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Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1928- ), German composer, who was one of the most prominent avant-garde composers of the mid-20th century. He was born in Cologne. In 1953 Stockhausen helped found Cologne's important Electronic Music Studio. His works include the wind quintet Time Measure (1956); Gruppen (1955-1957), written for three orchestras; Zyklus (1961), for solo percussionist; the multimedia work Beethausen, opus 1970, von Stockhoven (1970); and the chamber works Ylem (1973) and Tierkreis (1977). Youthsong (1956) projects a singing boy's voice, mingled with electronic sounds, through five spatially separated loudspeakers.

In the book _Stockhausen: towards A Cosmic Music_, the German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen describes the human body as an indredibly complicated vibrating instrument of perception.  The composer, who travels the vast spaceways that link electronic music and mysticism, argues that the "esoteric" is simply that which cannot yet be explained by science.

"Every genuine composition makes conscious something of this esoteric realm.  This process is endless, and there will be more and more esotericism as knowledge and science become increasingly capable of revealing human beings as perceivers."  And transmitters as well.  Spiritual or not, we are beings of vibrating sensation, floating in an infinite sea of pulsing waves  that roll and resonate between the synapse and the farthest star.

 - Erik Davis - _Techgnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism In The Age Of Information_

"Using a pulse generator, volume meter and feedback    filter, Stockhausen spent six months breaking down every element of human speech and matching it to every conceivable sound from sine tone to white noise...The debut performance of _Song of the Youths_...caused uproar and applause. Electronic music was here to stay..."

From _The Ambient Century_ - Mark Prendergast

With 1970's _Mantra_ MP3,  Stockhausen returned to more conventional compositional techniques, resulting in a fully-notated piece for piano and electronics built around transformations of its melodic theme. His major works in the years that followed -- 1971's _Trans_, 1974's _Inori_ and 1977's _Sirius_ among them -- were similarly thematic, albeit more dramatic than his earlier material. Beginning in 1980, all of Stockhausen's energies were focused on _Licht_, a seven-part work including individual performances for each night of the week. Remaining active as the century drew to its end, he was celebrated as a trailbrazing force behind the rise of contemporary electronic music.

Paul McCartney listened to composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, a messiah in the world of electronic music but to the mid-60s pop star an unknown commodity. It was the German's 1956  'plick-plop' piece t - _Gesang der Junglinge_, a boy's voice construed and converted with a panoply of electronic sounds, that inspired McCartney to utilize his Brennell tape recorders for less conventional purposes, as Stockhausen himself had done the previous decade. McCartney, an advocate of all things melodious, had undergone a reformation of thought, no longer subscribing to the ingrained belief that rhythm, time signatures and even melody were essential.

[...]

The Beatles' musical language expanded incredibly in their consummate masterpiece, _Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_ (Parlophone: June 1, 1967). The album was a potpourri of rock 'n' roll, Western classical music, Indian classical music, early 20th-century vaudeville music, and modern electronic music employing compositional techniques such as indeterminacy and playing tapes backwards, as pioneered by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen whose photo appeared on the album cover along with a host of other celebrities.
 

• cover art depicts Stockhausen, top row, fifth person from left.
• The Beatles recycled his _Hymnen_ ("Anthems") MP3 - in the  _Revolution Number 9_ MP3 off of _The White Album_ 12"x2

• track _Gruppen_ MP3 (160k)
• track _Gesang der Junglinge (Song Of The Youths)_ MP3 (1956)
• _Helikopter Streichquartett_ MP3 (31:48)  "helicopter string quartet 1995"
• track _Kontakte_ MP3 off of _Ohm: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music 1948-1980_

• sound collage track _Pillion Passenger_ MP3 (160k) by Stock, Hausen & Walkman off of _Nano-loop 1.0_ compilation CD on Disco Bruit (2002)
• music created on the Nintendo Game System with Nanoloop software

first mention of Stockhausen in Usenet:

From: azure!gregg (azure!gregg)
Subject: surreal jokes
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Date: 1982-02-10 10:54:21 PST

It was reported today by UPI that Salvador Dali was knighted Sir Real.

Salvador Dali likes to eat Raisin Bran, Grape Nuts, and Wheat Chex for breakfast.

Salvador Dali likes to listen to the music of Webern, Stockhausen, and Babbit.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  Basic Afterthought  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Have you seen that surrealistic painting about various types of food?  It's by Salvador Deli.

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