Stockausen is certainly a name to conjure with – arguably as renowned for his capacity to provoke controversy as for his compositions, he’s largely considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. Yet many will be unfamiliar with.
It’s appropriate that Zeitkratzer should tackle one of his particularly challenging works. Assembled by Reinhold Freidl, whose own works have explored, amongst other things, the prepared piano as engineered by John Cage, the ensemble has previously performed work by others who are notorious for being ‘difficult’ and / or controversial, including John Cage and Whitehouse, not to mention Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’ (in its entirety).
Stockhausen’s unusual compositional techniques, and more specifically his annotations – particularly where ‘The Seven days’ is concerned, mean that there is much scope for interpretation on the part of the performer, and the five pieces on this disc from this rather curious piece, which were recorded live, are unquestionably true to the spirit of directions like ‘Play a sound / with the certainty / that you have an infinite amount of time and space’ and ‘play single sounds / with such dedication / until you feel the warmth / that radiates from you’. And the Zeitkratzer ensemble do precisely that. Lengthy periods of near-silence are suddenly rent with discord, clattering percussion and brass colliding seemingly at random, particularly on ‘Intensität’.
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‘Setz die Segel zur Sonne’, the longest of the five tracks with a duration of some seventeen and a half minutes, elongates time itself and explores testing frequencies with groaning drones on a grand, epic scale. Creeping fear spreads in the long, looming shadowy sounds to forge a work of dark ambience that sends shivers down the spine.
There’s no question that it’s a challenging listen, but all credit is due to Zeitkratzer for the way they breathe life into the compositions.
Zeitkratzer Online
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