Stockhausen Edition no. 34
(Samstag aus Licht)



Karlheinz Stockhausen – “Samstag aus Licht”; Opera in a greeting and four scenes for 13 musical performers (1 solo voice, 10 solo instrumentalists, 2 solo dancers), wind orchestra, ballet or mimes / male choir with organ (1981 – 1983).
Participants: Matthias Hölle [bass] (Lucifer; scenes 1 & 3) – Majella Stockhausen [piano] (Lucifer’s Dream Player; scene 1) – Kathinka Pasveer [flute & piccolo] (Black Cat Kathinka; scenes 2 & 3) – Kolberg Percussion Ensemble (The Six Mortal Senses; scene 2) – The University of Michigan Symphony Band, H. Robert Reynolds [cond.] (Great Human Face; wind orchestra; scene 3) – Markus Stockhausen [piccolo trumpet] (Michael; scene 3) - (Händel Collegium Köln; 13 tenors, 13 basses, 13 basses II, Günther Hempel [electric organ], Dieter Gutknecht [cond.] (Monks; scene 4) – Michael Struck [trombone] (A Diabolic Wind Player; scene 4) – Members of the University of Michigan Symphony Band [6 trombonists; Ensemble ad hoc] (scene 4) – Karlheinz Stockhausen [sound projection].
Stockhausen 34. Durations: CD 1: 44:41 – CD 2: 33:32 – CD 3: 58:43 – CD 4: 60:40.

“Saturday from Light” is the second opera of the “Licht” cycle to be recorded. Saturday is Lucifer’s day, the day of Death, the Night of transition into Light… but do not fool yourself! Stockhausen has thought more about the nature of death than most thinkers, and the death he contemplates in “Saturday from Light” has nothing to do with that big fat “end-of-it-all”-death; a concept that weighs heavily on the troubled minds of the Western world.
In a talk with Guido Canella and Luigi Ferrari from the magazine Hinterland in 1984 Stockhausen analyzed the problem of death at length, in connection with “Saturday from Light”. The talk is published in German in TEXTE zur Musik Volume 5, pages 234 – 246.
Stockhausen noted that those of his colleagues who have composed death music have resorted to the traditional requiem, with its assigned movements – but no one had focused on the problem of dying as such.
Stockhausen goes on to describe his own understanding of the process of dying as a process happening at just one level or layer, while at other levels or layers other processes are going on simultaneously. That’s why, he says, “the idea of dying becomes polyphonic, ambiguous; death seems like a relative aspect of one layer or level, whereas other levels or layers are at different points of development…” - thereby negating the concept of death as a truly final ending.
Stockhausen continues with stating that already his earliest compositions were examples of his concept of birth and death.
He then compares the concept of death in the Greek tragedies - wherein death was seen as the actual end - with the Japanese Nô theater, where death can just as well constitute the beginning of new scenic actions.
Stockhausen also shares his remembrances of experiences of rites of passage in Bali, where he had seen how poor people whose relatives couldn’t afford the ritual burning of the bodies of the deceased had to wait until a more wealthy person died, when they would share his ceremony, meaning that a number of bodies could be burned at the same ceremony. This rite contained music and dancing. All together, Stockhausen says, the death rites became great theatrical experiences with processions, costumes and special kinds of instruments that you wouldn’t see in the commonplace Ramayana theater of Bali.
Stockhausen explains that it became obvious to him that the process of dying takes much longer than the duration of a Catholic requiem, which indeed is constructed mostly for the sake of the living, but not for the practical assistance of the deceased, simply expressing the wish of the singer that the deceased may find his way to the eternal light; Lux æterna – but not guiding him on his way. The composer goes on to state that no one, in our whole (Western) tradition has made the process of dying a theme.
Stockhausen exemplifies the different general approaches to the subject of death and dying by directing our attention to Bali and the Aztec Mexico, where the places for the death rites are architectonically designed for the process of dying, and he adds that there are high-rises in Syria containing several storeys where the coffins of the dead are stacked, very educational to stroll through.
Stockhausen talks about his experiences from Bali, where he sensed how the spirits of the priests of Bali escorted the spirits of the dead. He adds that this also must have been the case in the Egypt of the pyramids, where death was a great motive for the workings of pictorial art, music and choreography in a ceremony of 49 days, which is how long the Egyptians estimated that the process of liberating the spirit from the body would take.
In comparison the concept of death and dying in our Western tradition is extremely limited and restricted, especially considering that death indeed is one of the main themes of our art, especially in music, but also in painting and architecture.


Bardo Thödol; The Tibetan Book of the Dead
with a psychological commentary by C. G. Jung
for Western readers

In the talk with the Hinterland representatives Guido Canella and Luigi Ferrari Stockhausen then involves his opera “Samstag aus Licht”, the opera of Lucifer and Death.
Responding to a statement from Hinterland that the dramaturgy of death in “Samstag aus Licht” as a catastrophe is abandoned, Stockhausen says that the process of death in “Samstag” first of all is an examination. Stockhausen explains that the second scene of “Samstag” (“Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem”) is an examination with 24 exercises (Übungen). On stage you see Lucifer’s grave in the shape of a grand piano without legs, guarded by a cat-flutist. After a short introduction she plays 24 exercises on her flute for the spirit after the death of the body. In this section of the opera you do not see Lucifer, but just the cat, which is the animal of “Samstag”, of Saturn’s day, of the Day of Death.
Stockhausen explains that the 24 exercises of “Kathinkas Gesang” resemble the rules of the Egyptian and the Tibetan Books of the Dead. In the Orient the dead must listen to certain mantras, not to be distracted or scared by other visions, which try to possess the attention of the deceased and scare him off his course ahead. The concentration on the sound of the mantras is supposed to liberate the spirit and lead it, unspoiled by visions, into the white light. The visions that appear have a karmic origin in the life of the deceased, and try to pull the spirit down into yet another bodily birth, yet another reincarnation, and according to the Bardo Thödol – the Tibetan Book of the Dead – this indeed is what happens in the great majority of cases, while only a very few reach the goal of enlightenment, until after a myriad of lives.
One has a much greater chance of reaching the Light without being hindered by these karmic, self-inflicted visions if one practices these mantras while still alive on Earth, in which case one might recognize the sound of the mantras in the dream-world of after-death, giving structure and direction and target orientation in the confusing state that after-death is.
In “Kathinkas Gesang” in “Samstag aus Licht” the cat flutist and six percussionists (grave guards) play the 24 exercises for the deceased; for Lucifer – or for any person dying.


Anubis - The tomb of Senedjen, the 20th Dynasty,
Luxor, Egypt
(Photo: Guy Vivien)

Stockhausen underlines that the process of dying is an extended one. He says that one may play “Kathinkas Gesang” at regular intervals during the first 49 days of after-life to help the spirit of the dead along, utilizing the version for flute and percussion or the version for flute and tape.


Kathinka Pasveer performing the 24 exercises
of Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem in 1983
(Photo: Iman Heystek)

For the convenience of the reader I paste my text from Volume 28 of the Stockhausen Edition concerning the version of “Kathinkas Gesang” for flute and electronic music here:


I stand for a while at my kitchen window in a humid June morning, facing east across the roofs of some distant tenement two-story houses and the forests behind them. Heavy clouds roll in from the southwest, pregnant with a rain that they still withhold, and it looks like a gloomy day. Right outside my window a spider has constructed a large web, to catch his prey in the shape of a mosquito or a fly or even a butterfly. Yesterday I gently touched the center of the web with my finger to see if the spider would dart forth, so I would be able to study it, but it remained lurking in some invisible corner, though surely feeling the elastic stretching of the web as I touched it. I’ve left this web as it is, because I don’t want to unnecessarily destroy the construction. It restrains me from leaning out of the window, but so be it, for the time being.
The elasticity of this spider web - and the lurking feeling of the spider – fit right into my meditation on “Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem” and my understanding of the dreamlike stages of horror and light that the deceased person experiences, according to his own karma, in visions that are collected out of his own self and shown to him on his way towards – in most cases – a rebirth into human life, according to, for example, the Tibetan Book of the Dead; the aim being, though, to leave the wheel and enter a state of enlightenment, peace, serenity, purity and timelessness.

The elasticity is a property of Stockhausen’s electronic music for “Kathinkas Gesang”, through the means that for the first time was available to him at IRCAM in Paris where he realized this magnificent inner world of the newly deceased with the technical aid of Marc Battier. Stockhausen had dreamt of such a music – planned such a music – way back in the 1950s, but the technical means were not yet realized; not even thinkable at the time. Electronics, however, caught up with Stockhausen’s visions in the 1980s, and he conceived “Kathinka’s Gesang” in its version for electronics (tape) and flute.

“Kathinka’s Gesang als Luzifers Requiem” is a formidable piece, placed as the concluding work on the second of the two CDs of the Stockhausen Edition Volume 28. This music is a splendid music to end a CD – to end something – to then start something; enlightenment, a new birth – or a new music.

“Kathinkas Gesang” can be used as Bardo Thödol – the Tibetan Book of the Dead – i.e. as a guide and help for the transition of the deceased person onward, according to the person’s possibilities. The music then has to be played for the dead person during 49 days after his bodily death, several times a day. Listening to the musical “Übungen” – 24 exercises – helps the deceased to withstand fears and temptations and go on to the best possible state for him, with the goal being a total enlightenment and the liberation from the wheel of rebirths. It is recommended to go through these exercises in this life, so as to recognize them in the bewildering, dream-like state right after the moment of bodily death. This is the way the Tibetan Book of the Dead also works, in its descriptions of mantric exercises in this life to prepare for the time when the transition to death comes, to help the dead realize that he indeed is dead (it can be hard to understand that in the beginning of death), and realize that he has nothing to fear; that all he sees is derived from himself, and that he has the possibility for enlightenment, if that is what he is ready for, or for a good rebirth, if that is what he is ready for.
I in fact know one person who has written in his will that Stockhausen’s “Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem” in the version for tape and flute – the version on this CD – is to be played to him for the 49 days after his death.

In a talk with Guido Canella and Luigi Ferrari in 1984 – printed in the architectural magazine Hinterland and reprinted in “Texte zur Musik” Volume 6 - Stockhausen explains: “The 24 exercises for the musical listening is reminiscent of the rules of the Tibetan and the Egyptian books of the dead. In the Orient the deceased has to hear certain mantras (in my opera [‘Samstag aus Licht’] certain musical exercises), not to be tempted [or scared] by other visions. The hearing, the concentration on the listening and the sound, shall liberate the spirit, enabling it to move into the white light without any sights. Sights of demons or attractive, beautiful sights are temptations of reincarnation, weighing the spirit down towards lower regions, causing rebirth” [which is to be avoided, if at all possible].

“Kathinkas Gesang” is of course a part of Stockhausen’s opera “Samstag aus Licht” (“Saturday from Light”). Saturday is the day of Lucifer and the day of Death. Stockhausen says that he from an early age considered death simply as a transition leading to a continuation; not as an end. In connection with the composition of “Samstag aus Licht” Michael Kurtz writes in his book “Stockhausen – A Biography”: “Stockhausen’s life-motto, ‘Birth in death’, now assumed its broadest dimensions: death on earth is seen as birth into a world beyond, as a possibility of a new existence in the light, in the lux aeterna, if the soul [actually: spirit] can maintain itself in clear consciousness. […] Stockhausen concluded his preparations for ‘Samstag’ by studying the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and said at the time that he had inwardly come to terms with the question of death.”

“Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem” begins with a Salute, followed by 2 x 11 Exercises for Listening with 2 Pauses in 24 Stages, appearing homogenous. However, the Exercises are clearly announced by signals in the high F. The Exercises are followed by The Release of the Senses / Exit / The 11 Trombone Tones / The Scream.

In the booklet, sampling relevant parts of the score, the sections of the composition called listening exercises are indicated as follows:

Initially the listening is concentrated on the first 11 exercises with a pause at 7 (stages 1 to 12):

1.
 Regular pulsation in eleventuplets in the 1st tone. (Compare all body rhythms; eleventuplets as assigned task)
2.
 Initial accent and rhythmic modulation in the 2nd tone. (Accentuated choice of birth and initiation modulates the rhythms of the soul)
3.
 Bent ascending scale with 12 steps as nontuplet (12 chromatic steps of the octave as the 12 houses of life in the rhythm of 9 units with 3 intermediate units)
4.
 Sustained duration in the repeated 2nd ton and irregularly subdivided duration in the 3rd tone. (The undivided preceding division, the constant preceding the erratic)
5.
 Tail-period (Final period) in the 4th tone. (Concentration on the period which is prior to the end, before concentrating on the initial period [in the 20th stage] and the middle period [in the 21st stage]; bridle the tail before head and heart.)
6.
 Improvisation (variation) on what is past and what is to come. (The middle of the Eleven looks back and ahead, before the first pause comes)
7.
 First pause (Seven is peace.)
8.
 Colored silence in septuplets. (When the tones cease, the breath of silence comes forth; the holy Seven first.)
9.
 Timbre of onset in the 5th tone. (Savor the onset: bright-dark or dark-bright.)
10.
 Continuous timbre-transitions in the 6th tone. (Nothing is stable – everything is moving – remember the timbres.)
11.
 Echo of the 5th tone. (Savor the onset a second time, however, as an Echo.)
12.
 Echo of the 6th tone. (Remember the memory of the timbre-transitions.)

Thus, the 2 x 11 exercises with 2 pauses are concluded.

Also from Stockhausen’s description in the booklet:

“The Release of the Senses follows, a 2-fold enlargement of the formula, transposed as minor second lower on E-flat. 7 signals of the high F announce the beginning of the 7 segments.
In the Exit, final breathing slowly transforms itself into shrill, expiring laughter, leading into the 11 Trombone Tones that are the core of the formula, extorted from the flute at the end of “Kathinkas Gesang”.
Is the Scream the release for reincarnation, for eternal extinction, or for the entrance into the clear Light? That will be decided individually by each deceased soul.”


Stockhausen’s opera “Samstag aus Licht” has a mighty and seriously sounding beginning in the “Saturday Greeting” (from the four cardinal points), scored for 26 brass players and 2 percussionists.
The players are divided into 4 groups, which are dispersed unto the four cardinal points as high and as far away from the audience as the hall allows, with individual lightings.
Stockhausen explains in the CD booklet that the musicians play an 8-fold expansion of the echo limb of the Lucifer formula from “Lucifer’s Dance” :


8 horns and 2 tubular bells at the front of the auditorium alternate with 2 alto trombones, 2 baritones (tenor horns), 4 euphoniums and 2 gamelan gongs at the rear, playing calls of a major third and their echoes. At the same time, 6 trombones on the right side play the high scream glissandi and the falling C-octave from the Eve formula, while on the left side 4 tubas counterpoint in the low register with the falling minor-sixth scale from Donnerstag.
The repeated call of the third is enlarged stepwise with secondary pitches, until the first pitch (d#) has moved up a tritone (a) and the second pitch (b) down a minor ninth (bb). These outer pitches thus form a major seventh, the head-interval of the Lucifer formula.
[…] The 4 groups play three characteristic structural layers, the uppermost of which is two-voiced.
The two groups on the longitudinal axis – separated by the greatest distance – play in alternation the call of the major third and its echo from the Lucifer formula.


The sound moves in gravitational layers that protrude, one above the other, inching their way forwards, halting, starting, as layers of ice forced beneath each other when the ice of winter breaks up in spring, in a splendid demonstration of the power of starshine and its climatologic consequences.
The music waddles like a bear across a marsh deep in Lapland, and the glissandi shoot like meteorites across a winter’s sky.
Muscles are at work, tendons are stretched and contracted, as Karma puts its shoulder to the wheel and moves the spirit from life to life, across these elastic amnesia expanses of afterlife, as the bewildered soul holds on to its conceptions and misconceptions, while the wheel of existence, of deaths and births, rolls heavily.
There is an INORI feel to “Saturday Greeting”, in these recurring events of layers and levels of movement of sound, as layered as the processes of existence that the sound represents.

Stockhausen explains the music of “Saturday Greeting” as a concentrate of the process that occurs in the 4 scenes of the opera; i.e. “the opening up of the space and the liberation of the sound” – which of course is perceivable on different levels of abstraction or different levels of spirituality, whether one chooses to experience the music as absolute or if one indulges in the downright existentialistic implications of the music, in its timeless linage from the Egyptian and the Tibetan Books of the Dead right up to our fleeting present moment in perceptual time.

The “opening up of the space and the liberation of the sound” in the opera as a whole is happening gradually, scene by scene, and is described like this by Stockhausen:


The 1st scene, Lucifer’s Dream, takes place in the narrowest space with only two people (bass, pianist) who appear out of nowhere, hardly move and, at the end, ‘disappear’.
The 2nd scene, Kathinka’s Chant as Lucifer’s Requiem, widens the orientation to middle (flutist on two mandalas), left and right (3 percussionists each), with 7 people, who either leave during the Release (percussionists) or climb into the grave during Exit (flutist).
The 3rd scene, Lucifer’s Dance, layers everything vertically by means of a stilt dancer and a wind orchestra sitting on 6 levels, one above the other, in the shape of a Giant Face which is finally blown up by a strike.
The 4th scene, Lucifer’s Farewell, then presents both static and rotating panorama events as well as diagonal events by means of singers who stand, walk, run and dance. It also presents distant events through the use of hidden tenors, organ, 7 trombones (heard from far off), of singers departing into the distance and the flying away of the liberated wild bird.


Right after “Saturday Greeting” comes Scene One; Lucifer’s Dream, wherein he dreams “Klavierstück XIII”. The booklet introduction says:


- Lucifer dreams 'Klavierstück XIII', a composition in 5 time-layers of increasing

compression of figures
of human music,
extensions and pauses
to nullify time

He conjures the elements

air

water

earth

fire

light
 rhythm

melody

harmony

dynamics

coloring:

Saturday from Light!

Near the end “enchanted, he listens to a simple melody, wards it off – enjoys it – again wards it off – allows himself to come under its spell – slowly dies an apparent death.” -


Majella Stockhausen rehearsing "Klavierstück XIII" in 1982

In the opera version the piece is scored for a bass singer and a pianist, called “Lucifer’s Dream”, whereas the version for piano solo (admittedly with some vocals, whistles etcetera from the pianist…) is called “Klavierstück XIII”.
In my text on “Klavierstück XIII” on Volume 33 I wrote (excerpted):
In Stockhausen’s instructions he says that “Klavierstück XIII” should be played like a magic spook!
This is a very original piano piece indeed, involving many unusual properties and manners of playing.

The recording of “Klavierstück XIII” on the Edition Volume 33 features Stockhausen’s daughter Majella Stockhausen, to whom Karlheinz Stockhausen also has dedicated the piece. I know that Stockhausen thinks very highly of Majella Stockhausen’s mastery of “Klavierstück XIII”, which of course is why her interpretation is the one that was chosen for the CD.

Stockhausen provides amplification specifications for when the piece is to be played in larger halls, stating that two or more microphones should be placed above the strings, and preferably mounted on small stands inside the piano case, or perhaps affixed to the inside of the lid.
Another microphone should be mounted to the right of the pianist, with an extension placing the microphone itself in front of the pianist’s mouth. This microphone is the recipient of the extra-pianistic exercises of the score, determined as “flüstern” [voiceless whispering], “stimmlos rufen, scharf, plosiv” [voiceless calling, sharp, plosive], “Stimm-Geräusch” [vocal noise], “stimmhaft flüstern” [voiced whisper], “pfeifen” [whistle].
In addition to these extraneous sounds of human bodily origin, Stockhausen also specifies non-human extraneous sounds, such as bells. Two bundles of Indian bells are hung from brackets mounted on the left and right edges of the piano frame, each bundle containing about 20 bells. In addition a felt onto which about 24 Indian bells have been loosely sewn is placed inside the piano case, to the right, which the pianist is to strike with the palm of the hand.
A bone mallet is prescribed for beats and glissandi on the piano strings.
“Klavierstück XIII” is, like most of Stockhausen’s work, also a theatrical piece, which is obvious right from the start, when – on the CD – you can hear Majella Stockhausen’s steps up to the piano. This, of course, is even more so, when - as in the case of “Klavierstück XIII” – the music is a part of an opera; “Saturday from Light”.


A staging of “Lucifer’s Dream” is quite impressive, also concerning the movements on stage and other visual effects. Even parts of the stage itself in fact move around, such as the piano podium, which revolves slowly, but also stands still for extended periods of the piece. Lucifer’s podium moves upward and downward in slow, careful movements, hardly noticeable at first. Stockhausen also hints at the possibility of using “mirrors and mirror apparatuses”, much in the way famous magicians of the day work on mass illusions. Smoke rising around the piano, the pianist and Lucifer also further the illusionary impression of the piece when seen in its operatic environment. Unfortunately, only the sound reaches us from the CD, but the CD booklet provides the operatic information as well as pictures from a staging, so one might get a rather good idea of the setting anyway.
It wouldn’t be Stockhausen if the movements of parts of the stage and the dramatic figures weren’t precisely indicated. The movements are to be executed synchronously with the music, and appear at determined places in the music.
Giant projections of parts of the score are seen at times, with indications as to which part of the displayed score is playing at the time.
The lighting is – as often with Stockhausen – of the utmost importance. As the scene starts the stage is lit in a misty gray, when, after a short while (bar 11), 5 bands of colored light move in, parallel, from left to right, in the full height of the stage and… synchronous with the music. Of course, this scenery sets the audience in a very special vibration of apprehension. The individual heights of the bands of color change during the course of the piece, according to its form-scheme. At the end the bands have reached the right side of the stage, thereby filling the whole space with colors, except for the upper and lower borders, remaining misty gray throughout.

A short summary of the scene – “Lucifer’s Dream” – could be that Lucifer is dreaming a piano piece which Majella, the pianist, plays to him in his dream. (Of course, on this recording the real piano player is called Majella too; Majella Stockhausen.)
Lucifer strives to invalidate Time, keeping up his repeated counting up to 13, whilst challenging the elements; air, water, earth, fire, light. He falls prey to the humanely sensual Eve-melody of the piano, and seemingly… dies…


Majella Stockhausen & Matthias Hölle
in "Luzifers Traum", Palazzo dello Sport, Milan, 1984
(Photo: Lelli & Masotti, Artchivio Fotografico, Teatro alla Scala)

A mighty tone, a rumbling one… and then Lucifer’s bass voice, calling “Majella!”
The extraneous sounds of counting, whistling, hammering and so forth bring anatomy into the metaphysics of “Lucifer’s Dream” in surprising ways, if you’re attuned to that way of experiencing, of… hearing… if you let the sound spread from your neck and spine out into your extremities, where the vibrancy of the music tingles and tickles… glows in the dark in your fingertips!
You can almost feel the fluid of human saliva dripping onto the shamanistic fluency of the music in meaty metaphysics! This double vision of flesh and spirit inside the music suddenly makes me feel medieval, because in medieval Europe the flesh and the spirit were much closer in the collective mind of the people than in today’s terribly strayed secularity and religion of the natural sciences… but these subjective sensations of shifting time layers inside the music are not crucial, for one probably experiences – as in all walks of life – exactly what one can experience at the exact stage of one’s eternal journey where one might find oneself at the elusive passing present, and the orientation in time is not very important, whereas the orientation in spiritual space, towards the light, is extraordinarily important, though that layer of existence is happening outside of time as we know it.

All the struck keys of the piano, all the strings that vibrate inside the casing, are close in the clarity of this recording, as were you situated right there inside the piano case, ducking inside the frame as Majella leans in over you and… whistles!
It’s as if your nerve-ends were glued right onto the keys, the hammers, the strings… leading every strike of the keys directly into your nerve-path and on to your brain, translating into brain waves oscillating under the shine of stars and the gaze of angels…

Scene Two of “Samstag aus Licht” is “Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem” (“Kathinka’s Chant as Lucifer’s Requiem”), which is dwelled upon earlier in this text, but there referring to the version for flute and electronic music (Stockhausen Edition Volume 28), whereas this opera version is scored for flute and six percussionists.

Stockhausen’s words on “Kathinka’s Chant” are too interesting not to quote from:


SATURDAY from LIGHT (SATURNDAY) is the LUCIFER DAY:
day of death, night of transition to the LIGHT.

Like LUCIFER, every human being dies an apparent death – enchanted by the sensual nature of the music of life. Thus, LUCIFER’S REQUIEM is a requiem for every human being who seeks the eternal LIGHT.

KATHINKA’S CHANT protects the soul of the deceased from temptation, by means of musical exercises, which it listens to regularly for 49 days after physical death, and through which it is guided, to clear consciousness. In preparation for death during one’s lifetime, one can learn to listen to these exercises in the correct manner.

KATHINKA:
KAT (Cat - the animal figure of
SATURDAY)
THINK
A (Aleph – Alpha, the
Beginning, Origin)

KATHINKA sings with flute and voice.
Six percussionists – the six mortal senses – provide the resonance with sound plates and ‘magical instruments’:

I

II

III

IV

V

VI
 Sight

Hearing

Smell

Taste

Touch

Thinking



Additional relevant information concerning the Exercises has been given earlier in this text, in the pasted part from Volume 28 of the Stockhausen Edition.

Opening in a meandering flurry of an impressionistic flute phrase the piece immediately veers into the Stockhausenesque domain of extraneous blowing sounds, overtones of whispering pillars of air, whistling-singing through the flute and – later on, shortly before the end scream – laughing and dijeridooing! (the 11 trombone tones!)
The percussion makes this version sound quite different from the electronic version, rendering the ritual soul-healing, spirit-liberating music other aspects, other layers of expression, containing echoes from, for example, ritual Tibetan thin-air-music with metal shrills cutting through the transparency of the high-plateaus like razor blades. This music is seasoned with many Eastern fragrances.
You can see, in cerebral cortex visions, the self-inflicted, colorful and horrendous karmic scarecrows stooping along the eerie path of the departed soul on its journey through the Bardo, through the Shadow of the Valley of Death.
Even if you sincerely try to listen to this piece as absolute music, I’m sure the sounds will invoke visions and feelings of the bewildering hereafter!

I’m not sure if I’d choose this version or the electronic one to be played for me during the 49 days after my bodily death; they both have their special advantages. Would it be possible to switch between the versions?

The third scene is “Lucifer’s Dance” for bass voice, piccolo trumpet, piccolo flute / stilt dancer, ballet (or mimes) / wind orchestra (symphonic band). It’s a long scene, which, like “Kathinkas Gesang” (the second scene) occupies one CD by itself.

At the end of Scene 1 of “Saturday from Light” – “Lucifer’s Dream” or “Piano Piece XIII” – Lucifer dies… but he is not dead, because there is no death in that sense. After the 2nd scene –“Kathinka’s Chant as Lucifer’s Requiem” – he rises and moves through the hall as a stilt walker and as the mighty dark-veiled spirit that he is, full of temptation and exquisite splendor.


The Giant Lucifer Head by Boticelli, and the outbreak
of the orchestra strike
Palazzo dello Sport, Milan, 1984
(Photo: Lelli & Masotti, Artchivio Fotografico, Teatro alla Scala)

At the back wall of the stage a curtain with a large Boticelli drawing of Lucifer is displayed, and a wind orchestra with percussion is placed in tiers, roughly taking on the stylized shape or outline of a human face - each part of the face consisting of an instrumental group - and Lucifer utilizes this face in his dance, moving from part to part of the face, in incredibly original chiselings from the Stockhausen quarry of musical ideas.


Andreas Boettger performing "Nasenflügeltanz"
at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten 2001
(Photo: Ingvar Loco Nordin)

The different parts of the face performs their own Lucifer dances, sometimes opposing each other, eyebrow against eyebrow, eye against eye, in an insane quest for independence.
The face dances these 10 soloistic dances, each with its individual metre and period:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

 Left-Eyebrow Dance

Right-Eyebrow Dance

Left-Eye Dance

Right-Eye Dance

Left-Cheek Dance

Right-Cheek Dance

Nostril Dance

Upper-Lip Dance

Tip-of-the-Tongue Dance

Chin Dance


Andreas Boettger performing "Nasenflügeltanz"
at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten 2001
(Photo: Ingvar Loco Nordin)

Between these dances 9 tutti dances occur, wherein the groups dance increasingly in opposition of each other.

Lucifer raises his voice in a warning:

If you, Man, have never learned from LUCIFER
how the spirit of contradiction and independence
distort the expression of the face,
how brow can dance versus brow,
- eye versus eye,
cheek versus cheek,
nose versus cheek,
lip versus nose,
tongue versus lip
and chin versus tongue –
you cannot turn your countenance in harmony
towards the LIGHT.


At this stage Michael appears in “Saturday”. His ideal is harmony and an orderly playing together; quite the opposite of Lucifer’s quirky, grimacing face dances.
Michael plays his piccolo trumpet in golden garlands of beauty, putting up the fight against the grimacing, incoherent face of Lucifer. Michael is, however (this IS Lucifer’s day!) driven off the property by Lucifer’s seven strokes of the tam tam, which momentarily causes the face to weep a “Tear Dance”. The black cat all of a sudden appears again, right on the tip of the tongue of the orchestral face, playing her “Tip-of-the-Tongue Dance”, making it seem as if the face was protruding its tongue in an indecent mockery of Michael – and the audience! The cat has brought a miniscule demon with her, which unfolds fourteen letters of black ribbon, forming the words “Salve Satanelli!”, which may be interpreted as “Greetings, Satan’s children!”
At this Lucifer says:

If you have tested out your tenfold face
in all the dissonances and rhythms of grimaces,
it will fall apart, empty and hollowed out,
before it can rise again, invisible to human eyes,
on Sunday.


Then quite abruptly the course of events take an unexpected turn, as one brass player after the other gets up and leaves his place, referring to the fact that the time agreed on in the contract has been fulfilled. The manager of the theater is summoned, and the conductor is angry. Then “Lucifer’s Dance” ends in a chaotic event, leading to complete disintegration of the scene.
This means that “Lucifer’s Dance” actually is cut short by the strike in its opera staging, but Stockhausen prescribes that the piece should be played right through to the end in a concert performance.


Stockhausen trying to get some attention from
the striking orchestra, as Piero Mazzarella, acting
as the general director of La Scala, throws out his hands.
(Photo: Lelli & Masotti, Artchivio Fotografico, Teatro alla Scala)

In this recording you first here the complete scene played through, and then – after a pause – the sounds of the strike, recorded at the world premier of “Samstag aus Licht” in Milan in 1984. At that part you hear the voices of Stockhausen, the conductor H. Robert Reynolds and a Milanese actor playing the part of the general director of La Scala – and it’s very amusing!

A repetitious, slightly “off” and prying quarry sequence opens for Lucifer’s beginning statement, darkly and ominously expressed by the bass singer Matthias Hölle.
The pure density and the trembling ring of the web of sounds transport me eastward, into swaying, rattling bamboo grooves where the smoke of many fires bring tears to your eyes.
The music, though maintaining an extended ring and shimmering timbre, is made up of small, intense events, which keep coming back, in the larger view slowly turning like a galaxy of tones, sparkling…
The tingling of the percussion and the insistent intensity of the trembling pillars of compressed air of the wind instruments build a wondrous web; a tonal tapestry of beauty and excitement! It feels like standing in a snow flurry, looking through a magnifying glass, seeing all the sharp edges and even surfaces of each snow crystal, tumbling down like a Messerschmidt or a Sopwith Camel of old European wars. The metallics of the sound could well be the amplified impacts of snow crystals falling on your eyes…
There is no room here for hazy thoughts or mellow, undecided minds.


"Oberlippentanz" performed by Andreas Boettger,
Almut Lustig, Markus Stockhausen and Antonio
Pérez Abellán at the Stockhausen Courses
in Kürten 2001
(Photo: Ingvar Loco Nordin)

The piccolo trumpet cadenza appears in the magnificent mastery of Markus Stockhausen, and I’m happy to have experienced his live performance of “Oberlippentanz” (“Upper-Lip Dance”) at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten on 10th August 2001, where he performed it with Antonio Pérez Abellán [synthesizer], Andreas Boettger [percussion] and Almut Lustig [percussion]. The same night Andreas Boettger [percussion] and Antonio Pérez Abellán [synthesizer] also performed Stockhausen’s duo reworking of “Nasenflügeltanz” (“Nostril Dance”).


"Oberlippentanz" performed by Antonio Pérez Abellán,
Andreas Boettger, Markus Stockhausen and Almut Lustig
at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten 2001
(Photo: Ingvar Loco Nordin)

The 4th (and last) scene – “Lucifer’s Farewell” – is also a long one; one hour, occupying the fourth CD.
Michael Kurtz describes this scene in his book “Stockhausen – A Biography” as being “reminiscent of a ritual procession” wherein “the sides of the arena turn into the aisles of the nave of a church, with hints of walls and columns. A wild, black bird in a cage is borne in by twenty-six monks, thirteen of them in brown habits and thirteen in black; they enter at a brisk pace, singing, wearing wooden shoes and carrying Good Friday clappers and mass bells. Along with thirteen concealed tenors and accompanied by seven trombones and a Hammond organ, they celebrate ‘Luzifers Abschied’. Sometimes moving about, sometimes standing still they sing the text of St. Francis of Assisi’s ‘Lodi delle virtù’ [‘Hymn to the Virtues’] in long, drawn-out notes divided by brief solos [in Italian]. When the church bells begin to ring, the monks set the bird free. A bulging sack has meanwhile fallen from heaven, and one by one the monks take a coconut out of it. Each monk throws his nut against an enclosed stone slab in front of the church and is allowed to make a wish – a ceremony that Stockhausen had seen at the Kataragama Festival in Ceylon [Sri Lanka]. The basses accompany the closing ceremony, singing and sounding their bells and clappers.”

It is indeed Stockhausen’s intention that this last scene be played in a church in quiet surroundings near the opera house. The part where the monks throw the coconuts and the “Exit”, which is the final part of “Samstag aus Licht”, is even to be played in the square outside the church, can it only be kept completely quiet.

The text of St. Francis of Assisi’s “Lodi delle virtù”, translated by Suzanne Stephens:

O Queen Wisdom,
the Lord save you with your sister,
the pure Simplicity.

Lady holy Poverty,
the Lord save you with your sister,
the holy Humility.

Lady holy Love,
the Lord save you with your sister,
the holy Obedience.

All you holiest virtues,
the Lord save you,
who come from Him and return to Him.

There is certainly no mortal
in the world
who could possess
even one of you
if he does not first die.

He who has only one and does not violate the others, he has them all,
and he who violates only one has none and violates them all,
and each one alone redeems vices and sins.

The holy Wisdom confounds Satan and all his temptations.

The pure and holy Simplicity confounds all wisdom of this world
and the wisdom of the flesh.

The holy Poverty confounds all greed
and avarice
and the preoccupations of this world.

The holy Humility confounds pride
and all earthly mortals
and all worldly things.

The holy Love confounds all devilish and worldly temptations
and all human fears.

The holy Obedience confounds all lusts of the flesh
and keeps the body mortified, dedicated to the obedience of the spirit
and obedience to his brother,
and makes humans serve all the humans of the world,
and not only the humans, but also the tame and wild animals,
so that they may live in freedom,
in so far as the Lord permits.

A drone is established, increasing in strength, joined by many voices, clattering noises and tinkling percussion (mass bells).
The atmosphere is dense with mystery, and you can hear the spaciousness of the hall – and this recording of “Lucifer’s Farewell” was recorded in the Cologne church Gross Sankt Martin, saturating the sound with true spiritual and architectural tradition and age. You can almost smell chiseled rock, wood and old textile, as the essence of centuries of spiritual concentration and rumbling rock bottom experience of the depths rise in garlands of incense towards the ceiling high up.
The words of St. Francis of Assisi are delivered through Stockhausen’s score in a musical artistry that must be one of the most anciently tender and magically elevated in the oeuvre of the Maestro from Kürten.

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