Karlheinz Stockhausen
Sonntags-Abschied

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

The musical cycle of the seven days concludes with "Sonntags-Abschied", written between 2001 and 2003, a version for five synthesizers of "Hoch-Zeiten" for choir (the fifth scene of Sunday from Light). Stockhausen, who had started his exploration in electronic music 50 years earlier, adds with this piece another dimension - the chamber one, of a collected and intimate sound - to his long journey in synthesized sounds.

In this case, five performers adapt the timbres of their synths to the vocal sounds of the predecessor choir piece, sung with phonemes from five different languages. The result is a very dense piece in texture but at the same time extremely varied in sonorities (including five types of metallic percussion, recorded and played on tape) with the voices of the synths chasing each other, intertwining, dialoguing in an intricate buzz that lasts 35 minutes.

Music that leaves room for the listener's imagination, never so free to wander in the imaginary spaces traced by these sounds. This is what Franco-Albanian choreographer Angelin Preljocaj did, who created a show based on this music, entitled Eldorado (Sonntags-Abschied), for the dancers of his company. It was Stockhausen himself who suggested it, believing that the piece was perfect for dance, and when Preljocaj listened to it at the composer's home, near Cologne, he felt the sensation of a sonic form of voodoo (perhaps due to the synths, tuned to a slightly higher A at 442 hertz).

Here is "Sonntags-Abschied", the Farewell of Sunday, the last stage of this journey towards the light (of knowledge), the final piece in the 30 total hours of the Light cycle.

- Sunday from Light (1998-2003) is the seventh opera of the cycle dedicated to the days of the week. It is divided into five scenes (including the initial Greeting) and a final Farewell. Sunday is the day of the mystical marriage between Michael and Eve. As of the date of this review, the opera has not yet been fully staged; the first full scenic performance is announced for April 9 and 10, 2011 (plus encores) in Cologne. All individual scenes have been performed multiple times in concert form and published on CD by Stockhausen-Verlag.