First, a long tone must be established and stay in place. “Not everyone has to play at the same time. One single tone could stay in place and someone else penetrates the tone. The tempo is free.”
On ‘making everything clear to him’: “What does everything mean? If I penetrate a tone, then I make it clear to him what colour is inside, what rhythm and what change in pitch, whatever is there. I make it clear to him in that I magnify it. Get a magnifying glass and make everything that you can recognise in the tone that you penetrated acoustically clear. It is like using a microscope!”
On taking someone with you: definitely try several times and if necessary, give a hand signal.
Three results should take place at the same time: your own sound, the sound you penetrated and the sound to which you take someone else.
Burning can be portrayed by flickering tremoli for example (similar to the irregular trumpet tremoli in high range in MICHAELs JOURNEY). They are like “the rhythm and the light-changes caused by dancing flames”. All the musicians should gradually begin to move dancingly upwards, only slightly at first.
“Moving within each other actually means that crossings are possible: I am in one – then I slowly move towards another one.”
Again, the concentration is on holding motionless sounds, no jumps, in order to more clearly portray the penetration and making oneself clear to the others.
Possible emphases include changing the timbre of a constant pitch or rhythmic inner movement. The chord of one player can be emphasised by another player, who plays its tones, one after the other. (Stockhausen makes clear here that ‘make everything clear to him’ does not mean to make everything about yourself and your sound, your way of forming clear to him, but rather to make his own sound clear to him in all possible parametric differentiations. Later he describes this process exactly the other way round: “When someone penetrates your note, (...) then you make clear to him what you had already composed in your note.”)
The text should be realised as a complete process – not in separate ‘movements’.
A completely continuous sound without any internal micro-rhythms is difficult to make clear. On the piano, a continuous, long tone with a clear inner rhythm is only possible by using irregular repetitions.
Penetration is a process and should not be done in a “volatile” way, “In all the pieces we have played so far, the character of this process is the most important.”
The long, continuous tone must be given “much character”. “A sustained tone is really the most neutral thing in the world – it is very difficult to make much clear.” If possible, do not succumb to (e.g. rhythmical) periodicity (“that is standstill” – s. BIRD OF PASSAGE). “What you repeat is pure decoration.” In repeated figures, differentiations must be built in (shifted accents, omissions, etc.).
Another instruction in regard to penetrating the same tone: penetrating the octave of the respective tone is not the same tone! Each tone is to be understood as a distinct frequency.
Too much noise is problematic in the process of penetrating a tone (a pitch).
If you penetrate a tone that has strong, rapid inner movement, then this should take place “much more slowly” so that an undifferentiated texture is avoided. “Choose different tempi. As soon as you notice, he has a certain inner tempo, then you choose your own.”
The process of ‘taking him with you’ and ‘coiling into the heights’ by intensification, brightening and enlargement can be made clear by head signals and eye contact.
The repeated, second penetration must (possibly after a rest similar to a general pause) begin with a new tone (actually contradicts the idea of not performing several movements).
‘Coil into the heights’ in several lines that cross each other and lead upwards.
“It is inherent in this music that you by no means play the obvious.”
From the 2005 rehearsals:
The goal is to play with changing partners who ‘make something clear’ to each other
For a piece with a duration of 10 minutes, there must be sufficient pauses and piano or pianissimo passages included, so that the duration as a whole does not seem like a single block.
“Coiling into the heights” together must be felt as a true opening process, during which allowance should be made for instruments with a smaller range (e.g. trumpet). This process should not begin too early (ending passage).
Within one note, many dynamic curves should be used.
The ‘burning’ of a tone has also been notated by Stockhausen in other pieces, especially for trumpet. For example, tremoli that jump to other notes suggest a kind of “flickering trumpet”. Also the use of the playing technique ‘flutter-tongue’ with tones that jump out a bit would be a way to produce this effect. It should resemble the phenomenon that the eyes see in a fire. Crackling and sizzling sounds can also be added by other instruments.
If each performer plays several notes after the individual notes from the first playing instructions have led to another player being taken along, then it is important to make sure that the melody or motifs do not evoke the impression of a traditional style.
In order to achieve as much differentiation as possible, “sudden jumps” in dynamics and pitch should be realised, which can be synchronised by hand signals (varied, interesting “envelope dynamics”).
The goal is to play with changing partners who ‘make something clear’ to each other
For a piece with a duration of 10 minutes, there must be sufficient pauses and piano or pianissimo passages included, so that the duration as a whole does not seem like a single block.
“Coiling into the heights” together must be felt as a true opening process, during which allowance should be made for instruments with a smaller range (e.g. trumpet). This process should not begin too early (ending passage).
Within one note, many dynamic curves should be used.
The ‘burning’ of a tone has also been notated by Stockhausen in other pieces, especially for trumpet. For example, tremoli that jump to other notes suggest a kind of “flickering trumpet”. Also the use of the playing technique ‘flutter-tongue’ with tones that jump out a bit would be a way to produce this effect. It should resemble the phenomenon that the eyes see in a fire. Crackling and sizzling sounds can also be added by other instruments.
If each performer plays several notes after the individual notes from the first playing instructions have led to another player being taken along, then it is important to make sure that the melody or motifs do not evoke the impression of a traditional style.
In order to achieve as much differentiation as possible, “sudden jumps” in dynamics and pitch should be realised, which can be synchronised by hand signals (varied, interesting “envelope dynamics”).