Improving the practice and performance of contemporary music

Structuring Elements

After researching “Telemusik” , a piece Stockhausen wrote in 1965 after a visit to Japan that changed his writing and life drastically, I personally thought that it could be possible to structurize the performances of For Times to Come’ by percussion instrument markings or markings by any other instruments that display very clearly the structure of the piece. A sort of exclamation marks or signals inside the piece that show the internal structure clearly to the audience. This was also practised in the recording of ‘Japan’ from ‘For Times to Come’, to which Stockhausen gave his blessing at the time.

Here is what Stockhausen said after returning from Japan:
The change was so great in my life,” he recounted in a lecture at the University of Essex in 1972. “I felt that everything was cultured. The way to eat was a million times more cultured than the country I came from. The way to dress, how to receive someone, how to say goodbye to someone, how to make love, how to make the bed, how to take a bath.

Audio examples of both Telemusik and Japan can be found on the Additional Material page in the list of recordings.

This website contains analyses of some of the worked-out structures of the recordings that were made under Stockhausen’s supervision. Especially the structure of the recordings made with Peter Eotvos are interesting.