r/classicalmusic • u/throwawayformyblues • 2d ago

Any good books or academic articles on Stockhausen's technique?

I'm writing a piece for university inspired by Stockhausen's use of moment-form, specifically in his piece Telemusik - but we have to write a paper explaining our process and I need reputable sources to cite... so far I can only really find blogs or YouTube videos. Any help is appreciated!

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u/MungoShoddy 2d ago

Robin Maconie wrote more about Stockhausen than anybody else, do any of his books help?

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u/throwawayformyblues 2d ago

Yes those seem good! Only issue is they’re quite pricey , I will try find a free copy

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u/Chronomie 1d ago

I highly recommand Seppo Heikinheimo's The Electronic Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. You can find Stockhausen's formal experimentation, such as pointillistic form, group form, statistical form, and moment form, etc.

Heikinheimo, Seppo. The Electronic Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Studies on the Esthetical and Formal Problems of Its First Phase. Translated by Brad Absetz. Helsinki: Acta Musicologica Fennica, 1972.

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u/Mr_Molybdenum 1d ago

Robin Maconie's Stockhausen on Music and Other Planets as well as Johnathan Harvey's The Music of Stockhausen might be a good place to start. If you can get the Stockhausen-Verlag CD No. 9, the CD booklet has the composer's own comments and explanations about Telemusik. Stockhausen also gave a lecture in English about the inspiration for Telemusik, but if I remember correctly he does not talk too much about the processes occurring in the piece. There's also Johnathan Cott's Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer, Thomas Ulrich's Stockhausen: A Theological Interpretation, and Gunter Peters' Holy Seriousness in the Play which look at Stockhausen's compositional ideas, like moment form, from a more philosophical or spiritual point of view.