Karlheinz Stockhausen
Sirius

THE REVIEW

Composed between 1975 and 1977, dedicated to the pioneers of Earth and space, "Sirius" is a long piece (96 minutes) of electronic music in which Stockhausen also uses four traditional sound sources: a bass voice, a soprano voice, bass clarinet, and trumpet. These are associated with symbols: the cardinal points, the zodiac signs, the seasons, the times of the day, and much more. For example, the bass personifies the north, Capricorn, winter, the night; the soprano embodies the south, Cancer, summer, and the day; the trumpet represents the east, Aries, spring, the morning; and the bass clarinet the west, Libra, autumn, and the evening.

This structure is clarified by the bass that in the first of the three parts of which the piece is composed (the "Presentation") states, in English, the role of each. The central part follows, the "Wheel", divided into four episodes (Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn) where a voice or instrument takes the spotlight and from which, in a live performance, the music can begin, rotating according to the season in which the performance takes place. Finally, the concluding part, the "Annunciation", with the farewell of the four messengers from Sirius, the brightest star visible from Earth, the star from which Stockhausen claimed to hail and to which, he said, he would return.

Despite the fascinating premises and the great complexity of the piece, "Sirius" does not excite me. It has a strong theatrical component, especially in the spoken parts where bass and soprano tease each other, but it remains undecided whether to prioritize the scenic interaction between the four characters or the dimension of sound, as always handled with obsessive refinement.

The electronic music remains in the background. It is created with an analog synthesizer (an EMS Synthi 100) used as a sound generator, but in the end, these sounds are recorded on magnetic tape in a traditional manner; and the sonorities are shrill, less captivating than in the past. Even the trumpet, almost always muted, has a metallic timbre and in the densest moments, those in which both the electronics and the four performers resonate, the listener is faced with a truly difficult sonic tangle to unravel.

For Stockhausen, all this was indicative of the high musical and spiritual level of this work: he spoke of melodies performed at different speeds, of condensed and compressed melodies then left to dilate, or, as in the case of Libra, composed of only intervals derived from the upper harmonics. That is: an extreme awareness of the sonic fact and the ability to shape it according to will (even to the point of burning the tapes, as happened during the processing).

There’s no need to be alarmed, however: some of these melodies are highly characterized and singable, and the listener will find them repeated multiple times throughout the work. But overall, "Sirius", aside from some "spectacular" ideas, has few flights of fancy or moments of genuine emotion. It deserves careful listening, but its main flaw is that it tries to be a theatrical cycle in miniature without managing to free itself from its role as a macro chamber composition.