performance instruction

Many of Karlheinz Stockhausen's 1960s works were scored with non-specific instructions for the performers which allowed for individual "intuitive" expression and improvisation within a pre-prescribed environment. Here is where, for me at least, things start to get really interesting. This approach is at play in works like Prozession, Kurzwellen and Aus den Sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days), the latter being a series of 15 "text" compositions for smaller ensembles, wherein the composer-prescribed settings sometimes included actual physical conditions imposed upon the players themselves. This is perhaps best exemplified by the piece Goldstaub (Gold Dust), and it's worth quoting the score, if only to provide a window into the composer's mind and the new levels of composition and performance he was continually striving at in his work, often eschewing the standard duality between art and its environment, between the composer/performer and the universal: via live completely alone for four days without food in complete silence, without much movement sleep as little as necessary think as little as possible after four days, late at night without conversation beforehand play single sounds WITHOUT THINKING which you are playing close your eyes just listen below , an experience of performing GOLDSTAUB We were at Framnäs Folkhögskola [a boarding school, similar to an upper secondary school, I think, with a classical music profile] just outside Piteå [a small town] in northern Sweden. The school area had number of houses, formerly residential buildings that had been converted into practicing facilities for ensemble playing. continue reading