Karlheinz Stockhausen
Michaels Reise

Seven reviews for the seven days of the week: today it's Thursday from Light's turn.
(1/7)

A colossal globe of the Earth at the center of the stage, so large that it allows a musician to move inside it… At times, he emerges, visible to the audience, from seven windows that open on the surface: Germany, New York, Japan, Bali, India, Central Africa, Jerusalem. The seven stations of the Michael's journey around the Earth.

Michael is a celestial creature, an archangel, and his instrument is the trumpet. Other musicians, an orchestra of about thirty elements, sit at the foot of the globe and give life to the 48 minutes of music of this instrumental piece, which is the second act of the music theater work "Thursday from Light" (Donnerstag aus Licht).

It's musical theater, therefore, even though in this case, Stockhausen has no problem not employing voices: "Michaels Reise" is essentially a scenic concert for trumpet and orchestra, composed between October 1977 and August 1978. A piece articulated into about fifteen episodes, some of which are duets, and thus not particularly difficult to follow.

Rather, it should be noted that listening to this work on CD loses much compared to its representation, because this music gains power and meaning especially in the act of seeing, not just listening, as became clear for example in 2008, when the Catalan company La Fura dels Baus presented a scenic version in some European cities (it was seen in Venice, in October of that year).

Duets, it was said: among them, the most effective are those between trumpet and basset horn, and between trumpet and double bass. But it especially should be noted that this music is continuously scattered with fragments of the three melodies (Stockhausen calls them formulas) associated with the main characters (Michael, Luzifer, Eva) from which the entire Licht cycle originates: short musical phrases that, when repeated, transformed, segmented, overlapped, or expanded, generate the macro-structure of the seven works and constitute the compass (sometimes more readable, sometimes less) with which the listener can orient themselves on their journey through this music.

- Donnerstag aus Licht (1978-80) is the first work of the cycle dedicated to the days of the week. It is divided into three acts plus a brief instrumental prelude ("Greeting") and a concluding piece ("Farewell"). Thursday is the day of Michael, portrayed on stage by a tenor voice, a trumpet soloist, and a dancer. The opera was performed at La Scala Theater in Milan in March 1981 and at Covent Garden in London in September 1985. The disc edition in 4 CDs is published by Stockhausen-Verlag ("Michaels Reise" is the 2nd CD of this edition, also available as a single CD from ECM, in the so-called Version for Soloists).