Search - WDR Cologne SO, Eotvos :: Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen / Punkte

Exciting conversations for 3 orchestras!

Mr. M. J. Berridge | South Africa | 03/08/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I can only discuss "Gruppen", and do so because I know this piece well, and am displeased with 2 of the other reviews offered. Most of the latter I cannot make any sense of at all, and I will not make any pretense at doing so. This music is for the listener sitting before his Hi Fi, and not a mathematician, or an analyst trying to follow with a copy of the score. A roller coaster ride is enjoyable merely for the experience itself - the mathematics of the angles and bends and speed versus gradient etc are irrelevant to this entertainment. I enjoy "Gruppen" because it is a fascinating dialogue between groups or soloists of a large ensemble of musicians. There is one section, for instance, where a trombone and piano seem to be trying to imitate each other. It is exciting, playfull, humorous at times, colourfull, and the experience is on a grand scale! It doesn't seem to be trying to say anything; no moods and certainly no gloom and doom, and no pointless gaps of silence or meditation. It's just a wonderfull concert of orchestral chatter in which you cannot guess what's going to happen next. You don't have to have any special training to be able to enjoy this experience!"

Classic 1950s Modernism played by an expert

musikwissenschaft | 10/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To get to the point: (1) this is one of Stockhausen's best pieces; it influenced Boulez' own orchestral writing (in Pli selon pli and Figures/Doubles/Prismes, for instance), and was ripped off by Berio (in Tempo e Tempi, I think); it superimposes different tempi, as did Zeitmasse for wind quintet, although in much denser form (and is thus comparable to Carter's orchestral work from the Orchestra Variations onwards). Robin Maconie, author of the definitive book on Stockhausen, thinks "Gruppen" was influenced by the dense textures and spatial experiments of American orchestral music (Ives, Brant). (2) Peter Eotvos is a veteran who has been working with Stockhausen for at least 40 years or so (he was part of the Stockhausen Ensemble in the 1960s, together with Kontarsky, Johannes Fritsch, perhaps Christoph Caskel). (3) One of the reviewers is slightly wrong about "Punkte," which is an earlier piece (1952) than Gruppen (1955-57), not later (although it was revised in 1962). (4) There is another CD performance of this piece by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, but Eotvos is very worth having. (5) This music is indeed unjustly neglected, as reviewer notes. It may be hard going, but is also quite spectacular (as in the build-up to the climax, which comes fairly near the beginning, and is led up to with plucked strings and percussion from all three orchestras). The way the orchestras throw long held wind chords around the space points straight ahead to "Carre" and to parts of "Pli selon pli" (first movement, "Don"), as noted. You will rarely hear this live, since it requires many more rehearsal hours than anyone but a European state-subsidized orchestral can afford (i.e. the Suedwestfunk, once upon a time...)."