The Scholars Come Out To Play

Another perk of coming to Kuerten is meeting the folks who have done much of the heavy lifting in the musicology of Stockhausen.

I had a chance to talk with Jerome Kohl last night. Jerome has written a half dozen indispensable articles about Stockhausen, including the vital translation of the first chapter of Christoph von Blumröder's book, which is all about his tutelage by Herman Hesse.

After-Oktophonie drinks (and they are most certainly needed after such an intense listening experience) were had with Richard Toop (above) who is the grand old figure in the Stockhausen arena. He could enchant for hours, and a simple question about the process of Plus-Minus yielded an extemporaneous dissertation.

Earlier in the day, I'd listened to the famous recording that Frederic Rzewski and Cornelius Cardew did of the piece, which had quite an impact on Stockhausen:

When I heard the tape of the Cardew-Rzewski version of Plus-Minus for the first time, I was, in a truly unselfish sense, fascinated by it...Sounds and sound combinations that, while recognizing their use by other composers, I had personally avoided (prepared piano and radio music), were now being brought by performers into my music, and in exact accordance with the functional sound requirements laid down in the score. The result is a highly poetic quality, reached as a result of the way Plus-Minus is constructed: when such a result is obtained, detailed considerations of sound and material become unimportant."

Getting access to the archive recording of this performance is a true blessing, given its significance to Stockhausen. Toop dismissed most of the performances of the piece as not having anything to do with the score, including Rzewski/Cardew's, and he put his finger on the reason why when he said that the score is 'overdetermined'.