Carré for four orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

s and four choirs (1959–60) is a composition

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

, and is Work Number 10 in the composer's catalog of works.

History

The work was commissioned by the Norddeutscher Rundfunk

Norddeutscher Rundfunk

Norddeutscher Rundfunk is a public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR transmits for the German states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein...

 Hamburg. The essential ideas occurred to Stockhausen in November–December 1958 during a tour of the United States. During hours spent each day flying from one location to another he experienced the slowest temporal rates of change of his life. The work was composed in 1959–1960, in collaboration with Stockhausen’s assistant Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...

, and was premiered on 28 October 1960 in the Festival Hall of the "Planten un Blomen

Planten un Blomen

Planten un Blomen is a park with a size of 47 hectares in the center of Hamburg. The name is Low German for plants and flowers.-Overview:The first plant was a Platanus, planted by Johann Georg Christian Lehmann in November 1821...

" Park in Hamburg, as part of the NDR's concert series Das Neue Werk, with the Chor und Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks Hamburg, conducted by Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...

 (orchestra I) Stockhausen (orchestra II), Andrzej Markowski

Andrzej Markowski

Andrzej Markowski was a Polish composer and conductor. He was the director of the Wroclaw Philharmonic from 1965 to 1968 and founded the festival Wratislavia Cantans.- Selected Film music :* Colonel Wolodyjowski...

 (orchestra III), and Michael Gielen

Michael Gielen

-Professional career:Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen. Through his mother, Rose, he is the nephew of Eduard Steuermann and Salka Steuermann Viertel. He began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early...

 (orchestra IV) (Stockhausen 1964, 102–103). The score is dedicated to the former director of Das Neue Werk, Herbert Hübner.

Material and form

Carré is a serial

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 composition in which (together with the concurrently composed Kontakte

Kontakte (Stockhausen)

Kontakte is a celebrated electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, realized in 1958–60 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic-music studio in Cologne with the assistance of Gottfried Michael Koenig .-Work history:The title of the work “refers both to contacts between instrumental and...

) Stockhausen for the first time treated spatial distribution on the same level of structural importance as properties such as pitch, rhythm, timbre, dynamics, register, density, and others (Stockhausen 2009, 229).

Stockhausen groups Carré with Kontakte (1958–60) and Momente

Momente

Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists...

(1962–64/69) as representatives of moment form, in which he tried

to compose states and processes in which each moment is a personal, centred one, that can exist on its own and, as something individual, can also always be related to its surroundings and to the whole; something in which everything that happens does not pursue a determined course from a defined beginning to an inevitable end. (Stockhausen 1963b, 250)

A large orchestra of 80 players is divided into four orchestral units, each of approximately the same scoring and each with its own conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. A mixed choir of between 12 and 16 singers is attached to each orchestra (Stockhausen 1964, 103).

Carré unfolds 101 "moments" with durations varying from 1.5 to 90 seconds, each of which is characterised by one or several notes and chords (Rigoni 1998, 189). However, Stockhausen originally planned 252 sections in his draft form scheme, where eight basic categories of sound are arrayed, each with four levels (Toop 2005, 172):

1. Type: the four solo instruments used to furnish each of the four orchestras with a characteristic timbre: cimbalom, vibraphone, piano, and harp
2. Attack: four "attack transient" percussion instruments, also used to differentiate the four orchestras: Indian bells, drums, Alpine cowbells, and cymbals
3. Gestalt variation: four parameters within which transformations are to occur: rhythm, "height", timbre, and dynamics
4. Density: number of notes present, from one to four
5. Register: four principal octave registers
6. Duration: four generic values from "short" to "as long as possible"
7. Amplitude: four basic dynamic levels, notated in the sketch (but not the score) with numerals
8. Colour: four basic timbres: voices, strings, woodwinds, and brass

In contrast to the complex interrelationships of these eight sound categories, the underlying pitch structure of Carré is so simple that Stockhausen was able to write it out on a single sheet of music paper (Toop 2005, 172). The basic pitch series used throughout the work is
E D E C F C F B G B A A.
The regular melodic succession of this all-interval row is obscured compositionally, however, through the grouping of some notes into chords—e.g., in the first section, one three-note chord, F B G, and one two-note chord, B A (Frisius 2008, 125).

Orchestra I

• 1 Alto Flute (doubling flute)
• 1 Oboe
• 1 Bass Clarinet in B
• Tenor Saxophone in B
• 1 Horn (high, in F)
• 1 Trumpet in D
• Bass Trumpet in B
• Bass Trombone
• SATB choir (2 or 3 voices per part)
• Piano
• 2 Percussionists:
  • 2 Tomtoms and 1 Bongo
  • 3 Alpine Cowbells [Almglocken]
  • 1 Bass Drum (as large as possible)
  • 1 Snare Drum (very bright)
  • Indian Bells
  • Suspended Cymbals (large and thin)
  • 1 Hihat (as large as possible, thin cymbals)
  • 1 Gong (as large as possible)
  • 1 Tamtam (as large as possible)
• 4 Violins
• 2 Violas
• 2 Cellos

Orchestra II

• 1 Flute
• 1 Cor anglais
• 1 Clarinet in B
• 1 Bassoon
• 2 Horns (1 high, 1 low)
• 1 Trumpet (in C)
• 1 Tenor Trombone
• SATB choir (2 or 3 voices per part)
• Vibraphone
• 2 Percussionists:
  • 2 Tomtoms and 1 Bongo
  • 3 Alpine Cowbells [Almglocken]
  • 1 Bass Drum (as large as possible)
  • 1 Snare Drum (very bright)
  • Indian Bells
  • Suspended Cymbals (large and thin)
  • 1 Hihat (as large as possible, thin cymbals)
  • 1 Gong (as large as possible)
  • 1 Tamtam (as large as possible)
• 4 Violins
• 2 Violas
• 2 Cellos

Orchestra III

• 1 Oboe
• 1 Clarinet in B
• 1 Baritone Saxophone in E
• 1 Bassoon
• 1 Horn (low)
• 1 Trumpet (in C)
• 1 Alto Trombone
• 1 Bass Tuba
• SATB choir (2 or 3 voices per part)
• 1 Cimbalom (amplified)
• 2 Percussionists:
  • 2 Tomtoms and 1 Bongo
  • 3 Alpine Cowbells [Almglocken]
  • 1 Bass Drum (as large as possible)
  • 1 Snare Drum (very bright)
  • Indian Bells
  • Suspended Cymbals (large and thin)
  • 1 Hihat (as large as possible, thin cymbals)
  • 1 Gong (as large as possible)
  • 1 Tamtam (as large as possible)
• 4 Violins
• 2 Violas
• 2 Cellos

Orchestra IV

• 1 Flute
• 1 Clarinet in A
• 1 Alto Saxophone in E
• 1 Bassoon
• 2 Horns (1 high, 1 low)
• 1 Trumpet (in C)
• 1 Tenor Trombone
• SATB choir (2 or 3 voices per part)
• 1 Harp (amplified—the harp part may be supplemented by an amplified harpsichord)
• 2 Percussionists:
  • 2 Tomtoms and 1 Bongo
  • 3 Alpine Cowbells [Almglocken]
  • 1 Snare Drum (very bright)
  • Indian Bells
  • Suspended Cymbals (large and thin)
  • 1 Hihat (as large as possible, thin cymbals)
  • 1 Gong (as large as possible)
  • 1 Tamtam (as large as possible)
• 4 Violins
• 2 Violas
• 2 Cellos

Discography

• 1968. WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, conducted by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Andrzej Markowski , Mauricio Kagel, and Michael Gielen. Recorded May 1965; released with Stockhausen’s Gruppen
  Gruppen (Stockhausen)
  Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known compositions of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Work Number 6 in the composer's catalog of works. Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music . ....
  
  on Deutsche Grammophon DG 137 002 (LP), DG921022 (Cassette). [N.p.]: Polydor International GmbH.
  • reissued under the same LP disc number, in the first set of Deutsche Grammophon’s Avant Garde series. [Hamburg]: Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, ca. 1972.
  • reissued on reel-to-reel 7-½ ips tape, as DGC 7002. Elk Grove Village, Illinois: Ampex/Deutsche Grammophon, ca. 1974.
  • reissued on Stockhausen Complete Edition CD 5. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, 1992.

Further reading

• Cardew, Cornelius
  Cornelius Cardew
  Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
  
  . 1961a. "Report on Stockhausen's Carré" [Part 1]. The Musical Times 102, no. 1424 (October): 619–22.
• Cardew, Cornelius. 1961b. "Report on Stockhausen's Carré: Part 2". The Musical Times 102, no. 1425 (November): 698–700.
• Cott, Jonathan. 1973. Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0671214950.
• Driver, Paul. 2010a. "Works of Modern Composers That Move You". The Sunday Times (28 March).
• Driver, Paul. 2010b. "Labours of love; Two Contrasting Concerts of Work by Modern Masters Make Paul Driver Mad with Joy". The Sunday Times (28 March): 30.
• Harvey, Jonathan
  Jonathan Harvey (composer)
  Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...
  
  . 1975. The Music of Stockhausen: An Introduction. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
• Heyworth, Peter. 1971. "One of the Outstanding Scores of Its Time". New York Times (28 November): D15.
• Kurtz, Michael. 1992. Stockhausen: A Biography, translated by Richard Toop. London and Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571143237 (cloth) ISBN 0-571-17146-X (pbk).
• Maconie, Robin
  Robin Maconie
  Robin Maconie is a New Zealand composer, pianist, and writer.Robin Maconie studied with Frederick Page and Roger Savage at the Victoria University of Wellington, receiving a Master of Arts in the History and Literature of Music in 1964...
  
  . 2005. Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 0-8108-5356-6.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1998. "CARRÉ—Ergänzung 1986 zum Vorwärt der 4 Partituren", in his Texte 7, selected and assembled by Christoph von Blumröder, 41–49. Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. ISBN 3-00-002131-0.
• Wörner, Karl H. 1961. "Current Chronicle: Germany". The Musical Quarterly 47, no. 2 (April): 243–47.

External links

• Gruppen and Carré essay by Ingvar Norden