Karlheinz Stockhausen - "Es" (1968)

NRK TV Stockhausen "Es"

Aus den sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days)
13. Es (It), for ensemble

Introduction, explanations and performance of the piece "Es", from "Aus den Sieben Tage", by Karlheinz Stockhausen and his ensemble.

Aus den sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days) is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer(s). It is Work Number 26 in the composer's catalog of works.

The first of the pieces to be officially premiered was Es, performed in Brussels on 15 December 1968 on a concert of the Rencontre de Musique Contemporaine, by the Stockhausen Group, joined by Michel Portal, Jean-Pierre Drouet, and Jean-François Jenny-Clark.

The seven days of the title were 7–13 May 1968. Although this coincided with the beginning of the May 1968 protests and general strike in Paris, Stockhausen does not appear to have been aware of them at the time. These texts were written at Stockhausen's home in Kürten during the first five of those days, at night or late in the evening.[2] During daylight hours, including the remaining two days, Stockhausen wrote "many poems," as well as reading Satprem's book on Sri Aurobindo, and experienced "many extraordinary things". Some of the poems appear in Stockhausen's third volume of Texte zur Musik.


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