Stimmung

The turn to the East, typical of the second half of the 1960s, also involved Stockhausen, who, in that fateful year of 1968, firmly embraced Eastern philosophies. Moving through Stimmung, he gradually arrived at the definition of an intuitive music, virtually devoid of score. Stimmung, for six voices (2 sopranos, alto, 2 tenors, bass; in other versions, one tenor is replaced by a baritone), is considered Stockhausen's pop opera, partly because of its markedly modal sound, partly for the (naively) mystical aspect of the work, underscored by invocations to the deities of various cultures.
The meditative nature of the work is highlighted by the fact that the basic material—or rather, the only material—is a six-note chord derived from the first harmonics of a fundamental (figure on the left).
accord This does not mean that the entire work, which lasts a full 70 minutes, is made up of a single chord, but almost. A six-note chord implies a range of possibilities that goes from single notes to chords composed of two, three, four, five, and finally six notes. Furthermore, each note can potentially be performed by more than one singer (everyone should be able to sing D).
Stockhausen quantifies the possible combinations of singers on a single note at 21, that is, the B flat can be sung only by the bass (1), the F by the bass and 2 tenors (3), the other B flat by the bass, 2 tenors and alto (4), the D by everyone (6), the A flat by 2 tenors, alto and 2 sopranos (5), the C only by 2 sopranos (2), a total of 21. Note that the C could also be sung by the alto, but this possibility is discarded because this gives the total of the numbers from 1 to 6 in the series 1-3-4-6-5-2 and also note that 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21.
Now let's examine the number of possible chords from 2 to 6 notes: with 2 notes we have 15 combinations; with 3, 20; with 4, 15 again; with 5, 6; with 6, 1. Total 55. Stockhausen selects 30, which, added to the previous 21, make 51: these are the (seamless) sections that compose the work.
The rule is that in each section, one singer acts as a guide and establishes a rhythmic structure by enunciating one of the magical names (deities from various cultures), while the others gradually come to identify with the guide voice while maintaining their own note. Rhythmic articulation is achieved through a modulation of the sound using vowels to highlight the harmonics. The texture is, therefore, much more complex than it seems.
In this figure, drawn by the composer, you can see, for each section, the singers active in that section with the lead voice in bold (above) and their assigned notes (below). A small circle identifies the note assigned to the lead voice. [NB: in an initial draft, that of these notes, the chord was written on G].
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007): Stimmung, for 6 voices (1968 = first version).
Collegium vocale Köln directed by Karlheinz Stockhausen

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