Pole
(Poles), for two performers with
shortwave radio receivers
and a sound projectionist, is a composition by
Karlheinz Stockhausen
, written in 1970. It is Number 30 in the catalogue of the composer's works.
Conception
[
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]
Pole
is the last in a series of works dating from the late 1960s which Stockhausen designated as "
process
" compositions. These works in effect separate the "form" from the "content" by presenting the performers with a series of transformation signs which are to be applied to material that may vary considerably from one performance to the next. In
Pole
and three companion works (
Kurzwellen
for six performers,
Spiral
for a soloist, and
Expo
for three), this material is to be drawn spontaneously during the performance from
shortwave radio
broadcasts.
The processes, indicated primarily by plus, minus, and equal signs, constitute the composition and, despite the unpredictability of the materials, these processes can be heard from one performance to another as being "the same".
History
[
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]
Pole
was composed in Bali in February 1970, at that time under the working title of
Duo
.
Between 14 March and 14 September 1970,
Pole
was played and sung over a thousand times at
Expo '70
in
Osaka
, Japan, in daily performances by twenty different musicians including the composer.
The score is dedicated to
Harald Boje
[
de
]
and
Peter Eotvos
, who played in the majority of the early performances, and who also made a number of radio recordings and two commercially released recordings of the piece.
Structure and technique
[
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]
Pole
consists of a sequence of approximately 200 events, grouped into seven sections divided in the score by wavy barlines. Stockhausen explained that in pieces like this, "the first step is always that of imitating something and the next step is that of transforming what you're able to imitate".
Each plus, minus, or equal sign indicates that, upon repetition of an event, the performer is to increase, decrease, or maintain the same level in one of four musical dimensions (or "parameters"): overall duration of the event, number of internal subdivisions,
dynamic
level, or pitch register/range. It is up to the performer to decide which of these dimensions is to be affected, except that vertically stacked signs must be applied to different parameters.
Despite this indeterminacy, a large number of plus signs (for example) will result in successive events becoming longer, more finely subdivided, louder, and either higher or wider in range; a large number of minus signs will produce the reverse effect.
To the signs previously used in
Prozession
,
Kurzwellen
,
Spiral
, and
Expo
Stockhausen adds some new ones and, for the first time, notated the sound-projectionist part which had been left to improvisation in the earlier pieces. At Expo '70, these movements were accomplished using a "rotation mill"?a small box with a crank on the top, like a small coffee grinder.
The spherical auditorium of the German Pavilion literally had poles, one above and the other below the audience platform at the "equator". Boldface plus and minus signs represent the
zenith
and
nadir
. The sounds of the two soloists are initially placed at the opposite poles (which may be the front and back of the hall, in ordinary spaces, distributed over eight or more channels). At first these sounds occasionally dip toward each other, and then fan out over their respective axes, followed by stairstepping back and forth over independent paths in three dimensions in a breathtaking spatial experience.
Discography
[
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]
- Harald Boje (electronium, shortwave radio) and Peter Eotvos (electrochord, schalmai
[
check spelling
]
, Japanese bamboo flute, shortwave radio). With
Wach
and
Japan
(from
Fur kommende Zeiten
), and two versions of
Spiral
. (Recorded 8?10 December 1971 at No. 2 Studio, Abbey Road, London.) EMI 2-LP set. EMI Electrola C165-02 313/314. Reissued on 2-CD set, EMI Classics 6955982. London: The Gramophone Company Limited, 1973.
- Boje and Eotvos (a different version from the EMI set).
Spiral
(2 Versionen);
Pole
. Peter Eotvos, Harald Boje, Karlheinz Stockhausen. (Recorded 18 April 1971 at WDR, Cologne.) Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 15. Kurten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1994.
- Pole fur zwei
(Integral Version).
Michael Vetter
and Natascha Nikeprelevic (voices and auxiliary instruments). Recorded at Sound Studio N, Cologne, on 27 October 2012. Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 103. Kurten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 2013.
References
[
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]
Cited sources
[
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]
- Cott, Jonathan. 1973.
Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer
. New York: Simon and Schuster.
ISBN
0-671-21495-0
.
- Kohl, Jerome
. 1981. "Serial and Non-Serial Techniques in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1962?1968." Ph.D. diss., Seattle: University of Washington.
- Kohl, Jerome. 2010. "A Child of the Radio Age". In
Cut & Splice: Transmission
, edited by Daniela Cascella and Lucia Farinati, 135?139. London: Sound and Music.
ISBN
978-1-907378-03-4
.
- Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1973.
Nr 27 Spiral fur einen Solisten
. (score) UE 14957. Vienna: Universal Edition.
- Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1978. "
Pole
fur 2 (1969?70) und
Expo
fur 3 (1969?70)". In his
Texte zur Musik
4, edited by
Christoph von Blumroder
, 152. DuMont Dokumente. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg.
ISBN
3-7701-0493-5
.
- Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 2009.
Kompositorische Grundlagen Neuer Musik: Sechs Seminare fur die Darmstadter Ferienkurse 1970
, edited by Imke Misch. Kurten: Stockhausen-Stiftung fur Musik.
ISBN
978-3-00-027313-1
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Fowler, Michael. 2010. "
The Ephemeral Architecture of Stockhausen's
Pole fur 2
".
Organised Sound
15, no. 3 (October): 185?197.
- Frisius, Rudolf. 2008.
Karlheinz Stockhausen II: Die Werke 1950?1977; Gesprach mit Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Es geht aufwarts"
. Mainz, London, Berlin, Madrid, New York, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, Toronto: Schott Musik International.
ISBN
978-3-7957-0249-6
.
- Fritsch, Johannes
, and
Richard Toop
. 2008. "Versuch, eine Grenze zu uberschreiten ... Johannes Fritsch im Gesprach uber die Auffuhrungspraxis von Werken Karlheinz Stockhausens".
MusikTexte
[
de
]
no. 116 (February): 31?40.
- Hopp, Winrich. 1998.
Kurzwellen von Karlheinz Stockhausen: Konzeption und musikalische Poiesis
. Kolner Schriften zur neuen Musik 6. With CD recording. Mainz and New York: Schott.
ISBN
3-7957-1895-3
.
- Maconie, Robin
. 2005.
Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen
. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford: The Scarecrow Press.
ISBN
0-8108-5356-6
.
- Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1971. "Ein Abend EXPO 70". In his
Texte zur Musik
3, edited by
Dieter Schnebel
, 229?231. DuMont Dokumente. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg.
ISBN
3-7701-0493-5
,
9783770104932
.
- Worner, Karl Heinrich
[
de
]
. 1973.
Stockhausen: Life and Work
, translated by
Bill Hopkins
. Berkeley: University of California Press.
External links
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]
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