[Stockhausen, Karlheinz. (1928–2007)]
Holland Festival '69 - ORIGINAL PROGRAM
Original program from the June 22, 1969 premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Theaterstück Oben und Unten and Stimmung, at the Holland Festival of 1969. Striking design with color cover, photographs of the composer and the performers, and extracts from the scores throughout. 10 pp. In very fine condition. 10.5 x 10.25 inches (27 x 26 cm).Oben und Unten ("Above and below") is part of Aus den sieben Tagen, a set of 15 text compositions by Stockhausen composed in May 1968. The piece has parts for a woman, man, and child, and a group of instrumentalists. As indicated in the program notes, "Sounds, words and phrases of man and woman are more or less indicated but not in detail. The child imitates some words heard from man and woman." Stimmung, for six vocalists with microphones, was commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln, and was groundbreaking in its use of overtones as a central element of the piece.
A scandal erupted at the June 22 Stockhausen concert when a group of audience members began to imitate and heckle the performers of Stimmung. Stockhausen recalled: "We started performing... and after twenty minutes some people in the hall started a comic imitation, making somewhat similar sounds to those of the singers, then meowing or barking like cats and dogs... [C]oncentration became quite impossible... I stood up and went to the musicians and said, 'We're going home now. It doesn't make snese to perform under these circumstances.'... All of a sudden a crowd of young people rushed on the stage, got hold of the six microphones, and took advantage of the fact that this performance was a direct radio broadcast. They made a kind of manifesto for themselves and their own interests and then started a discussion among themselves." (See: Robert Adlington, Tuning In and Dropping Out: The Disturbance of the Dutch Premiere of Stockhausen's Stimmung, in Music & Letters, vol. 90, no. 1.) (15740)
Classical Music Program, unsigned