How Not to Win Friends and Influence People

(Excerpts from a letter written to David Robertson on June 20th 1997)

Dear David Robertson,

yesterday I received the program for the "saison musicale 97/98" of your ensemble.

Programming is an art: please change several programs with my works!

March 23rd: Klavierstuck VI will die in your program. I have heard this work recently twice: the first good interpretations (played by Ellen Cover). In your program the only possible order for listening to Klavierstuck VI would be

Klavierstuck VI
Refrain
--Intermission--
Zeitmasze
Klavierstuck VII [NOT the other way around!]

I send you a copy of my performance score of Refrain: please show it to the musicians: there are a lot of corrections, changes in this score. They should read the booklet of CD 6.

April 2nd, etc. Gruppen etc.: It would have been infinitely spiritually better to program Klavierstuck IX instead of X between the two Gruppen-performances. I know what I am talking about: X is much too long for being played before the 2nd performance of Gruppen (X lasts usually 26 minutes), and the end of X has reached in a good performance a spiritual state which is in another, higher world. One should never lead back to the vital world of Gruppen. So, please replace X by IX.
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Perhaps pgrogram 39 can end with X in case the two Solo-Versions are not too long. What are their durations?

April 23rd: Who is the pianist? Is the intermission after the first version of Klavierstuck XI? If one wants to compare two 'versions', nothing should come in between, which means:

Klavierstuck XIV - Aries - Klavierstuck XI
-intermission-
Klavierstuck XI - In Freundschaft!!

The vocal part of XIV is not easy, the sound projection difficult!
Attention: I send you a new score of XIV with corrections. Do you have the new score and parts of Zeitmasze with the new performance instructions?

April 24nd: This is causing my whole being to protest: Please change forever this terrible program:

a) after Kontakte nothing should be performed in the same program! Once should leave, after this celestial ending in outer space, the hall, go to sleep and dream of a lighter world!!

b) Therefore: you could either make a program as I have tried out several hundred times:

Zyklus (15')
Klavierstucke I-V (13')
Refrain (12')
-intermission-
Kontakte

Or: I give an introduction to Kontakte with musical examples played by the performers or only tape, but this should be rehearsed 2 hours!!!

c) Klavierstuck XII belongs to a completely different sound wolr.d
First of all it is a reduction of a work for tenor, trumpet, dancer, piano, basset-horn (soprano, bass ad libitium), tape. As your ensemble seems to be unable to perform this original version of Examen, Klavierstuck XII belongs into a context of Michaels-Gruss, Halt or Mission und Himmelfahrt, Mondeva, Drachenkampf, Vision (all works which could be performed by your ensemble).
These are formula compositions: you should teach our listeners, not make them sick!

d) Klavierstuck XII I have heard twice in concerts during the last few weeks, played by Majella St. and Ellen Corver, and we have recorded it for a CD with Ellen Corver (both excellent!): This work needs a very charming performer with Schumannesque technique and style, a good vocal formation and talent of acting. It also needs a perfect sound projection (transmitter-microphone, 3 microphones inside the piano, experienced sound projectionist).

e) So, Klavierstuck XII does not fit together with Kontakte - never.
I had dinner with you in Baden-Baden: you were very careful in composing your meal. Therefore I wonder why you can make such fundamental mistakes in programming.

f) Herve Boutry asked me yesterday if I could come to a rehearsal and performance of Kontakte:
...I would like very much to help in rehearsing Kontakte. Boutry proposed Marco Stroppa as sound projectionist. I don't know Stroppa, but I have done the sound projection of Kontakte circa 600 times and I made many mistakes! I don't know where Stroppa studied (practicing!) the sound projection of Kontakte.

Dealing with electro-acoustic music in general does not mean that one is able to take over the sound projection of works which one has not learned!

Therefore I would very much like to assist in at least 2x3 hours of rehearsals of Kontakte plus general rehearsal...

g) Do you - do the musicians - have the new score of Kontakte?

h) Do you have the new 8-channel tape for Tascam DA 88 digital play back of Kontakte (I made a completely new mix with time code!). Scores and new tape are available at Stockhausen-Verlage, also CDs 3 Kontakte without instruments (cue numbers as in the new score) and CD 6 with instruments (also with cue numbers). The CDs are necessary for rehearsals.

i) In case you need advice for the right percussion instruments, lighting etc., you should ask the percussionist Andreas Boettger who has performed it many times together with me.

Please be so kind and answer this letter soon -- I am really worried about your programming.

Friendly and hopeful yours
Stockhausen
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This letter was distributed in a packet of materials with the sound projection class at this year's courses. It summarizes Stockhausen's personality fairly well: there's the extreme generosity (sending scores, a detailed reaction to an artist's interest in his music), the exacting discipline, the devotion to his personal vision, as well as the condescension and the direct personal insults.

It's astonishing that he was able to maintain as many professional relationships as he did with such a tendency towards nastiness. There are a dozen other ways to make the points in this letter without resorting to the language Stockhausen employs.