Stockhausen’s style
Micro-macro Stockhausen set out to create a unified music – the tiniest detail related to the whole. His search took him from scientific rationalism to visionary mysticism, through strict and open forms, all founded on a serialism forged in the creative heat of postwar Germany. Space and time In the 1950s, new technology expanded sonic horizons, helping Stockhausen to explore musical space as well as time. ‘The directions and speeds of the sounds are as important as the pitches and the durations’, he declared.
Pointism to super formula
Stockhausen continually shattered musical boundaries, composing in a dazzling array of styles, from the ‘pointism’ of Punkte (1952) to the ‘super formula’ of LICHT (19772002) and beyond.
Cosmic communication Radio shaped Stockhausen’s early thinking as a conduit for communication. Deep-rooted in music as vibration, hence tactile and physical, he saw himself as a bridge between human and divine. Potty to some, prophetic to others, LICHT encapsulated his vast psycho-spiritual ambition.