Archivio Conz

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 Mödrath, Germany – 2007 Kürten, Germany) German composer, widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in 20th-century avant-garde and electronic music.He became known for his groundbreaking work in serial composition, electronic music, and spatialization of sound. In the 1950s, he joined the “Studio for Electronic Music at the West German Radio (WDR)” in Cologne, where he developed pioneering electronic compositions such as “Gesang der Jünglinge”(1955–56) and “Kontakte” (1958–60). His works often explored radical musical structures, new forms of notation, and the fusion of electronics with live performance. Stockhausen was also a key figure in aleatoric (chance-based) music and was among the first composers to incorporate controlled randomness into his compositions. A defining characteristic of Stockhausen’s work was his interest in “spatial music”—the idea that sound could move through physical space in structured ways. His orchestral piece “Gruppen” (1955–57) featured three orchestras positioned around the audience, each playing in coordination but with independent tempos. Stockhausen's percussion piece “Zyklus” (1959) is one of the first solo compositions to utilize a vast range of “twenty-one percussion instruments”. The work was highly challenging—when Max Neuhaus first began performing it, only three percussionists in the world could play it. Four previously unreleased realizations of “Zyklus”—recorded between 1959 and 1968—demonstrate the wide interpretative latitude Stockhausen allowed performers. The “Zyklus” edition includes a 12-page booklet featuring original photos from both official concerts and private performances, along with Neuhaus' own commentary on the score and an editorial note by John Rockwell and is available at Archivio Conz Collection.