Cosmic Pulses
Encyclopedia
Cosmic Pulses is the last electronic composition
by Karlheinz Stockhausen
, and it is number 93 in his catalog of works. Its duration is 32 minutes. The piece has been described as "a sonic roller coaster", "a Copernican asylum", and a "tornado watch".
(Sound) cycle. Massimo Simonini, artistic director of Angelica, commissioned the piece in partnership with the Dissonanze
festival of electronic music. Stockhausen began work on the piece in December 2006. The world premiere occurred on May 7, 2007 at Auditorium Parco della Musica (Sala Sinopoli) in Rome
.
In the Klang cycle, Cosmic Pulses represents a turning point. It is the beginning of the second half of the cycle, and all of the music after the thirteenth hour is electroacoustic
, employing partial mixdowns of Cosmic Pulses as the tape accompaniment. A recording of the piece was released on CD 91 by the Stockhausen-Verlag. The CD also presents the beginning moments of all 24 isolated layers on separate tracks.
.
Stockhausen defines the tempi in the piece as units of 8 tones and pulses The fastest tempo is 240 beats per minute (bpm). Eight pulses per 240 bpm equals 1,920 tones and pulses per minute. The low end of the tempo scale is 1.17 bpm, which yields 9.36 tones and pulses per minute.
The melodic loops were performed on a synthesizer
by Antonio Pérez Abellán. The loops are layered on top of each other, beginning in the low register and moving to the high register. They are staggered in a way that the low loops drop out as the high loops take over, creating a rough progression from low sounds to high over the course of the piece.
Stockhausen used a basic graphic notation
to indicate how each loop should be altered from its fundamental form through pitch and tempo changes. Stockhausen called these changes glissandi, requiring them to be smoothly executed with faders for a continuous deviation from the original loop. Kathinka Pasveer
realized these ornamentations using his score. The tempo could change by as much as a factor of 12, and the melodic variations could be as narrow as a tritone
or as wide as a major tenth.
Cosmic Pulses is designed for an 8-channel sound system that surrounds the audience in a square, with 2 channels on each side and a subwoofer on every channel.Stockhausen mapped 241 possible trajectories for sound to travel through such a system. Therefore, each loop has a specific path to travel through the system.
During his lectures surrounding the German premiere, Stockhausen admitted that he had not made up his own mind about the merits of the piece yet, and he mused that the piece might be most appreciated "as a natural phenomena and not think of composition".
created the OKTEG, a special piece of equipment to allow Stockhausen to realize the spatialization manually. They brought the OKTEG to Kürten in March of 2007 to spatialize the piece. The studio had a history of creating customized equipment for Stockhausen. They built the ring modulators for Mantra
, the "Rotationsmühle" for the spherical pavilion at Osaka's World Fair, as well as the QUEG (Qaudrophonic Effects Generator) that Stockhausen used to spatialize Oktophonie.
The OKTEG (Octaphonic Effect Generator) relies on a Max/MSP patch that uses eight variable-law amplitude panning
modules. The modules are driven by individual sequencers with tempo control. An execution queue
containing the rotation data specified by Stockhausen's maps managed the messages that controlled all eight sequencers. Motor faders allowed real-time adjustment of the tempo of each sequencer. The performance of these real-time adjustments was encoded as a frequency-modulated
audio-rate sawtooth. This signal was then recorded as an audio track in ProTools. This audio track is then used as a controller to realize the finished audio files.
In a note to reviewer Ingvar Nordin, Stockhausen called the OKTEG "my very special child (the mother lives on SIRIUS
)."
into the granular storm as the layers gather and tempi increase", concluding that, notwithstanding audience consensus that "the overload last[ed] too long in the middle … It might cautiously be claimed that Mr. Stockhausen achieved a controversial success, and created a work that has reinvigorated his electronic music". Collins shared his shorthand notes, which he scribbled in the dark during the performance:
Describing the UK
premiere at the BBC Proms, Nick Emberley felt that "the Albert Hall
sounded like a mighty beast woken from slumber". Richard Morrison wrote in The Times
that the piece was "half an hour of mesmerisingly complex, and sometimes oppressively rumbly, electronica that ping-ponged round the hall like billions of electrons in a whirlwind", but hearing it alongside Stimmung, Morrison concluded "it was impossible not to feel that Stockhausen's time came and went many decades ago."
In The Sunday Times
, Paul Driver dismissed Klang as "portentous" and the organization around the 24 hours of the day as "obvious". Yet, he praised Cosmic Pulses, "If one tried to imagine a kind of background roar to the universe, this is surely how it would be: incessant and implacable, like magnified wave crashes, cheerfully apocalyptic." John Allison wrote that Cosmic Pulses "was thrilling: as rumbling and splintering noises ricocheted around the Albert Hall, it felt as if Stockhausen had dropped a microphone into deepest space." George Hall concluded that "the most riveting of the concert's offerings turned out to be the purely electronic Cosmic Pulses, a 30-minute continuum of mighty and minute sounds ricocheting round the hall like some infinite, inter-galactic bunfight. Stockhausen's vast output is erratic, but the best is surely here to stay." Ivan Hewett described the piece as "a vast, half-hour hurricane of sound" that "to my earthly ears it seemed oppressively unvaried, despite fascinating moments". Andrew Clements wrote admiringly "[Cosmic Pulses] is an extraordinarily powerful creation by any standards, both poetically beautiful and utterly terrifying. It is a work of immense complexity and unmistakable power, and it sees him using the electronic medium with a mastery that no other composer has matched."
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
by 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 it is number 93 in his catalog of works. Its duration is 32 minutes. The piece has been described as "a sonic roller coaster", "a Copernican asylum", and a "tornado watch".
History
Cosmic Pulses is the Thirteenth Hour of the unfinished KlangKlang (Stockhausen)
Klang —Die 24 Stunden des Tages is a cycle of compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, on which he worked from 2004 until his death in 2007. It was intended to consist of 24 chamber-music compositions, each representing one hour of the day, with a different colour systematically assigned to every hour...
(Sound) cycle. Massimo Simonini, artistic director of Angelica, commissioned the piece in partnership with the Dissonanze
Dissonanze
Dissonanze is a yearly festival focused on electronic music held in Rome, Italy. The first edition was in 2000. Besides music it also focuses on multimedia & video art. The festival takes place at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Rome.-Dissonanze 9:...
festival of electronic music. Stockhausen began work on the piece in December 2006. The world premiere occurred on May 7, 2007 at Auditorium Parco della Musica (Sala Sinopoli) in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
In the Klang cycle, Cosmic Pulses represents a turning point. It is the beginning of the second half of the cycle, and all of the music after the thirteenth hour is electroacoustic
Electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...
, employing partial mixdowns of Cosmic Pulses as the tape accompaniment. A recording of the piece was released on CD 91 by the Stockhausen-Verlag. The CD also presents the beginning moments of all 24 isolated layers on separate tracks.
Materials and Concepts
The number 24 is central to the construction of Cosmic Pulses. There are 24 layers of sound. There are 24 "melodic loops", spaced throughout 24 different registers (spanning 7 octaves). There are 24 different tempiTempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
.
Stockhausen defines the tempi in the piece as units of 8 tones and pulses The fastest tempo is 240 beats per minute (bpm). Eight pulses per 240 bpm equals 1,920 tones and pulses per minute. The low end of the tempo scale is 1.17 bpm, which yields 9.36 tones and pulses per minute.
The melodic loops were performed on a synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
by Antonio Pérez Abellán. The loops are layered on top of each other, beginning in the low register and moving to the high register. They are staggered in a way that the low loops drop out as the high loops take over, creating a rough progression from low sounds to high over the course of the piece.
Stockhausen used a basic graphic notation
Graphic notation
Graphic notation is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation. Graphic notation evolved in the 1950s, and it is often used in combination with traditional music notation...
to indicate how each loop should be altered from its fundamental form through pitch and tempo changes. Stockhausen called these changes glissandi, requiring them to be smoothly executed with faders for a continuous deviation from the original loop. Kathinka Pasveer
Kathinka Pasveer
-Biography:Kathinka Pasveer was born in Zaandam, North Holland, the daughter of a conductor who also taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory . She studied with Frans Vester at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where she received her performer's diploma, with the distinction of the Nicolai Prize in...
realized these ornamentations using his score. The tempo could change by as much as a factor of 12, and the melodic variations could be as narrow as a tritone
Tritone
In classical music from Western culture, the tritone |tone]]) is traditionally defined as a musical interval composed of three whole tones. In a chromatic scale, each whole tone can be further divided into two semitones...
or as wide as a major tenth.
Cosmic Pulses is designed for an 8-channel sound system that surrounds the audience in a square, with 2 channels on each side and a subwoofer on every channel.Stockhausen mapped 241 possible trajectories for sound to travel through such a system. Therefore, each loop has a specific path to travel through the system.
For the first time, I have tried out superimposing 24 layers of sound, as if I had to compose the orbits of 24 moons or 24 planets (for example, the planet SaturnSaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
has 48 moons) … If it is possible to hear everything, I do not yet know—it depends on how often one can experience an 8-channel performance. In any case, the experiment is extremely fascinating!
During his lectures surrounding the German premiere, Stockhausen admitted that he had not made up his own mind about the merits of the piece yet, and he mused that the piece might be most appreciated "as a natural phenomena and not think of composition".
The OKTEG
Though the paths of the layers through the sound system were determined by Stockhausen in advance, he did not want to automate them, preferring to control their speed manually as Pasveer had modulated the pitch and tempi of the loops. Joachim Haas and Gregorio Karman from the Experimental Studio for Acoustic Art of Southwest Broadcasting (SWR) in FreiburgFreiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...
created the OKTEG, a special piece of equipment to allow Stockhausen to realize the spatialization manually. They brought the OKTEG to Kürten in March of 2007 to spatialize the piece. The studio had a history of creating customized equipment for Stockhausen. They built the ring modulators for Mantra
Mantra (Stockhausen)
Mantra is a composition by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was composed in 1970 and premiered in autumn of the same year in Donaueschingen...
, the "Rotationsmühle" for the spherical pavilion at Osaka's World Fair, as well as the QUEG (Qaudrophonic Effects Generator) that Stockhausen used to spatialize Oktophonie.
The OKTEG (Octaphonic Effect Generator) relies on a Max/MSP patch that uses eight variable-law amplitude panning
Amplitude panning
Amplitude Panning is a technic in sound engineering where the same sound signal is applied to a number of loudspeakers in different directions equidistant from the listener. Then, a virtual source appears to a direction that is dependent on amplitudes of the loudspeakers. The direction may not...
modules. The modules are driven by individual sequencers with tempo control. An execution queue
Command queue
A command queue is a queue for delaying the execution of commands, usually either in order of priority or on a first-in first-out basis. They are often useful in synchronous applications, where a command executor may receive a new command while it is still performing a previous one, and so requires...
containing the rotation data specified by Stockhausen's maps managed the messages that controlled all eight sequencers. Motor faders allowed real-time adjustment of the tempo of each sequencer. The performance of these real-time adjustments was encoded as a frequency-modulated
Frequency modulation
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant...
audio-rate sawtooth. This signal was then recorded as an audio track in ProTools. This audio track is then used as a controller to realize the finished audio files.
In a note to reviewer Ingvar Nordin, Stockhausen called the OKTEG "my very special child (the mother lives on SIRIUS
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek: Seirios . The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris...
)."
Reception
After the world premiere performance, Stockhausen signed autographs for an hour and a half. The German premiere at the Stockhausen Courses was met with a partial standing ovation as well as some boos. Reviewing the course concerts in MIT's Computer Music Journal, Nick Collins called the source timbre "a rather cheap electric piano sound", and reported that those in the audience "who had heard more recent electroacoustic music were slightly perturbed by the bad timbre at the start for the source sound". However, Collins observed that this was "quickly subsumedinto the granular storm as the layers gather and tempi increase", concluding that, notwithstanding audience consensus that "the overload last[ed] too long in the middle … It might cautiously be claimed that Mr. Stockhausen achieved a controversial success, and created a work that has reinvigorated his electronic music". Collins shared his shorthand notes, which he scribbled in the dark during the performance:
violent spasms of space, serial recurrences, a Copernican asylum, over- literal crashes, rushing more and more beyond sense, like being inside Stockhausen’s mind as he composes, a battle of enraged keyboardists in a tempo war, granular roars, bass pedals and clatters, gurgling granules accelerate, pushing the boundary of information, tapes spooling mercilessly, a labyrinth of tone pulses, a multiplicity of collisions in an organ factory, even poor synthesis can’t ruin this controlled chaos, wider and wider dynamics and layering, building to the synchronies of planets, raging layers, raging presets in a keyboard shop war, a fight at an audio convention.
Describing the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
premiere at the BBC Proms, Nick Emberley felt that "the Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
sounded like a mighty beast woken from slumber". Richard Morrison wrote in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
that the piece was "half an hour of mesmerisingly complex, and sometimes oppressively rumbly, electronica that ping-ponged round the hall like billions of electrons in a whirlwind", but hearing it alongside Stimmung, Morrison concluded "it was impossible not to feel that Stockhausen's time came and went many decades ago."
In The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, Paul Driver dismissed Klang as "portentous" and the organization around the 24 hours of the day as "obvious". Yet, he praised Cosmic Pulses, "If one tried to imagine a kind of background roar to the universe, this is surely how it would be: incessant and implacable, like magnified wave crashes, cheerfully apocalyptic." John Allison wrote that Cosmic Pulses "was thrilling: as rumbling and splintering noises ricocheted around the Albert Hall, it felt as if Stockhausen had dropped a microphone into deepest space." George Hall concluded that "the most riveting of the concert's offerings turned out to be the purely electronic Cosmic Pulses, a 30-minute continuum of mighty and minute sounds ricocheting round the hall like some infinite, inter-galactic bunfight. Stockhausen's vast output is erratic, but the best is surely here to stay." Ivan Hewett described the piece as "a vast, half-hour hurricane of sound" that "to my earthly ears it seemed oppressively unvaried, despite fascinating moments". Andrew Clements wrote admiringly "[Cosmic Pulses] is an extraordinarily powerful creation by any standards, both poetically beautiful and utterly terrifying. It is a work of immense complexity and unmistakable power, and it sees him using the electronic medium with a mastery that no other composer has matched."