Treffpunkt

In the 1960s, Stockhausen gathered around himself a small group of performers and technicians with whom he could work and experiment. With this group, which is the closest thing to a "band" ever seen in so-called cultured music, he began to experiment with various forms of more or less controlled improvisation that fell under the label of Intuitive Music.

The pinnacle of intuitive music was reached in 1968 with the cycle Aus den sieben Tagen (from the 7 days: a clear reference to creation). The scores of the 12 pieces that compose it are actually short texts of summary instructions that often require the performer to also have a non-trivial meditative commitment and sometimes to the point of bringing him close to the state of Buddha ( «think NOTHING, wait until it is absolutely still within you, when you have attained this, begin to play... as soon as you start to think, stop, and try to retain the state of NON-THINKING, then continue playing» [IT]).

Moreover, some of the pieces are beautiful, evidently thanks to the skill of the performers and the direction of Stockhausen who participates in the performances.

On the concept of Intuitive Music, Stockhausen states:

I call this music Intuitive Music, because with a text like the one for IT [quoted above, in red; my note], one should exclude all the possible systems which are usually used for any kind of improvisation if one understands the term “improvisation” in the way it has always been used. I therefore prefer the term Intuitive Music. We shall see how Intuitive Music is going to develop in the future.

Question: Were there ever any performances which in your view were failures?

Stockhausen: Do you mean, in which we couldn’t play at all?

Question: No, in which something was played which to your musicians’ creative sense seemed to be rubbish? Or is there such a thing as rubbish?

Stockhausen: Absolutely. The first sign of rubbish is the emergence of clichés: when pre-formed material comes out; when it sounds like something which we already know. Then we feel that it is going wrong. There is a sort of automatic recording within us, which also automatically spits out all the recorded stuff also the garbage , and then one stops.

Question: Have you any way of eliminating acoustical rubbish from the creative process?

Stockhausen: Certainly. While playing Intuitive Music it becomes extremely obvious which musician has the most self-control; the musicians soon reveal whether they are critical, whether the physical and spiritual sides are in a certain balance etc. Some musicians are very easily confused, because they do not listen. That is the usual reason for rubbish rubbish in the sense that they produce dynamic levels which erode the rest for quite some time, without realising it themselves. In certain situations some become very totalitarian, for example, and that leads to really awful situations of ensemble playing. The sounds then become extremely aggressive and destructive; they operate on a very low level of communication, and destructive elements prevail (I hope we understand one another: I do not only mean simply “ugly” or “beautiful” when I say “low” level; I mean bodily, physically destroying each other). Then they all play at once. This is one of the most important criteria, that one must constantly remind oneself: “Do not play all the time”, and “Do not get carried away to act all the time”.

After several hundred years of having been forced to play only what was prescribed by the composers, once musicians now have the opportunity in Intuitive Music to play all the time, they do. The playing immediately becomes very loud, and the musicians do not know how to get soft again, because everybody wants to be heard. I mean, it is easy to get loud, but how can you get soft again? Finally you think: “Nobody hears me anyway, so I might as well stop”.

These are the general principles of group behaviour, of group playing.

From: Questions and answers on Intuitive Music, see also Stockhausen – Questions and answers on Intuitive Music Pt 1 e Pt 2

Here we listen to two performances of Treffpunkt (meeting point) whose basic text, dating back to 8/5/1968, is the following:

Everyone plays the same tone

Lead the tone wherever your thoughts
lead you
Do not leave it, stay with it
Always return
to the same place

The two executions were recorded on the same day (27/8/1969).

Performers: Aloys Kontarsky (piano), Rolf Gehlhaar (tam-tam with microphone and bamboo flute), Carlos R. Alsina (piano), Michel Portal (tenor saxophone and clarinet), Vinko Globokar (trombone), Karlheinz Stockhausen (glissando flute, short-wave receiver, 1 filter and 2 potentiometers for tam-tam).

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