutist Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 9, 15n1. To what

2

the performer must find a way to engage with this esoteric context and communicate it

to the audience in a compelling fashion.

These mental, physical, and musical challenges go beyond the usual

expectations of an instrumentalist, extending and redefining the traditional idea of

virtuosity. This document explores the effects of some of these heightened demands, in

both practice and performance, and argues that this particular performance situation

brings up critical questions about the performer’s role, the nature and control of the

musical work, and the definition (or even the possibility) of an authoritatively “authentic”

interpretation. Given the strong and specific connection of this piece to its original

performer, later performers must also consider the role of their own creative agency and

individual contributions to the interpretation of the work.

Significance and State of Research

Though much has been written about Stockhausen’s music, little of it deals

directly with performance practice, and there has been no extensive writing on his flute

works. Kathinkas Gesang is the most substantial of these works, and was the first of

many pieces that Stockhausen composed for the Dutch flutist Kathinka Pasveer, who

became one of his close collaborators. They worked together during the composition

process, and she performed the premieres of the concert version in 1983, the staged

version of the full opera in 1984, and the version with flute and electronics in 1985.3

Although it entered the repertoire nearly thirty years ago, Kathinkas Gesang has

degree this influenced the music is a matter of some question. According to Spencer’s footnote, Stockhausen told her that the music was written first, and the symbolic and dramatic context followed from that.

3. Kathinka Pasveer, email message to author, April 9, 2011.

3

been performed by only a handful of flutists. Nine professional flutists who have

performed Kathinkas Gesang, besides myself, could be identified and located; four of

these were European, three Canadian, and two American. While the actual total is

probably somewhat higher, the piece is clearly underperformed, especially when

compared with other important twentieth-century flute works such as Luciano Berio’s

Sequenza I (1958), or even Brian Ferneyhough’s extremely difficult Cassandra’s Dream

Song (1970). This seems surprising for a significant work by a major twentieth-century

composer. Likely contributing factors include the extraordinary demands the piece

makes on the performer (including extended techniques, length, memory, staging,

theatrics, and movement), the commitment of time and energy necessary to realize it,

and a lack of experience among flutists with confronting the types of performance

practice issues that it presents. The learning process takes several months, and

requires the flutist to deal with challenges outside the normal expectations of an

instrumentalist. In addition to negotiating a long and very complex musical score, the

flutist must also memorize the music, practice moving around the stage while playing

the flute, and make production decisions about the set, costume, lighting, etc.

The primary sources available include the score, the Deutsche Grammophon

recording of Samstag aus Licht supervised by Stockhausen, and the composer’s

published interviews, lectures, and writings. The score is a rich resource that includes

twenty pages of performance instructions and notes (in German and English), as well as

photographs of the premiere and of rehearsals. The musical score itself is dense and

highly detailed, and contains a significant amount of text as well as various notational

symbols for the extended techniques. See Examples 1 and 2.

4

Example 1: Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 12:

Example 2: Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, solo flute part, 10:

As these examples show, the performer is confronted not with a lack of detail but

with a superabundance of it: the problem is not too little information, but almost too

5

much. How does one absorb and present all of the surface details, while also

communicating the large structure and theatrical impact of the work? Other complex

scores (such as those by Boulez, Xenakis, or Ferneyhough) present some similar

dilemmas, although they do not necessarily require the additional factors of memory

and staging. Pianist Peter Hill has argued that the combination of emphasis on detail,

score complexity, and pressure to be “accurate” has contributed to a “vacuum” in which

“the former unequivocal role of performances—the vigorous presentation of ideas and

perceptions—has tended to give way to a secondary ideal, that of flawless surface

detail.”4 In Kathinkas Gesang, these issues are further complicated by the challenge of

interpreting and realizing the staging directions, which add another layer of details and

priorities to negotiate.

The recording, made by the original performer and with the composer’s

participation, could also be regarded as a kind of urtext, supplementary to the main text

of the score.5 However, this use of the recording might be employed with some caution,

lest it serve to fix the music too firmly into one interpretation, encouraging imitation

rather than thoughtful study. According to Hill, the prevalence of recorded music is a

factor in the pressure towards “accuracy as an end in itself;”6 Stockhausen also

emphasized the importance of live performances, likening recordings to “small

acoustical postcards with two-dimensional images of three-dimensional musical

structures.”7

4. Peter Hill, “‘Authenticity’ in Contemporary Music,” Tempo, no. 159 (December 1986): 3.5. Thanks to Dr. Elizabeth McNutt for suggesting this idea.6. Hill, 3.7. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Anders Beyer, “Every Day Brings New Discoveries,” in The Voice

of Music: Conversations with Composers of Our Time, ed. and trans. Jean Christensen and Anders Beyer (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2000), 187.

6

The recording of Kathinkas Gesang is a studio rather than a live concert

recording, and the flute part was recorded first, followed by the percussion parts. “I had

to record the flute first as the percussionists had to start practicing with the tape for the

first performance. I already knew the work by heart at that time and I recorded the entire

work in perhaps 3 or 4 takes.”8 Although Pasveer indicates that she did record from

memory, she did not move around the stage during the recording as one would in a live

performance.9

Another resource that includes primary source material is a German television

documentary, Das Welttheater des Karlheinz Stockhausen.10 This hour-long video

contains interviews with Stockhausen as well as selected footage from the 1984

premiere of Samstag aus Licht in Milan, which is helpful when considering questions

about the original staging.

Although Stockhausen’s writings and interviews contain relatively little that

relates directly to the performance of Kathinkas Gesang, they do provide the performer

with insight into the composer’s musical philosophy and cosmology. As with the careful

use of recordings, scholars and performers need to evaluate composers’ writings on

their own works thoughtfully, rather than accepting them uncritically. Nevertheless, this

kind of context can help the performer enter into the conceptual landscape of the work.

Several sources for Stockhausen’s interviews and writings are listed in the

bibliography. Perhaps the most directly applicable is an interview published in The

8. Pasveer, email message to author, November 28, 2013.9. Pasveer, email message to author, November 28, 2013.10. Das Welttheater des Karlheinz Stockhausen (Samstag aus Licht), DVD, (WDR, 1984; Kürten,

Germany: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2008). Thanks to the Stockhausen Foundation for Music for supplying me with a study copy of this video.

7

Clarinet in which Stockhausen discusses his writing for wind instruments, including

Kathinkas Gesang and other works for flute in the Licht operas. The composer talks

about challenges involved in the performance practice and dissemination of his works,

and emphasizes the connections between memory, movement, and character.11

The most relevant secondary sources are several articles about Kathinkas

Gesang written by flutists. Patricia Spencer discusses the idea of “meditative attention,”

gives examples of specific musical and technical “problems and solutions,” touches on

the challenges of communicating the drama and structure, and explores the processes

of learning and memory.12 Spencer emphasizes the insights she gained through her

work on Kathinkas Gesang, concluding that “this piece leads one to re-define the very

nature of performance.”13 This is an excellent introductory article, and includes valuable

advice, especially about helpful attitudes toward the learning process in a work of this

length and complexity. Spencer points toward other interesting issues, such as

questions about the nature of performance, but does not explore them in depth;

however, that may be due to the limited scope of such an introduction.

Flutist Lise Daoust’s writing about Kathinkas Gesang forms a central part of an

issue of the French flute magazine, Traversières, dedicated to Stockhausen’s flute

works.14 Similar to Spencer’s article, Daoust’s is a basic introduction to the piece and

the main issues that it presents. Daoust also stresses the importance of Kathinkas

11. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Kathinka Pasveer, “Exemplary Winds for the Next Millennium,”

trans. Jeremy Kohl, The Clarinet 26, no. 1 (December 1998): 64-68. 12. Spencer, “Nature of Performance,” 9-10. 13. Spencer, “Nature of Performance,” 9. 14. Lise Daoust, “Stockhausen et la flûte: une association éblouissante,” “Kathinkas Gesang als

Luzifers Requiem (1983),” and “La musique de Stockhausen dans ma vie,” Traversières 95 (September 2009): 5-8, 14-15, 23. The issue contains articles by different flutists on four Stockhausen works—Freia (1991), Der Kinderfänger (1986/2001), Kathinkas Gesang (1983/1985), and Ave (1985)—as well as the introduction and conclusion by Daoust.

8

Gesang in the flute repertoire, and the unique nature of Stockhausen’s flute writing,

arguing that “the density and power of Stockhausen’s writing have radically transformed

the identity of the instrument and its vocabulary.”15 Daoust, who has studied many of

Stockhausen’s flute works, claims that Kathinkas Gesang is one of the most

demanding.16

Canadian flutist Marie-Hélène Breault has also published articles on Kathinkas

Gesang. The one most relevant to this document discusses the character of the cat in

relationship to the timbre of the flute, and includes valuable observations about the

nature of and possible approaches to the cat/flutist character, as well as about the

piece’s close connections with Kathinka Pasveer.17 Another of Breault’s articles is

primarily concerned with the relationship between the flutist and the electronics part in

the version for flute and electronics, which is not the focus of this document, but

contains some insights that are applicable to other versions.18

Together, these articles make a compelling case that Kathinkas Gesang is a

significant work in the twentieth-century flute repertoire that presents unusual

challenges for the performer.

More general scholarly works on Stockhausen and his music, such as Robin

Maconie’s Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen19 and Michael Kurtz’s

15. Daoust, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 14. (Translated by Leslie Ewart.) 16. Daoust, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 15. 17. Marie-Hélène Breault, “Le timbre de la flûte et la figure du chat dans Samedi de Lumière de

Karlheinz Stockhausen,” Les cahiers de la société Québécoise de recherché en musique 9, no. 1-2 (October 2007): 141-150.

18. Marie-Hélène Breault, “Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem — réflexions d’une interprète,” Circuit: musique contemporaines 19, no. 2 (2009): 87-98.

19. Robin Maconie, Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005).

9

Stockhausen: A Biography,20 also contain references to Kathinkas Gesang. In these

comprehensive surveys, Kathinkas Gesang is usually mentioned in discussions of

Samstag aus Licht and the Licht opera cycle. These sources provide the performer with

contextual information about the operas, and may influence decisions about staging and

dramatic priorities. However, the sections on Kathinkas Gesang are usually quite brief,

and are focused on general analysis or description of the music and drama, rather than

on performance practice questions. Toop’s more extensive analysis of Kathinkas

Gesang in his Six Lectures From the Stockhausen Courses Kürten 2002 is an example

that may be useful to performers.21

A final area of relevant research concerns broader issues in contemporary

performance practice, including: theatricality, memory, and movement; extensions and

redefinitions of virtuosity; questions about “authenticity” in performance; performer

agency and composer control; and the problem of what constitutes a musical work. This

study draws from a variety of resources on these topics, including Christopher Small’s

concept of “musicking,”22 percussionist Steven Schick’s writing on memory,23 work on

concepts of “authenticity” by Peter Kivy24 and pianist Peter Hill,25 writing on virtuosity by

critic Alex Ross,26 pianist Marc Couroux,27 flutist Elizabeth McNutt and theorist Daphne

20. Michael Kurtz, Stockhausen: A Biography, trans. Richard Toop (London: Faber and Faber,

1992). 21. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 101-128. 22. Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening (Hanover:

University Press of New England, 1998). 23. Steven Schick, The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams (Rochester, NY:

University of Rochester Press, 2006). 24. Peter Kivy, Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press, 1995); Kivy, Sounding Off: Eleven Essays in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

25. Hill, 2-8. 26. Alex Ross, “Infernal Machines: How Recordings Changed Music,” in Listen to This (New York:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 55-68. 27. Marc Couroux, “Evryali and the Exploding of Interface: From Virtuosity to Anti-Virtuosity and

10

Leong,28 Jane O’Dea’s work on performance, ethics, and virtuosity,29 composer Linda

Dusman’s ideas on the nature of performance,30 and other selected literature from the

fields of musicology, philosophy, aesthetics, and performance studies. These concepts

inform my approach to the problems of authentic interpretation and performer agency

raised by Kathinkas Gesang.

It is hoped that this document will be useful not only to flutists, but also to

performers and scholars interested in the performance practice of Stockhausen’s music

and in the wider topic areas of interdisciplinary performance and contemporary

performance practices.

Method

This study is informed by my experience of learning and performing Kathinkas

Gesang, along with extensive background research. The methods used include score

and recording study, integration of the relevant literature as described above, and flutist

interviews.

This document makes use of personal interviews with seven professional flutists

who have performed Kathinkas Gesang (Kathinka Pasveer, Lise Daoust, Patricia

Spencer, Mary Stolper, Claire Genewein, Karin de Fleyt, and Ellen Waterman).31 These

Beyond,” Contemporary Music Review 21, no. 2 (2002): 53-67.

28. Daphne Leong and Elizabeth McNutt, “Virtuosity in Babbitt’s Lonely Flute,” Music Theory Online 11, no. 1 (March 2005), http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.1/mto.05.11.1.leong_mcnutt.html (accessed February 3, 2015).

29. Jane O’Dea, Virtue or Virtuosity? Explorations in the Ethics of Musical Performance (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).

30. Linda Dusman, “Unheard-of: Music as Performance and the Reception of the New,” Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 130-146.

31. Many thanks to all of these musicians for sharing their thoughts and experiences. I also interviewed flutist Carlton Vickers, who has studied although not performed Kathinkas Gesang.

http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.1/mto.05.11.1.leong_mcnutt.html

11

interviews were conducted in the spring of 2011, via email and telephone, with an

additional follow-up interview with Kathinka Pasveer in November 2013.

Sample interview questions included:

• What do you think are the greatest challenges in learning Kathinkas Gesang?

• What are the most essential elements in the piece? • What did you choose to prioritize, in practice and/or performance? • Please describe your experience of memorizing Kathinkas Gesang.

How does it compare to other memory work you have done? • Please describe the staging, sets, costume and movements that you

used. • Besides learning the piece itself, what did you gain from the process of working on it? Did it change you as a flutist/performer?

The responses to these questions and others formed an important part of my

research, as I compared different flutists’ approaches to the extensions of virtuosity in

Kathinkas Gesang. An additional interview with flutist and interdisciplinary performer

Zara Lawler (conducted via Skype, in September 2013) provided insight into her views

on interpretation and the benefits of interdisciplinary work in practice and

performance.32

During my preparation and performance of Kathinkas Gesang, and throughout

the subsequent process of research and writing, I worked closely with contemporary

music specialist Dr. Elizabeth McNutt at the University of North Texas. Dr. McNutt, a

renowned contemporary music flutist, has studied Stockhausen’s work and has seen

multiple live performances of Kathinkas Gesang. Her input and guidance in our

discussions throughout the course of my doctoral studies have made a significant

contribution to the development of many of the ideas expressed in this document.

32. Many thanks to Zara Lawler for sharing her thoughts and experiences.

12

The remainder of this introductory chapter introduces the concepts of virtuosity

that are employed in the following discussion, provides some additional background

information about the dramatic context of the Licht cycle and the structural

characteristics of Kathinkas Gesang, and specifies the goals and limitations of the

current study.

What is Virtuosity? : Towards a Working (Re)definition

The virtuoso musician has historically been admired and revered on the one

hand, and scathingly criticized on the other. These criticisms often involve the

accusation that the virtuoso makes the music serve himself or herself rather than the

other way around, drawing attention to the musician’s skill rather than to the qualities of

the music itself.

A common understanding of “virtuosity” (still heavily influenced by the nineteenth

century) is one of extreme skill or mastery, especially technical ability on an instrument.

It may also have a connotation of flash, showmanship, and shallowness. The Oxford

Complete Wordfinder thesaurus gives these synonyms for virtuosity: “(technical) skill,

technique, ability, expertise, mastery, virtu, excellence, brilliance, craftsmanship, craft,

flair, dash, élan, éclat, panache, pyrotechnics, showmanship, show, staginess, sl.

razzle-dazzle.”33

Though our modern concept of the virtuoso is largely a heritage from the

nineteenth century, the term has deeper historical roots. Virtuoso (Italian) is derived

from the Latin virtus, meaning “excellence” or “worth.” The New Grove Dictionary of

33. The Reader’s Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder, s.v. “virtuosity,” (Pleasantville, NY:

Reader’s Digest Association, 1996), 1719.

13

Music and Musicians defines “virtuoso” as “a person of notable accomplishment; a

musician of extraordinary technical skill.”34 However, the article continues to note that

in its original Italian usage (particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries) “virtuoso” was a term of honour reserved for a person distinguished in any intellectual or artistic field: a poet, architect, scholar etc. A virtuoso in music might be a skillful performer, but more importantly he was a composer, a theorist or at least a famous maestro di cappella. . . . With the flourishing of opera and the instrumental concerto in the late 18th century, the term “virtuoso” (or “virtuosa”) came to refer to the violinist, pianist, castrato, soprano etc. who pursued a career as a soloist. At the same time it acquired new shades of meaning as attitudes towards the often exhibitionist talents of the performer changed. In the 19th century these attitudes hardened even more. . . . But though there has been a tendency to regard dazzling feats of technical skill with suspicion (and even, in such cases as Tartini and Paganini, to ascribe them to some supernatural power), the true virtuoso has always been prized not only for his rarity but also for his ability to widen the technical and expressive boundaries of his art.35

The shorter definition in the Oxford Dictionary of Music makes a similar

distinction between a “true virtuoso” and the stereotype of a performer who prioritizes

technique over expressiveness:

(1) As noun: a performer of exceptional skill with particular reference to technical ability. (2) As adjective: a performance of exceptional technical accomplishment. There is sometimes an implication that a virtuoso performance excludes emotional and expressive artistry, or subdues it to technical display, but a true virtuoso is both technician and artist.36

Jane O’Dea also points out that virtuosity may involve not only technical skill but

also emotional expressiveness, with the connotation of a risk of excess and showiness

in that area as well.37 O’Dea gives a fairly negative first view of virtuosity:

The temptation is . . . to exploit and hype to the hilt any commercially attractive assets we may possess – our technical abilities, our capacity to move listeners emotionally, our performance gestures, appearance and so forth. We are

34. Owen Jander, Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, s.v. “Virtuoso,”

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/29502 (accessed January 19, 2013). 35. Jander, “Virtuoso.” 36. Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev., Oxford Music Online, s.v. “Virtuoso,”

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e10752 (accessed January 19, 2013). 37. O’Dea, 52.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/29502http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e10752

14

tempted, in short, to exchange our honorable role of interpreter for that of performing virtuoso [emphasis added] and to embrace a concept of performance many would deplore as narcissistic, banal and utterly detrimental to the art of musical interpretation.38

This concept of virtuosity is not purely about technique, but more about showmanship

and the performer’s motivations. O’Dea goes on to ask, “But does virtuosity deserve to

be vilified thus? Is there not an appropriate place for it in performance art?”39 After much

further examination of these concepts and questions, she concludes that

the dichotomy between “virtue” and “virtuosity,” so often invoked in musical performance circles, is neither real nor irreparable. Quite the contrary, as the genesis of the term implies, virtuosity celebrates and endorses the virtues of performance competence; it names the technical excellences performers must develop in order to sound musical works in ways that do them justice. Like any other virtue, however, virtuosity taken to excess can subvert and vitiate the very excellence it was meant to serve. Hence the ambiguity of its role in performance interpretation and the ethical challenge it presents to performers.40

This “ethical challenge” is added to a wealth of performance challenges already

present in a work such as Kathinkas Gesang. In addition to mastery, virtuosity can also

include the concept of pushing against limits, “widen[ing] the technical and expressive

boundaries of . . . art,”41 as Jander’s definition concludes above. The virtuoso often

does something that was previously considered impossible, and the limits that are

confronted need not be only physical or external: they might also be cognitive,

emotional, or expressive, requiring both physical and mental skills.

Applying this definition, it becomes clear that Kathinkas Gesang expands

instrumental virtuosity by bringing the performer up against new limits. As described

above, these limits or demands include length, complexity, extended techniques,

38. O’Dea, 35. 39. O’Dea, 35. 40. O’Dea,111. 41. Jander, “Virtuoso.”

15

memory, movement, staging and character. More specifically, Kathinkas Gesang

requires the following of the performer: to play difficult, complex music with many

extended techniques; to play for a long time, alone (in the solo version) or as a featured

soloist (in the version with percussion), which requires physical and mental endurance,

sustained focus, and strong stage presence; to perform the piece from memory, which

involves both mental and physical aspects of virtuosity; and to play while moving around

the stage, in costume, with a set (that must be planned or at least procured), portraying

a character. Any one of these tasks is a challenge, but putting them all together

compounds the difficulty, and stretches the limits of the typical flutist.

Challenges are also presented by the questions of interpretation that arise when

performing a piece so closely associated with its original performer. In order to embody

the character and give a fully realized performance, the flutist must internalize and take

ownership of the piece, which involves creativity and agency. This is not to be

interpreted as license to take gross liberties. On the contrary, it is an extremely active

and committed involvement with all of the demands of the piece, similar to what O’Dea

describes as “passionate engagement” (when discussing the issue of emotional

expression):

Instead of allowing the object (the musical work) to fall out of focus and wallowing in the cathartic throes of personal sentiment, your intellectual, emotional and physical capacities are focused squarely onto the artifact itself. You bring your entire mental, physical and emotional being to bear on the work [emphasis added]. . . . Rather than thwarting the central purposes of interpretation, passionate engagement of this type serves to accomplish it more meaningfully.42

While all musical performances benefit from such commitment, I argue that in a piece

such as Kathinkas Gesang this type of total engagement—bringing one’s “entire mental,

42. O’Dea, 58.

16

physical, and emotional being to bear on the work”43—is essential to its full realization

and interpretation.

O’Dea argues that virtuosity is not necessarily detrimental to musical

interpretation, but is a tool that must be skillfully and carefully used as a means, and not

as its own end:44

Although virtuosity frequently serves to deflect attention away from musical works in and of itself, it is not detrimental to the art of musical interpretation. Quite the contrary. It is like a discriminating, finely wrought tool that can be used for good or ill. Used as a means to the end of polished, sensitive articulation, it is beyond reproach. Employed solely as an end in itself, as a means of showcasing and drawing attention to the superlative skills of the performer, it is rightly decried as distracting, banal and narcissistic.45

This suggests that virtuosity is one aspect of interpretation, which might be

employed or not depending on the situation. I propose an alternate idea: rather than

virtuosity being an aspect of interpretation, interpretation is a part of virtuosity. The skills,

judgment, and creativity involved in musical interpretation are actually essential parts of

the deeper virtuosity that Kathinkas Gesang demands and develops in the performer. In

turn, these skills will be applicable to and enhance the performance of many different

kinds of repertoire.

Leong and McNutt write about a similar concept of deeper virtuosity in their

article on Milton Babbitt’s None But the Lonely Flute:

The performer of Lonely Flute faces virtuosic demands in many arenas. . . . In addition to these more obvious manifestations of virtuosity, Lonely Flute demands a deeper level of understanding. . . . This deeper virtuosity develops through a learning process that moves from the basic terms of the work to a reinvention and communication of it.46

43. O’Dea, 58. 44. O’Dea, 60. 45. O’Dea, 60. 46. Leong and McNutt, “Virtuosity,” paragraphs 6-8.

17

This redefinition frames virtuosity as a larger concept that includes artistic

integrity and musical understanding, echoing the earlier definitions cited above. Rather

than emphasizing knowledge of music theory, this definition of virtuosity is still

performance-based, but it expands the tasks and skills of the virtuoso performer to

include choices as well as actions, and intellectual as well as physical dexterity. As

flutist and composer Harvey Sollberger writes,

The traditional virtuoso display piece very often employs ideas of slight musical substance as a pretext for its true raison d’être, virtuoso display; the modern virtuoso more often asserts his skill indirectly in the course of making himself and his instrument the active mediums through which a work’s ideas are projected. His is a virtuosity of many dimensions, mental and conceptual as well as physical. Ultimately his virtuosity lies in understanding and communicating the substance of the music he plays as well as (if at all) in performing acrobatics.47

Thus, the definition of virtuosity in Kathinkas Gesang may be considered

expanded in two main senses. First, it is expanded to include additional

performance/technical skills such as movement, acting, memory, etc., as well as playing

the instrument (including the use of extended flute techniques). Second, it is also

expanded to include interpretation, judgment, and decision-making; it encompasses

both the mental acts of making informed interpretive choices, and the

physical/mental/emotional actions of carrying out those decisions in practice and

performance.

This model of virtuosic interpretation attempts to find a ground beyond the

polarized paradigms of, on the one hand, the self-effacing performer who strives to

become a conduit or vessel through which the music flows, and, on the other, the self-

indulgent, self-aggrandizing virtuoso who bends the music to suit his or her own desires

47. Harvey Sollberger, “The Instrument in Your Mind,” in liner notes to New Music for Virtuosos,

CD (New World Records 80541, 1998), 7.

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and vagaries.48

Virtuosity, Perfection, and Effort(lessness)

While the critiques of nineteenth-century virtuosity focused on showiness and

excess, some in the twentieth century have accused virtuosity of becoming too focused

on accuracy and the ideal of perfection, often mentioning the new pervasiveness of

recordings as an influence on this development. Pianist Hill, as referenced above, cites

“the merciless clarity of recording technology and the prevalence of pre-recorded music

in our audience’s musical diet” as a factor in the increased pressure on performers to be

accurate, sometimes even at the cost of other musical elements.49 Hill suggests that

another problematic effect of recordings is to encourage the “illusion” that music is fixed:

Our difficulties arise partly from the fact that we are accustomed to think of music not in terms of transitory sounds and experiences but as printed scores which are inevitably fixed in appearance. (The problem is compounded by the permanence of modern recording.) This is an illusion. For one thing, in the most interesting music—that with the richest possibilities—there can be no one “perfect” way of playing the piece.50

Critic Alex Ross also comments on the tendency of recordings to encourage an

emphasis on surface “perfection” (often by way of imitation). “Most modern playing

tends to erase all evidence of the work that has gone on behind the scenes: virtuosity is

defined as effortlessness [emphasis added]. One often-quoted ideal is to ‘disappear

behind the music.’ But when precision is divorced from emotion it can become anti-

musical, inhuman, repulsive.”51

48. On the concept of performers as vessels, see Marilyn Nonken, “Introduction: Vessels,”

Contemporary Music Review 21, no. 1 (2002): 1-4. 49. Hill, 3. 50. Hill, 6. 51. Ross, 64.

19

Something of a paradox exists in our ideas about ease, difficulty, and virtuosity.

The virtuoso does something difficult and makes it look easy, yet the audience must

recognize the difficulty of the task, in order for the feat to be properly impressive.

Thomas Carson Mark writes about the perceptions of ease and difficulty in Horowitz’s

performances:

The difficulty of the Rachmaninoff sonata is not an irrelevant or extrinsic fact about it; it is not easy, nor is it intended to sound easy, nor does Horowitz make it sound easy. He does make it sound as if he had no trouble playing it; that is, he shows that he can do something which is extremely hard to do and which is, at the same time, evidently hard to do. This is not manifest effort, it is a manifestation of extraordinary skill.52

Mark goes on to argue that “appreciation of works of virtuosity, in which display of skill is

central, presupposes some knowledge. A person must have some notion of the

technical demands imposed in a work if he is even to notice the skill required to meet

them.”53 Does the act of performance need to be—or at least appear—effortless, in

order to qualify as virtuosity? Can the audience see some of the sweat behind the

scenes, or even in the moment of performance? Or is it possible, as Mark suggests, to

distinguish between manifest effort and manifest skill? Can the virtuoso fail, or be at risk

of failing, and still be virtuosic?

In his critique of “inhuman” precision, Ross is writing in this case about modern

performances of older music, yet the questions raised can also be applied to

contemporary music, or (as in the case of Kathinkas Gesang) to music from the

relatively recent past. Ross goes on to say that early music performance has become

52. Thomas Carson Mark, “On Works of Virtuosity,” The Journal of Philosophy 77, no. 1 (January

1980): 32. 53. Mark, “Works of Virtuosity,” 42.

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more dynamic and less “pedantically ‘correct’” in recent years,54 including more

“freedoms” in performance, execution, ornamentation, and improvisation.55 “As a result,

the music feels liberated, and audiences respond in kind, with yelps of joy. . . . If, in

coming years, the freewheeling spirit of the early-music scene enters into performances

of the nineteenth-century repertory, classical music may finally kick away its cold marble

façade.”56

In the case of twentieth and twenty-first century music, performers often have

more information about the performance practice and more specific instructions from

the composer, though perhaps less tradition and precedent with which to wrestle.

With Kathinkas Gesang, performers have both a large amount of information from the

composer and a recent, well-documented precedent (namely, the first performance, and

subsequent performances that have largely followed its example). This makes the

performer’s task easier in some senses, and more difficult in others.

The category of “contemporary music” encompasses a wide variety of styles,

some of which may need a “freewheeling spirit,” and others of which require great

precision. In the work of a composer such as Milton Babbitt, for example, exactitude and

clarity are very important elements. Likewise, in Stockhausen’s music, careful attention

to detail and precision are crucial. Yet this attention to detail should not be seen as

divorced from or opposed to expressiveness and emotion; as McNutt writes, “emotion is

inextricably linked to the details.”57 Leong and McNutt challenge the idea that “the rigor

54. Ross, 64. 55. Ross, 65. 56. Ross, 65. 57. McNutt, email message to author, February 2, 2015.

21

of Babbitt's music precludes expressivity and freedom of interpretation,”58 arguing

instead “that Babbitt's music finds an astonishing richness of expression within and

because of its constraints, and that performers can similarly find interpretive freedom

within the confines of the notated score.”59

Similarly, an argument against an excessive focus on technical perfection does

not imply a lack of concern for accuracy. As Hill puts it: “I am not for a moment

suggesting that accuracy doesn’t matter, or that it isn’t important to get things right; only

that correctness should be a means to an end, not a tyrannical end in itself. . . . the text

should be a source of stimulus, not of inhibition [emphasis added].”60

Ross and Hill are both criticizing the ideal of technical perfection as its own end,

rather than as a means to a greater musical or expressive end. O’Dea argues that

virtuosity should not be used as its own end. If technical perfection equals virtuosity,

then likewise it should not be its own end. However, the (re)definition of virtuosity for

which I am arguing is both broader and deeper than that.

Technical perfection as the highest goal leads to a concept of virtuosity as both

effortlessness and flawlessness. Although there is much to be admired in those

qualities, such an emphasis can also have a high cost: when a performer is more

concerned about perfection, she tends to take fewer risks. What is lost, according to

Ross, in this more “perfect” kind of performance, is the performer’s individuality,

humanity, and fallibility. “The tics and traits of old-school performance . . . are alike in

bringing out the distinct voices of the performers, not to mention the mere fact that they

58. Leong and McNutt, “Virtuosity,” paragraph 1. 59. Leong and McNutt, “Virtuosity,” paragraph 2. 60. Hill, 7.

22

are fallible humans.”61 Hill also cites a “deep-seated loss of confidence”62 in

contemporary performance, compared to that from previous times:

We rely increasingly on “rules” and “evidence” as a means of evading personal responsibility for artistic judgments. It is this quality of confidence which is so striking to modern ears in “pre-authentic” playing, as in the Bach performances of Casals or Hamilton Harty, for example: a bedrock of conviction on which their particular “authenticity” resides.63

These aspects of “old-school performance” could be useful to revive in current

performances of music of all periods, including the contemporary.

This discussion leads to another aspect of the definition: virtuosity is not equal to

perfection, flawlessness, or machine-like precision. It includes a human element that

brings a rawness and vitality to the performance, that encompasses conviction and also

vulnerability: there is the possibility of struggle, risk, and fallibility.

Pianist Marc Couroux brings another perspective to his critique of contemporary

virtuosity; rather than trying to bring back elements from older styles of performance, he

urges a movement forward that would question and eventually break out of the

paradigms inherited from the nineteenth century. He critiques the “performer-as-hero”

model, which seems like a version of the self-aggrandizing virtuoso archetype. “Much of

what the performance of classical music has meant for the past 150 years or so has

been inextricably fueled by the Olympian ego present in every performer, a ritual based

in outward ‘demonstrations,’ a self-definition always attained by an external affirmation

of ability: the performer-as-hero.”64 Couroux is critical of the model of interaction

between performer and instrument, and performer and audience, especially “the

61. Ross, 64. 62. Hill, 7. 63. Hill, 7. 64. Couroux, 53.

23

nineteenth-century-based attitude of presenting the ‘perfect performer’ as a

transcendental demi-god.”65 In addition to his critique of this heritage from the past,

Couroux also find problems in contemporary musical culture: “nowadays, in the serious-

music world, there is an exaggerated emphasis on the flash of virtuosity.”66 Some of

Couroux’s own compositions “use the idea of anti-virtuosity as their initial premise and

central argument—failure, a cul-de-sac from which it is indeed possible to ‘go on’ and

build a whole new set of instrument-performer relations.”67

Couroux also questions the notion that a performance must always appear

polished, confident, and in control, adding another dimension to the arguments about

perfection and flawlessness discussed above. He writes that

the one central issue preventing a more widespread communication between performer and listener (the key crisis of contemporary music this past century), has been the refusal on the performer’s part to let the performative persona disintegrate on stage, fall away. Why couldn’t the performer’s entire nervous system be put on the line [emphasis in original] in front of everyone?68

It may be argued that the performer’s nervous system is on the line, in any kind

of fully committed performance. However, there is a tendency to hide the cracks and

vulnerabilities that may emerge, to “give a performance,” to project confidence on stage

at all costs. This is part of musicians’ professional training, and has a long-standing

history in performance. However, confidence and vulnerability do not have to be

exclusionary opposites. If a performance does not have to be “perfect” in order to be

good and worthwhile, then perhaps the performer can still be confident without requiring

65. Couroux, 53. 66. Couroux, 54. 67. Couroux, 55. 68. Couroux, 55.

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a shiny, hard shell or “performative persona” that has to hide all of the cracks.69

This question of fallibility connects to the requirements for memory, movement,

and character in Kathinkas Gesang, which make the performer paradoxically more and

less human at the same time: less human, because she becomes the character; but

more human, because the risks involved with the performance mean that her fallibility is

exposed and on the line.

A demanding but rewarding experience to learn and perform, Kathinkas Gesang

is a masterful work for flute that brings the instrumentalist into a broader role as a

creative performer, leading her into a deeper type of virtuosity that encompasses not

only a variety of technical skills but also a sense of interpretation as a creative and

collaborative process. The performer must claim agency and question the definitions of

“authentic” or approved interpretation in order to find her way into this piece and truly

realize all of the fruits that it provides. The definition of virtuosity proposed in this

document includes both mastery and pushing against limits. It suggests that

interpretation is a part of this expanded virtuosity, and that virtuosity encompasses both

physical and mental elements, both decision-making and the actions taken to carry out

those choices. Furthermore, this definition of virtuosity is not primarily concerned with

surface level accuracy or “perfection,” or with reproduction, but rather with live, human

performance and creative agency.

Contextual and Dramatic Background

As mentioned above, Kathinkas Gesang is the second scene of the opera

69. Thanks to Dr. Elizabeth McNutt and Dr. David Bard-Schwarz for discussions that contributed

to the development of these ideas.

25

Samstag aus Licht (Saturday from Light). Though the Licht operas correspond to the

days of the week, they were not written in chronological order, and Samstag was the

second to be composed and premiered (1983/84), after Donnerstag (1981).70 As Toop

writes,

Stockhausen's composition projects had never lacked ambition. But in 1977, he embarked on a project compared to which even works like Hymnen seemed modest: he announced a cycle of seven “operas,” lasting a total of twenty-four hours, each named after a day of the week, and jointly entitled LICHT (Light). The musical basis of the cycle is a triple “superformula” that combines the formula for the three main characters: Eve, Michael, and Lucifer; its principal subject, much influenced by the Urantia Book (a book of “revelations” from other parts of the galaxy) is the search for a “higher consciousness.” One striking feature of the cycle is that the main characters are often represented by instrumentalists and dancers/mimes, as well as singers. Sometimes, they have virtually replaced the singers; Samstag (Saturday) and Dienstag (Tuesday) are largely instrumental works, and after Samstag the orchestra is largely replaced by synthesizers and electronic music.71

The three main characters—Michael, Eve, and Lucifer—are represented in

various different forms, each having an associated singer, dancer, and instrumentalist.

Eve, in fact, has more than one instrument: she is usually represented by the basset-

horn, but in Kathinkas Gesang the cat-flutist is also an avatar or aspect of the Eve

character, as noted in the video documentary about the premiere of Samstag. “The

second main character: EVA (EVE), the spirit who always cares for the improvement of

the physical conditions of the living beings on the inhabited planets. She is sung,

danced or played (usually on the basset-horn, or as here—in a transformation—on the

flute).”72

The video narrator goes on to describe the Kathinkas Gesang scene as

70. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 107. 71. Richard Toop, “Karlheinz Stockhausen,” in Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A

Biocritical Sourcebook, ed. Larry Sitsky (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 496-497. 72. Das Welttheater des Karlheinz Stockhausen (Samstag aus Licht), DVD, (WDR, 1984; Kürten,

Germany: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2008), transcription and English translation by Jayne Obst, 5.

26

a requiem . . . chanted for Lucifer by Eva, who has slipped into the figure of a flute-playing cat, played by the Dutch virtuoso Kathinka Pasveer, after whom this scene was also named, KATHINKAs GESANG (KATHINKA’S CHANT). With her chant, Kathinka protects the souls of the dead from temptations and leads them to clear consciousness. She is accompanied by six percussionists, the mortal senses, who react to KATHINKAs GESANG with their self-made magic instruments. This chant has 24 stages. The elements are indicated on a mandala disc like the numbers on a clock. When Kathinka has fulfilled her task, she must, like Majella, return to the depths. She disappears down into a dark grave in the shape of a grand piano. But is she even able to chant a requiem for Lucifer? Can she lead his soul to an even clearer consciousness? In the depth of the grave, the answer is waiting for Kathinka, and it is shocking. Lucifer is alive, rises up out of the grave, amused and ridiculing. Was he not really dead? Has he risen from the dead? Reborn?73

Breault suggests that the flutist’s character is even more complex, containing

aspects not only of Eve but also of Lucifer: “It [Kathinkas Gesang] is a musicalized ritual

that is performed on Luzifer’s grave by a black cat flutist, an animal incarnation

revealing at the same time, at the archetypal level, Eva [Eve] and Luzifer [Lucifer].”74

Another description of the Licht cycle comes from Stockhausen biographer Kurtz:

In many languages and cultures light is an expression or image of the Divinity; Licht is Stockhausen's attempt to create a cosmic world theatre that summarizes and intensifies his lifelong concern: the unity of music and religion, allied to a vision of an essentially musical mankind. Stockhausen's world theatre is enacted not only on earth, for the plot also unfolds in the world beyond. It considers the destiny of mankind, the earth and the cosmos, in conjunction and confrontation with the spiritual essences Michael, Lucifer and Eve. . . . Stockhausen has organized everything into a huge seven-part cycle: Monday is Eve's day, Tuesday is the day of confrontation between Michael and Lucifer, Wednesday is the day of collaboration between all three, Thursday is Michael's day, Friday is the day of Eve's temptation by Lucifer, Saturday is Lucifer's day and Sunday is the day of the mystical union of Michael and Eve. The plot and the ideas for staging are essentially Stockhausen's own. . . . Licht is Stockhausen's Gesamtkunstwerk; singing, instrumental music, tape sounds, movement, costumes and lighting—everything that happens musically or theatrically—is conceived as one unity. The compositional germ cell for the whole thing is a “super-formula,” conceived in terms of rhythms, dynamics and timbre, in which

73. Das Welttheater des Karlheinz Stockhausen, DVD, trans. Obst, 7. 74. Breault, “Réflexions d’une interprète,” 87. (Translated by Leslie Ewart.)

27

three individual formulas are combined (a thirteen-note Michael formula, a twelve-note Eve formula and an eleven-note Lucifer formula). The entire cycle is developed from this triple-formula polyphony, from the single note, via the musical and scenic details to the broader musico-dramatic context. Although the various sections of the operas are mainly fully composed, some give the interpreter greater freedom.75

The comparison with Wagner is perhaps inevitable, though not the focus of this

study. However, important distinctions can also be made, particularly in the use of

instrumentalists. In Wagner’s operas the characters are still portrayed by singers, and

the instrumentalists remain in their conventional place, the orchestra pit. One of the

major innovative aspects of Stockhausen’s “operas” is the use of instrumentalists as

theatrical characters, moving and performing on the stage, along with (or instead of) the

singers. Toop recalls Stockhausen telling him

that he was not interested in a naturalistic or psychological conception of theatre, and that for him, the music of the principal instrumentalists was at least as important in establishing character and essence as what the singers sang. That explains, in part, why I’m talking here about a piece that constitutes a whole act of an opera, but has no singers in it (except to the extent that the flutist often sings into her instrument).76

Toop also points out another important difference between Wagner and

Stockhausen, in the relationship between the libretto and the music:

By the time Wagner starts work on Das Rheingold, he has already written the libretto for the entire cycle; and these words define not only the entire dramatic content, but also, implicitly, the broad proportions of each of the four music dramas. But for the most part, the music has yet to be found. With Stockhausen, the situation is almost the reverse. When the composition of LICHT begins, there are virtually no words—or not for anything beyond DONNERSTAG. (In DONNERSTAG there are actually lots of words, but in SAMSTAG, apart from the final scene, there are hardly any.)77

Hardly any words in some sections, instrumentalists instead of/along with singers

75. Kurtz, 210-211. 76. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 106. 77. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 101.

28

playing characters on stage: can these works really be deemed “operas” in the

conventional sense? Or have they changed that definition? According to the Samstag

documentary, Stockhausen did not start out with that genre in mind. He ended up calling

these works operas out of a more pragmatic spirit, because an opera company seemed

most likely to have the resources available to produce such large-scale works:

Narrator: However, we may and must sceptically ask: is it sufficient to drape musically self-sufficient sections with a scenic concept, in order to make a unit of plot, a real organism, music theatre out of them? Is LICHT truly an opera? Stockhausen: As soon as I made contact with reality, I discovered that

actually only opera houses can perform it, and all the professionals told me:

“Why don’t you just call it an opera, then one knows that it traditionally belongs in

the opera, in the opera house, and then you will receive all the necessary

technical and musical help.” I am now even satisfied that this term receives a

totally new meaning as the continuation of a tradition of music theatre in Europe.

. . . Thus, later it will become evident that opera in Europe took a different turn

because of LICHT.78

Structure of Kathinkas Gesang

Given the length and complexity of the piece, a systematic approach to the

learning process is particularly important. The compositional structure is helpful in

devising this approach, since the work is divided into numbered sections, most of which

focus on a particular type of sound or musical idea. Example 3 shows the “Lucifer

Formula” on which the composition is based. For more on Stockhausen’s use of formula

composition in Kathinkas Gesang, and analysis of the relationship between the various

78. Das Welttheater des Karlheinz Stockhausen, DVD, trans. Obst, 16.

29

levels of the formula and the score, Toop’s essay on Kathinkas Gesang provides a

valuable starting point.79

Example 3: Stockhausen, “Lucifer Formula,” introduction Kathinkas Gesang, xi:

Stockhausen’s Introduction to Kathinkas Gesang describes the piece thus:

SATURDAY from LIGHT (SATURNDAY) is the LUCIFERDAY: day of death, night of transition to the LIGHT. Like LUCIFER, every human being dies an apparent death—enchanted by the sensual nature of the music of life. Thus, LUCIFER'S REQUIEM is a requiem for every human being who seeks the eternal LIGHT. KATHINKA’S CHANT protects the soul of the deceased from temptations, through musical exercises to which it regularly listens for 49 days after physical death and by which it is guided to clear consciousness. To prepare for death, one can learn during one's lifetime to listen to these exercises in the right way. . . . KATHINKA’S CHANT begins with a SALUTE. Then, it teaches the soul through 2 X 11 EXERCISES and 2 PAUSES in 24 STAGES, which form a homogenous process and are clearly announced by signals of the high F. These EXERCISES are followed by: THE RELEASE OF THE SENSES

79. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 101-128. For more analysis of formula composition throughout

Licht, see Jerome Kohl, “Into the Middleground: Formula Syntax in Stockhausen's Licht,” Perspectives of New Music 28, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 262-291.

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EXIT THE 11 TROMBONE TONES THE SCREAM80 “KATHINKA’S CHANT as LUCIFER'S REQUIEM leads the souls of the dead, through listening, to clear consciousness.”81

Following the brief introductory “Salute,” the bulk of the piece consists of the “2 X

11 EXERCISES and 2 PAUSES in 24 STAGES.” This is basically a series of 24

numbered sections. Each section or stage is based on a fragment of the formula; these

musical fragments are shown on the large “mandalas” that make up the stage set, in a

format resembling a clock face. As Stockhausen describes it, “next to these numbers,

[are] the music fragments which correspond to the sections 1-12 and 13-24 of the

composition [emphasis in original].”82 However, as Toop points out, these fragments are

neither literally taken from the formula, nor exact excerpts from the flute part of the

score:

The solo flute player performs in front of two circular, mandala-like discs, on which are inscribed the fundamental materials of each section of the piece. . . . So at a live performance, the listener can also see the musical essentials. Yet what is on these discs is neither the Super Formula itself (or more precisely, the Lucifer level of the Super Formula, SAMSTAG being “Lucifer’s Day”), nor the score. It’s a sort of mediation between the two of them: an initial refinement of the formula, by way of preparation for the score, or at least the flutist’s part of it.83

Toop compares the parts of the Lucifer formula with the mandala board fragments,84

noting, “as you would expect, they are essentially the same, but not entirely so; one

good reason for this is that the Lucifer formula is not innately conceived in terms of the

80. Karlheinz Stockhausen, introduction to Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem, trans. Suzee

Stephens and James Ingram (Kürten, Germany: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1984), xi. 81. Stockhausen, introduction to Kathinkas Gesang, xiv. 82. Stockhausen, introduction to Kathinkas Gesang, xvi. 83. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 106. 84. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 109. Toop’s Example 4 shows the Lucifer formula with the

mandala figures below it.

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flute!”85 Toop also points out that “the Lucifer formula is always very tangibly and audibly

present” in Kathinkas Gesang, more so than in some of Stockhausen’s other works,86

and suggests that

in a way, the flute part is a novel kind of “variation form”. Whereas traditional (i.e. 18th/19th century) variation form normally took a whole melody and/or harmonic progression as the basis for each variation [emphasis in original], in this piece, each section is a “variation” on a tiny fragment of the basic formula, which here is divided into 24 parts (or rather, 22 parts, plus two rests).87

Partly because of the relationship to the formula, each section tends to focus on

a certain kind of musical idea or technique. For example, Section 1 is nearly a whole

page of low E4,88 with gradations of change in dynamics, accent and articulation

patterns, and microtonal fingerings. See Example 4 for the beginning of this section.

85. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 108. 86. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 108. 87. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 108. 88. This document uses the Acoustical Society of America recommendations for octave

designations, in which middle C is designated as C4.

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Example 4: Stockhausen, Kathinkas Gesang, flute part, 1 (Section 1):

This is unusual writing for solo flute, to say the least. Flutist Spencer describes

some of her reactions when first encountering this opening page of the score:

How could a piece begin with one-and-a-half minutes of low E’s? Even with the constantly interchanging articulations, dynamics, added grace notes, and five different fingerings intermixed, surely the audience would lose interest. On the other hand, what if a ritualistic intensity were built up, with a mesmerizing, ever-changing E, pulling the listener into different planes of awareness?89

Spencer goes on to describe the various transformations that the material undergoes on

that first page (Section 1). She concludes that “every extended technique—such as the

four alternate, each slightly lower, pitches for the low E, described above—is embedded

89. Spencer, “Nature of Performance,” 9.

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in a strong musical gesture, in this case a ritualistic intoning,”90 and also suggests that

the material serves both to require and to cultivate in the performer a state that she calls

“meditative attention.”91

Toop describes this first section from another perspective, analyzing its

relationship to the formula fragment.92 This analysis could help the flutist understand the

rhythms of the first section (and the unusual metronome markings throughout the

piece), as well as the relationships between the different varying parameters. Toop also

comments on the importance of the ritual nature of the work, and its possible effect on

the musical materials used: “the ritual character of this piece naturally suggests a music

which will be static in many respects, however sophisticated the bar-to-bar processes

may be.”93

At the end of Section 1 there is suddenly “a flourish that ascends from A to E to

the F that was the highest note of the prefatory ‘Salute’.”94 In addition to being “an

evocation” of “the 32nd-note ‘upbeat’ in the formula” this high F6 also “functions as a

signal that this first ‘stage’ has ended. And most of the stages will end with such a

signal—mainly through the high F, but some (including the 2nd Stage) by referring back

directly to the ‘Salute’.”95 Stockhausen wrote that all of the stages or sections “are

clearly announced by signals of the high F.”96

Though the relationships between the score and the formula in this first section

90. Spencer, “Nature of Performance,” 11. 91. Spencer, “Nature of Performance,” 11. 92. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 110-113. Note that there is one error in Toop’s description here:

he writes that some of the repeated low E’s are “flutter-tongued” (p. 111); according to Stockhausen’s notation, these notes are double and triple-tongued, not flutter-tongued.

93. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 107. 94. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 113. 95. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 113. 96. Stockhausen, introduction to Kathinkas Gesang, xi.

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are fairly clear, that is not always the case. Toop writes, “for me, one fascinating aspect

of the way KATHINKAs GESANG is composed is the often unpredictable way it

alternates between expansions that clearly build on the character of the original

formula-figure, and others that seem to play it down, or even ignore it.”97 Toop also

emphasizes the role of Stockhausen’s creative choice, perhaps in a defense against the

compositional methods seeming overly formulaic or predictable. “Clearly, most of the

decisions I have described, and will go on to describe, were made in response to

particular properties of the ‘formula’, but in no case did the formula prescribe the

solution. The latter had to be found, as a test of the composer’s creative imagination.”98

Finally, the last of these “exercises” is followed by a coda that begins with Die

Entlassung der Sinne (“The Release of the Senses”), which Toop describes as “a

condensed reprise of all of the 24 stages. . . . it’s not a matter of summarizing the

complete pitch structure of the work, but rather of evoking the initial pitches and also the

articulation and character of each stage. In fact, what one has here is a sequence of 24

‘quotations’, or flashbacks.”99 After that comes the Ausweg (“Exit”), in which the music

(already mostly air sounds) is further and further fragmented by manic laughter, and

finally Die 11 Posaunetöne (“The 11 Trombone Tones”), which are “the kernel notes of

the Lucifer formula,”100 and Der Schrei (“The Scream”).

“Extensions of Instrumental Practice”

Stockhausen worked on the Licht cycle from 1977 through 2003, and it

97. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 118. 98. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 113. See also 106. 99. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 122. 100. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 122.

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encompasses developments in his work on many levels. These include the use of

staging and movement, electronic music, and the interaction of live instruments and

electronics, as well as the writing for acoustic instruments, as Toop points out:

And in fact, the LICHT cycle is equally notable for its extensions of instrumental practice [as well as electronic music]. During the 1950s and even the 1960s, Stockhausen’s approach to instrumental writing had been the most conservative aspect of his work. He had shown no interest in the explosion of “extended techniques” that followed on from Cage, preferring to use electronics to modify conventional instrumental timbres. His process- and text-compositions of the late 1960s give performers plenty of scope to introduce new techniques, but never specifically demand them. However, in the 1980s, constant collaboration with clarinetist Suzanne Stephens and flautist Kathinka Pasveer, and also with his sons Markus (trumpet) and Simon (synthesizer), led to a complete reappraisal of his approach to instrumental writing [emphasis added]. Yet, his typically meticulous and exhaustive explorations of such things as microtones and multiphonics have nothing to do with the search for “novel effects.” The aim is to create new, exactly controlled scales of pitches and timbres; to that extent, it could be seen as return to the preoccupations of Gesang der Jünglinge in terms of instruments rather than electronic music.101

Though this document does not focus specifically on Stockhausen’s use of

extended flute techniques, this quote highlights a couple of points worth noticing:

namely, the changes in Stockhausen’s manner of writing for instruments (and the

degree of specificity used in the notation), and the connection between that change and

his work with specific musicians, which suggests that collaboration with these

instrumentalists played a large role in the development of his compositional style in

Licht.

An early sketch of Kathinkas Gesang from 1981 shows an idea for a piece for

percussionists and electronic sounds, with no flute part, called simply (Luzifers)

Requiem.102 Toop speculates that “presumably the idea of a flute part doesn’t come until

101. Toop, “Karlheinz Stockhausen,” 497. 102. Toop, “Kathinkas Gesang,” 107-108.

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Stockhausen meets Kathinka Pasveer at the Stockhausen Festival in Den Haag in

1982.”103 This very close connection between the piece and its original

performer/interpreter presents both benefits and challenges for subsequent interpreters.

Maconie describes Kathinkas Gesang as follows:

In Noh drama, and perhaps everywhere else, the flute signifies breath and continuity, the wind of change, the breath of life, and therefore life itself. The scene is effectively a vigil performed for the soul of the dead at a lying in state, so despite the apparent humor attached to cat suits, and the tradition of witches’ cats (which the composer takes very seriously, of course), this scene needs to be enacted in the manner of a ritual, and under lighting and staging conditions appropriate to a religious setting. As a solo recorded performance the piece comes across as a further extended virtuosic exercise in the genre of Harlekin and In Freundschaft for clarinet. Certainly a piece of this kind seems to be Stockhausen's way of extending a welcome to those for whom he feels a special affection.104

Although the specifics of Stockhausen’s flute writing and use of extended

techniques are certainly “of potential interest to flutists”105 (and to composers and

scholars as well), this document argues that the significant “extensions of instrumental

practice”106 in Kathinkas Gesang go beyond the use of extended techniques, to include

the aspects of memory, staging, and movement. The following chapters examine in

depth the “extensions of instrumental practice,” and of virtuosity, into these areas. The

document concludes by relating the challenges of Kathinkas Gesang to larger questions

in contemporary pe