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Oktophonie
Electronic Music of TUESDAY from LIGHT
by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Stockhausen in the WDR studio during the production of Oktophonie in 1991.
English	Octophony
Catalogue	255
Opus	1. ex 61
Year	1991
Genre	Electronic music
Related	Dienstag aus Licht: Invasion mit Explosion
Composed	23 August 1990 (1990-08-23) – 30 August 1991 (1991-08-30): Cologne
Publisher	Stockhausen-Verlag
Duration	69:00
Scoring	8-track tape
Vocal	Soprano, bass
Instrumental	Synthesizer
Premiere
Date	1994
Location	Cologne Triennial

Oktophonie (Octophony) is a 1991 octophonic electronic-music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen. A component layer of act 2 of the opera Dienstag aus Licht, it may also be performed as an independent composition. It has a duration of 69 minutes.

Background

Oktophonie is the accompaniment for the onstage action in Act 2 of Dienstag aus Licht. During "Invasion—Explosion mit Abschied" (Invasion—Explosion with Farewell), the musicians synchronize their performances to the pre-recorded tape of Oktophonie. In order to balance their live performances with the taped synthesizers, all of the performers wear wireless microphones. This became a standard performance practice for Stockhausen after Dienstag.

Form

Like everything in Licht, the music of Oktophonie is developed from Stockhausen's superformula. The music has eight layers which move independently. Because Act 2 of Dienstag depicts a battle between Michael and Lucifer, the music of Oktophonie evokes the sounds of battle. Much of the synthesizer material is dominated by drones. The more frenetic sounds on the tape are characterized by Stockhausen as shots, crashes, and sound bombs. They whizz around the audience and arc over their heads as if they are seated on a battlefield instead of an opera house. There is no real danger as all the munitions are musical.

The sound bombs are dropped by airplanes in Stockhausen's conception. The shots are delivered by flak, and crashes occur when the anti-aircraft guns hit their marks. Inside the sound cube of Oktophonie, most of the bombs fall in the rear away from the stage. The shots generally originate in the lower speakers, often in the front. The crashes cartoonishly corkscrew down to the ground, a movement Stockhausen gleefully controlled in the studio.

Materials and technique

Oktophonie was realised in the Studio for Electronic Music of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, in two phases of work: from 23 August to 30 November 1990, and from 5 to 30 August 1991. Studio collaborators were recording engineers Volker Müller and Daniel Velasco-Schwarzenberger, and recording technician Gertrud Melcher. Production was made using a single 24-track tape recorder. A number of synthesizers and modules were used in the production of the sound layers:

• two Yamaha DX7II-FD synthesizers
• two Casio FZ-1 samplers
• a Roland D-50 synthesizer
• an Oberheim Matrix-1000 synthesizer module (without keyboard)
• an Art Proverb effects unit
• a Roland SDE 2000 reverberation unit
• an SVC 350 vocoder
• an Atari 1040 St computer
• C-Lab Unitor Hardware and Notator Software
• a Yamaha MR 12/4/2 mixing console

In addition, an EMS Synthi 100 was used for control of the spatialization in some layers during the concluding portion.

The last step in composing Okotphonie required spatializing the music over the eight sound channels. The channels are arranged around the audience in a cube, with each corner of the cube containing a cluster of speakers. Each channel ideally has two speakers hung at different angles in order to create the illusions of sonic movement that Stockhausen composed. This speaker array creates six different planes of sound above, below, and around the audience.

In the early 1970s, Stockhausen worked with Peter Zinovieff at EMS to develop a QUEG (Quadrophonic Effect Generator). The QUEG only had four outputs. So Stockhausen also relied on a Yamaha Digital Mixing Processor 7 to complete the octophonic spatialization.

The analog tape at WDR could not contain the full 69 minutes of Oktophonie. Stockhausen split it between two tapes with a bridge.

Notable Performances

• 1991: World premiere, 29 September, Frankfurt, in the context of the concert premiere of Dienstag aus Licht, given as the conclusion of the Frankfurt Feste '91
• 1993: in the context of the staged world premiere of Dienstag, 28 May, Leipzig Opera
• 1994: World premiere of the electronic music alone, 12 June, at the restaurant of the Cologne-Deutz fairgrounds, organised by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk as part of the Kölner Trienniale
• 1998: South American premiere, São Paulo, Brazil, at the International Festival of Electroacoustic Music of São Paulo (BIMESP), held 8–17 October
• 2002: Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum, Berlin
• 2002: Stockhausen Courses, Kürten
• 2004: Sonorities Festival, Queen's University Belfast, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday 25 April
• 2005: Triptych Festival, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Saturday 30 April
• 2005: West Coast Festival of Numusic 2005, Tou Old Brewery, Stavanger, Norway, Friday 26 August
• 2005: Frieze Festival, Old Billingsgate Market, London, 25 October
• 2007: Stockhausen Courses, Kürten, 15 July
• 2008: Fromm Players at Harvard: 60 Years of Electronic Music, 8 March
• 2008: Stockhausen Courses, Kürten, 7 July
• 2009: Durham University Musicon series, Music and Electronics, 19 March
• 2009: version with soloists (Signale zur Invasion with Ben Marks, trombone; Pietà with Tristram Williams, flugelhorn, and Jessica Aszodi, soprano; Synthi-Fou with Michael Fowler, electronic keyboards):
  • Turbine Hall, Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane, Australia, 25 April
  • Sydney Conservatorium of Music, as part of Smart Light Sydney Festival (a component of Vivid Sydney), Sydney Australia, Saturday, 6 June
• 2009: Stockhausen Courses, Kürten, 14 July
• 2010: Paris, 26 March, two performances, avec le soutien technique de Diversity, 4:00pm and 9:00pm, Atelier 4, 104 rue d'Aubervilliers
• 2011: Version with soloists (Signale zur Invasion with Andrew Digby, trombone; Pietà with Marco Blaauw, flugelhorn, and Agata Zubel, soprano; Synthi-Fou with Antonio Pérez-Abellán, electronic keyboards), sound projection: Kathinka Pasveer. Stockhausen Courses, Sülztalhalle, Kürten, 9 August
• 2013: Park Avenue Armory, 9 performances, sound projection: Kathinka Pasveer; design: Rirkrit Tiravanija

Discography

• Stockhausen: Oktophonie. Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 41. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1994.

As accompaniment:

• Stockhausen: Dienstag aus Licht. Annette Meriweather (soprano); Julian Pike (tenor); Nicholas Isherwood (bass); Markus Stockhausen (trumpet and flugelhorn); Michael Svoboda (trombone); Massimiliano Viel, Simon Stockhausen (synthesizers); Andreas Boettger, Renee Jonker (percussion); WDR Choir, Karlheinz Stockhausen (cond.). Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 40A–B. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1996.
• Stockhausen: Solo-Synthi-Fou; Synthi-Fou; Dienstags-Abschied; Klangfarben für Synthi-Fou. Simon Stockhausen (synthesizers); WDR Choir, Karlheinz Stockhausen (cond.). Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 42 A–B. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1994.
• Stockhausen: Michaels-Ruf; Bassettsu; Synthi-Fou; Quitt; Komet; Trompetent. Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 82. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2007.

References

1. ^ Toop 2008.
2. Misch 1999, 152.
3. Overholt 2006, 142ff.
4. Miller 209, 83ff. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMiller209 (help)
5. Stockhausen 1994, O XXII.
6. ^ Stockhausen 1994, O IX, O XIX.
7. Stockhausen 1998, 340.
8. Stockhausen 1994, O XV–XVI, O XXV–XXVI.
9. Stockhausen 2000, 68–70.
10. Stockhausen 1994.
11. ^ Stockhausen 1998, 342.
12. Stockhausen 1993, 163.
13. Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik 2010, 5.
14. Anon. 1999.
15. Brümmer et al. 2001, 11.
16. Trinkl 2007.
17. Moritz 2005.
18. Dervan 2004.
19. Walton 2005.
20. Solberg 2005.
21. Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik 2005.
22. Anon. 2006.
23. Ashley 2005.
24. Higgins 2005.
25. Sweeting 2005.
26. Stockhausen 2007, 23–24, 41–42.
27. Anon. 2008, 11.
28. Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik 2008, 20–22, 62–64.
29. Anon. 2009.
30. ^ Anon. 2011.
31. Fortescue 2009.
32. McCallum 2009.
33. Layton 2009.
34. Ning 2010.
35. Schwarz 2011.
36. Anon. 2013.
37. Mejias 2013.
38. Tharoor 2013.
39. Tommasini 2013.

Cited sources

• Anon. 1999. "News: International Biennial of Electroacoustic Music of São Paulo". Computer Music Journal 23, no. 1 (Spring): 8–9.
• Anon. 2006. "News: Stockhausen in London". Computer Music Journal 30, No. 2 (Summer): 6.
• Anon. 2008. "Fromm Players at Harvard 3.7–3.8 2008: 60 Years of Electronic Music" (display advertisement). Harvard University Department of Music: Music Newsletter 8, no. 1 (Winter): 11 (accessed 1 September 2014).
• Anon. 2009. "Music and Electronics, Elvet Methodist Church, Durham". Durham Times (Friday 20 March).
• Anon. 2011. "People: M. Fowler Performances". SIAL (Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory), RMIT University, Melbourne. (Accessed 13 April 2013).
• Anon. 2013. "March 20–27: Oktophonie: Karlheinz Stockhausen & Rirkrit Tiravanija". Park Avenue Armory Programs (Accessed 12 April 2013).
• Ashley, Tim. 2005. "Karlheinz Stockhausen: Old Billingsgate Market, London". The Guardian (Monday 24 October).
• Brümmer, Ludger [de], Guenther Rabl, Konrad Boehmer, Jean-Claude Risset, Jonty Harrison, François Bayle, Johannes Goebel, Francis Dhomont, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. 2001. "Is Tape Music Obsolete? Is Spatialization Superficial?" Computer Music Journal 25, no. 4 (Winter): 5–11.
• Dervan, Michael. 2004. "Sonorities—Various Venues, Belfast". The Irish Times (Wednesday 28 April, City Edition): 14.
• Fortescue, Elizabeth. 2009. "Sydney's Carnival of Light". The Daily Telegraph (6 May).
• Higgins, Charlotte. 2005. "Stockhausen to Play Concert in London". The Guardian (3 August) (Accessed 14 April 2013).
• Layton, Steve. 2009. "Get Your Stockhausen On!" Sequenza 21/The Contemporary Classical Community (Accessed 14 April 2013).
• McCallum, Peter. 2009. "More Than a Little Licht Music". The Sydney Morning Herald (12 June): §1:12.
• Mejias, Jordan. 2013. "Stockhausen in New York: Auf Socken in den Kosmos". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (30 March).
• Miller, Paul. 2009. "Stockhausen and the Serial Shaping of Space". Ph.D. dissertation. Rochester: University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music.
• Misch, Imke. 1999. "Wir können noch eine Dimension tiefer gehen ...: Zur Gestaltung des Raumes in der Elektronischen Musik Karlheinz Stockhausens". In Internationales Stockhausen-Symposion 1998: Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität zu Köln 11. bis 14. November 1998: Tagungsbericht, edited by Imke Misch and Christoph von Blumröder, 147–155. Signale aus Köln 4. Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag. 3-89727-050-1.
• Moritz, Albrecht. 2005. "Stockhausen: Oktophonie (Octophony), 1990/91", second edition. Al Moritz website (Accessed 12 April 2013).
• Ning, Liu. 2010. "Concerts gratuits, dans la limite des places disponibles". Paris8 CICM Composition et oridinateur (Accessed 13 April 2013).
• Overholt, Sara Ann. 2006. "Karlheinz Stockhausen's Spatial Theories: Analyses of Gruppen für drei Orchester and Oktophonie, Electronische Musik vom Dienstag aus LICHT". Ph.D. dissertation. Santa Barbara: University of California at Santa Barbara.
• Schwarz, Gisela. 2011. "Ein Kampf mit der Posaune". Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (11 August) (Accessed 16 April 2013).
• Solberg, Tor. 2005. "Numusic Festival, Scandinavia's Biggest Electro Event, Kicks Off in Stavanger, Norway". Tourdates.co.uk (25 August) (Accessed 16 April 2013).
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1993. "Octophony: Electronic Music from Tuesday from Light", translated by Jerome Kohl. Perspectives of New Music 31, no. 2 (Summer): 150–170.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1994. Oktophonie: Elektronische Musik vom Dienstag aus Licht. 1990/91, Werk Nr. 1 ex 61 (score), English translations by Suzanne Stephens and Jerome Kohl. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1998. "Oktophonie (1990/91): Elektronische Musik vom Dienstag aus Licht". In his Texte zur Musik 8, edited by Christoph von Blumröder, 339–375. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. ISBN 3-00-002131-0.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2000. "Neue Raum-Musik: OKTOPHONIE". In Komposition und Musikwissenschaft im Dialog I (1997–1998), edited by Imke Misch and Christoph von Blumröder, 60–77. Signale aus Köln: Musik der Zeit 3. Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag. ISBN 3-89727-049-8.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2007. 2007 Stockhausen-Kurse Kürten: Programm zu den Interpretations- und Kompositionskursen und Konzerten der Musik von / Programme for the Interpretation and Composition Courses and Concerts of the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, 7. Juli bis 15. Juli 2007 in Kürten / from July 7th to 15th 2007 in Kuerten. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag.
• Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik. 2005. "Stockhausen Performances 2005" (Accessed 16 April 2013).
• Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik. 2008. 2008 Stockhausen-Konzerte und -Kurse Kürten: Programm zu den Konzerten und Kursen der Musik von / Programme for the Concerts and Courses of the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, vom 4. Juli bis 20. Juli 2008 in Kürten / from July 4th to 20th 2008 in Kuerten. Kürten: Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik.
• Stockhausen-Stiftung für Musik. 2010. Stockhausen: August 22nd 1928 – December 5th 2007 . Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag.
• Sweeting, Adam (26 October 2005). "Shrieks, Howls and Illusions". The Telegraph. London.
• Tharoor, Ishaan. 2013. "Can a Sound Installation Take You to Outer Space?" Time (1 April).
• Toop, Richard (2008). "Dienstag aus Licht ('Tuesday from Light')". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O2061713.
• Trinkl, Garth. 2007. "In Memorium , Karlheinz Stockhausen". Renaissance Research (9 December) (Accessed 14 April 2013).
• Tommasini, Anthony. 2013. "In Space You Can Still Hear the Drones: Karlheinz Stockhausen's Oktophonie at the Park Avenue Armory". The New York Times (21 March).
• Walton, Kenneth. 2005. "Triptych Festival: Karlheinz Stockhausen". The Scotsman (2 May): 26.

Further reading

• Clarke, Michael, and Peter Manning. 2008. "The Influence of Technology on the Composition of Stockhausen's Octophonie , with Particular Reference to the Issues of Spatialisation in a Three-Dimensional Listening Environment". Organised Sound 13, no. 3 (December): 177–187. doi:10.1017/S1355771808000277
• Clarke, J. M., and Peter Manning. 2009. "Valuing Our Heritage: Exploring Spatialisation through Software Emulation of Stockhausen's Oktophonie". In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2009), Montreal, Canada, 179–182. : International Computer Music Association.
• Frisius, Rudolf. 2013. Karlheinz Stockhausen III: Die Werkzyklen 1977–2007. Mainz, London, Berlin, Madrid, New York, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, Toronto: Schott Music. ISBN 978-3-7957-0772-9.
• Kohl, Jerome. 2004. "Der Aspekt der Harmonik in Licht". In Internationales Stockhausen-Symposion 2000: LICHT. Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität zu Köln, 19. bis 22. Oktober 2000. Tagungsbericht, edited by Imke Misch and Christoph von Blumröder, 116–136. Signale aus Köln 10. Münster: Lit-Verlag. ISBN 3-8258-7944-5.
• Maconie, Robin. 2005. Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-5356-6.
• Ulrich, Thomas. 2017. Stockhausens Zyklus LICHT: Ein Opernführer. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag. ISBN 978-3-412-50577-6.
• Schwerdtfeger, Dettloff. 1999. "Die Tempo- und Dauernproportionen der Superformel für LICHT". In Internationales Stockhausen-Symposion 1998: Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität zu Köln 11. bis 14. November 1998: Tagungsbericht, edited by Imke Misch and Christoph von Blumröder, 227–234. Signale aus Köln 4. Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag. 3-89727-050-1.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz, Pay-Uun Hiu, and Alcedo Coenen. 2008. "'Der differenziertere Mensch ist der akustische Mensch': Karlheinz Stockhausen im Gespräch über Oktophonie". MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik [de], no. 116 (February): 53–63.

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