Gottfried Michael Koenig
Encyclopedia
Gottfried Michael Koenig (born October 5, 1926 in Magdeburg
) is a contemporary German
-Dutch
composer.
in Braunschweig
, composition
, piano
, analysis
and acoustics
in Detmold
, music representation techniques in Cologne
and computer technique in Bonn
. He attended and later lectured at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Darmstadt music summer schools). From 1954 to 1964 Koenig worked in the electronic studio of West German Radio (WDR) producing his electronic compositions Klangfiguren, Essay and Terminus 1 and wrote orchestral and chamber music
. Furthermore he assisted other composers, including Mauricio Kagel
, Franco Evangelisti
, György Ligeti
, Herbert Brün
and Karlheinz Stockhausen
(with the realization of Kontakte
and Gesang der Jünglinge
).
From 1961 to 1965 Koenig taught at the Gaudeamus Foundation
in Bilthoven, and from 1962 to 1964 at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
. In 1964 Koenig moved to the Netherlands, where he taught at the University of Utrecht and was, until 1986, director and later chairman of the electronic music studio, which became the Institute of Sonology
(Frobenius 2001). Here he developed his computer composition programs Project 1 (1964) and Project 2 (1966), designed to formalise the composition of musical structure-variants. Both programs had a significant impact on the further development of algorithmic composition
systems. Among his notable students are Mario Bertoncini
, Konrad Boehmer
, Karl Gottfried Brunotte
, Johannes Fritsch
, Annea Lockwood
, Tomás Marco
, Pierre Mariétan
, Zoltán Pongrácz
, Atli Heimir Sveinsson
, Miguel Ángel Coria
, and Jan Vriend
.
His sound synthesis program SSP (started 1971) is based on the representation of sound as a sequence of amplitudes in time. It makes use of the methods of aleatoric and groupwise selection of elements employed in Project 1 and Project 2. He continued to produce electronic works (Terminus 2, the Funktionen series). These were followed by the application of his computer programs, resulting in chamber music (Übung for piano, the Segmente series, 3 ASKO Pieces, String Quartet 1987, String Trio) and works for orchestra (Beitrag, Concerti e Corali).
6 volumes of his theoretical writings were published between 1991 and 2008 under the title Ästhetische Praxis by Pfau Verlag; an Italian selection appeared under the title Genesi e forma (Semar, Rome 1995).
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
) is a contemporary German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
-Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
composer.
Biography
Koenig studied church musicChurch music
Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...
in Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
, 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 :...
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, analysis
Analysis
Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle , though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.The word is...
and acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
in Detmold
Detmold
Detmold is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with a population of about 74,000. It was the capital of the small Principality of Lippe from 1468 until 1918 and then of the Free State of Lippe until 1947...
, music representation techniques in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and computer technique in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
. He attended and later lectured at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Darmstadt music summer schools). From 1954 to 1964 Koenig worked in the electronic studio of West German Radio (WDR) producing his electronic compositions Klangfiguren, Essay and Terminus 1 and wrote orchestral and chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
. Furthermore he assisted other composers, including 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:...
, Franco Evangelisti
Franco Evangelisti
Franco Evangelisti , was an Italian composer specifically interested in the scientific theories behind sound.-Biography:...
, György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, Herbert Brün
Herbert Brun
Herbert Brün was a composer and pioneer of electronic and computer music. Born in Berlin, Germany, he taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1962 until he retired, several years before his death.-Career:...
and 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"...
(with the realization of 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...
and Gesang der Jünglinge
Gesang der Jünglinge
Gesang der Jünglinge is a noted electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog of works...
).
From 1961 to 1965 Koenig taught at the Gaudeamus Foundation
Gaudeamus Foundation
The Gaudeamus Foundation and Contemporary Music Center is a renowned center for contemporary music. The Gaudeamus Foundation organizes and promotes contemporary musical activities and concerts both in the Netherlands and abroad...
in Bilthoven, and from 1962 to 1964 at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
Hochschule für Musik Köln
The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Germany's largest academy of music.-History:The academy was founded by Ferdinand Hiller in 1850 as Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln...
. In 1964 Koenig moved to the Netherlands, where he taught at the University of Utrecht and was, until 1986, director and later chairman of the electronic music studio, which became the Institute of Sonology
Institute of Sonology
The Institute of Sonology is an education and research center for electronic music and computer music based at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands.-Background:...
(Frobenius 2001). Here he developed his computer composition programs Project 1 (1964) and Project 2 (1966), designed to formalise the composition of musical structure-variants. Both programs had a significant impact on the further development of algorithmic composition
Algorithmic composition
Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music.Algorithms have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpoint, for example, can often be reduced to algorithmic determinacy...
systems. Among his notable students are Mario Bertoncini
Mario Bertoncini
Mario Bertoncini is an Italian composer, pianist, and music educator. In 1962 he was awarded the Nicola d'Atri Prize by the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for his Sei Pezzi per orchestra and in 1965 he was awarded both the Gaudeamus International Composers Award and the Fondation europeènne...
, Konrad Boehmer
Konrad Boehmer
Konrad Boehmer is a Dutch composer and writer of German birth.Boehmer was born in Berlin. His music reflects his Marxist political agenda, which is made explicit in many of his writings from the late 1960s and 1970s...
, Karl Gottfried Brunotte
Karl Gottfried Brunotte
Karl Gottfried Brunotte is a German composer and music philosopher, particularly noted for his contributions to church music.-Biography:Brunotte finished school in Bad Homburg...
, Johannes Fritsch
Johannes Fritsch
Johannes G. Fritsch was a German composer.At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Knapp...
, Annea Lockwood
Annea Lockwood
Annea Lockwood is a New Zealand born American composer. She taught electronic music at Vassar College. Her work often involves recordings of natural found sounds...
, Tomás Marco
Tomás Marco
Tomás Marco Aragón is a Spanish composer and writer on music.-Life and work:Marco studied violin and composition in Madrid while at the same time pursuing the study of law...
, Pierre Mariétan
Pierre Mariétan
Pierre Mariétan is a Swiss composer.-Biography:Mariétan studied first at the Geneva Conservatory in 1955–60 with Marescotti, and later with, amongst others, Pierre Boulez, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Henri Pousseur, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and his earliest works are...
, Zoltán Pongrácz
Zoltán Pongrácz
Zoltán Pongrácz was a Hungarian composer.Pongrácz studied composition from 1930 to 1935 with Zoltán Kodály at the Budapest Academy of Music...
, Atli Heimir Sveinsson
Atli Heimir Sveinsson
Atli Heimir Sveinsson is an Icelandic composer.Atli Heimir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland and started piano lessons at the age of 10. He studied piano with Rögnvaldur Sigurjónsson at the Reykjavík College of Music and took his diploma in 1957...
, Miguel Ángel Coria
Miguel Ángel Coria
Miguel Ángel Coria Varela is a Spanish composer of classical music. His early work showed affinities to the music of Anton Webern, but he became increasingly influenced by Impressionism. From 1973 he entered his post-modern period where his compositions were marked by "attempts to evoke the spirit...
, and Jan Vriend
Jan Vriend
Jan Vriend is a Dutch classical music composer, conductor and pianist.Vriend was born in Benningbroek, North Holland, and studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory from 1960 to 1967, with Else Krijgsoman , Anthon van der Horst and Jan Felderhof , and Ton de Leeuw...
.
His sound synthesis program SSP (started 1971) is based on the representation of sound as a sequence of amplitudes in time. It makes use of the methods of aleatoric and groupwise selection of elements employed in Project 1 and Project 2. He continued to produce electronic works (Terminus 2, the Funktionen series). These were followed by the application of his computer programs, resulting in chamber music (Übung for piano, the Segmente series, 3 ASKO Pieces, String Quartet 1987, String Trio) and works for orchestra (Beitrag, Concerti e Corali).
6 volumes of his theoretical writings were published between 1991 and 2008 under the title Ästhetische Praxis by Pfau Verlag; an Italian selection appeared under the title Genesi e forma (Semar, Rome 1995).
External links
- http://www.koenigproject.nl - Koenig's own page
- Karlheinz EsslKarlheinz EsslKarlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser and composition teacher.- Biography :Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition , electro-acoustic music and double bass...
: Zufall und Notwendigkeit. Anmerkungen zu Gottfried Michael Koenigs Streichquartett 1959 vor dem Hintergrund seiner kompositionstheoretischen Untersuchungen.