Stockhausen's Piano Pieces Seen from Within, but First: A Little Discussion on Serialism

There was a discussion about serialism on Facebook last week; I found it interesting and asked the participants if I could post it on this blog. They all said yes, so I’ll post it below (names changed except for “me”). It was inspired by a cartoon (by Kim Krans) of a rabbit undergoing various musical effects. And, in turn, it (the discussion) inspired me to take a look at a set of prose-poems that I had written some years ago; I had originally intended to do one of these for each of all of the Stockhausen piano pieces but the longer later ones didn’t seem to work as well in linguistic form.

ME: (Incidentally, "dissonance", as depicted there, is actually "serialism".)
LF: "Serialism?" I always thought of "serial" music as just being any music considered in terms of temporal order, not ever a style or movement or any other kind of ism.
ME: I meant the style like Boulez, early Stockhausen, etc., where pitches, durations, volume, timbre, etc., are all "serialized" or treated as blocks seperate from others, and subject to mathematical permutations. Like the rabbit parts in the picture.
LF: It seems a shame to waste such a useful word on a mere style name.
BH: Babbitt beat Boulez and Stockhausen to it, by several years, and saw things through to deeper depths. Odd how Americans are still conditioned to defer to Europeans in matters of “classical” music.
LF: But (per the rumors) Boulez and Stockhausen had CIA money behind them to combat what the USSR was spending on culture-propaganda.
ME: At last! A conspiracy theory that makes sense!
BH: A world in which countries’ spy agencies focused on covertly promoting new music would be a better world than this one.
ME: Concerning Babbitt: Boulez and Stockhausen were the first that came to mind; maybe because they have better-known pieces, to me, anyway.
BH: That’s my point. You’re hardly unusual there. The derivative Europeans get better PR than the American originator.
BH: Concerning the conspiracy theory: it reminds me of the Thai government quietly subsidizing Thai restaurants. Competing via deliciousness, not bombs.
LF: The "Babbitt" strand of American serialism is really a different animal than anything I have heard coming out of Europe, in that it is far more interested in the exploring the ramifications of the "math" involved.
ME: I have a similar take on it. It seems more "intellectual" and less "emotional"; that's neither a negative nor a positive statement. ...Then again, it that's true, then Elliott Carter's serial compositions are European...?!
LF: Elliott Carter is a whole other thingy than either of them.
BH: I’ve never thought of Boulez as emotional. Nor really Stockhausen, unless “space alien” is an emotion. I hear far more emotion in Philomel, and more wit in many other Babbitt pieces, than I hear in most of the European strand.…
ME: Stockhausen could very well be a space alien... lol
ME: Stockhausen's Piano Pieces IX and X are clearly emotional, at least to me.
BH: Well, the thesis of The Composer as Specialist is that “advanced” composers are engaged in cutting-edge research. Babbitt saw himself very much heading a musical vanguard. A difference is that he sought financial support from university…
ME: This "serial" discussion is getting interesting. Do any of you mind if I post it on my blog about music?
BH and LF: I’m OK with you including this in your blog, I suppose, if it is clear that my comment about CIA funding is rumor only.
ME: IF I'd known this discussion was going to take place, I would have labelled the bunny in the cartoon a "Babbitt Rabbitt".

Listen: Stockhausen's Piano Pieces I - IV

Stockhausen's PIano Pieces I - IV: From the Inside

I
Soft, loud, upward cascade of splintersounds, impressions come into focus. Hazes, blue-green, red cuts into opacity, shatters clearness.
I emerge into consciousness. I remember little from that time before times. Maybe there was something blue. Maybe it was yellow-orange. Was it shapeless? Or did it have a form, coalesced from the void, or from other forms? Maybe there was a bridge. Or a tree or a stone. Or was it a tunnel, or it was a floor, upside-down and sideways.
Sounds. Dark resonances. Bright bells peal. Gongs. Clusters of clangs and clip-clops, shadows of echoes.
Lights. Flickers. All colors. Turn off and on, bright, dim, inverted noises, vibrations are sounds are frequencies of hue. I hear and see only a little. Senses are not differentiated. I know nothing yet. I wait.

II
Learning. Hesitant. Reverberations come together. Jangles. One note here, two there.
One of those notes is me. Maybe I am a high C-sharp, brilliant and shining against the others. Or I am a low E-flat, dark and shadowy, deep in the dreamworld of protosound. It does not matter now, which note I am. Just know that I am one of the notes in these pieces.
The sounds are random. Or not random. These pieces are complex, mathematical beyond the perceptions of the ear. It is for that reason that I am learning. Comprehension grows as clang-clusters disentangle.

III
I become aware of other notes in a zigzag stream. I join them stepping upwards, sideways, turned around, downwards, louder, quieter. Then I retrace my steps.

IV
Remembrances. Hesitant. Resonances grow apart. Jingling. Two tones here, one there.
Others of those notes are not me, but I don’t know them yet. Maybe one is a high E-flat, glittering and glaring against the others. Or it is a low C-sharp, but bright and luminous, shallow in the waking world of aftersound. It does not matter now, what notes they are.
The sounds are not random, or they are random. These pieces are complicated, algebraic or geometrical beyond the sensing of the ear. It is for that reason that I am still learning. Understanding grows as cluster-clangs entangle.

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