Stockhausen: A Biography

About this book

Karlheinz Stockhausen is a unique figure in the history of twentieth-century music. A tireless innovator his work has always aroused great controversy as well as attracting a fanatical discipleship. Stockhausen is renowned for his role in establishing European serialism for his pioneering work in every form of electro-acoustic music - from early musique concrete to computer music - for his exploitation of physical performance space and in the seven-opera cycle Licht for the integration of sound and movement. Stockhausen the man however has largely escaped analysis. Now Stockhausen: A Biography reveals the personal history of this extraordinary figure. We learn of his boyhood in Cologne his struggles as a student his studies with Messiaen in Paris his exacting and highly individual teaching methods at Darmstadt and Cologne and the circumstances in which many of his greatest works were composed.