KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN - Sirius double LP & Book DGG Synth AVANT GARDE German

$

50

ARTIST: Karlheinz Stockhausen 
TITLE: SIRIUS
YEAR: 1977
LABEL: Deutsche Grammophon
CONDITION: Sleeve is EX  / Vinyl is EX -  Very nice copy. 
DETAILS: Sirius has been described as "a modern mystery play, clothed as a science fiction story" (Kurtz 1992, 207). While not described by the composer as an opera, it is nevertheless a musical drama, in which four emissaries from a planet orbiting the star Sirius bring a message to earth. "This was to be the big leap into theatre proper. . . . Sirius is the key work that leads to his magnum opus LICHT (LIGHT)" (Ball 1997).

When Stockhausen's daughter, Julika (aged 5 or 6 at the time), asked for a dog, he obtained one for her and named it Sirius, after the star in the constellation Canis Major, which was in his mind because he had just finished composing Sternklang ("Star-sound", 1971). Shortly afterward, he chanced upon a passage in a book by Jakob Lorber describing Sirius as the sun at the center of our universe, and this fired his imagination:

Sirius is Number 43 in the composer's catalog of works, and consists of three main parts: "Presentation", "The Wheel" (subdivided into four sections, corresponding to the four seasons), and "Annunciation". The words were written by Stockhausen, except for a text by Jakob Lorberused in the Annunciation. The musical material consists of the twelve zodiac melodies of Tierkreis, Nr. 41½ (1974–75), originally composed for music boxes in connection with the percussion sextet Musik im Bauch (Music in the Belly), Nr. 41 (1975). Four of these melodies are principal, each associated with one of the protagonists, and are subjected to a variety of transformations, not merely by superimposition even of metamorphosis through a system of cross-fertilization processes in which "one melody progressively assumes the features of another, as a series of mists and frosts 'borrowed' from winter will gradually transform the autumnal aspect of October from summer nostalgia into winter foreboding" (Britton 1985, 521). The remaining eight melodies serve a subsidiary role. In the Presentation, the four characters introduce themselves and their attributes. They are:

• North (bass): Earth, Man, Night, Winter, Seed
• East (trumpet): Fire, Youth, Morning, Spring, Bud
• South (soprano): Water, Woman, Midday, Summer, Blossom
• West (bass clarinet): Air, Friend/Beloved, Evening, Autumn, Fruit.

The main, central "wheel" lasts over an hour, and can be rotated, according to the season of the performance, to produce four different forms:

• Winter version, beginning with "Capricorn"
• Spring version, beginning with "Aries"
• Summer version, beginning with "Cancer"
• Autumn version, beginning with "Libra".