Output details

Schattenklavier: for piano and live computer processing (8-channel and stereo versions)

Schattenklavier

for piano and live computer processing (8-channel and stereo versions)

– In memoriam Karlheinz Stockhausen –

Schattenklavier ('Shadow-piano') takes as its starting point a fragment of the piano part from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s landmark orchestral work Gruppen (1955-57). This material (heard in quotation towards the end of the piece) takes on something of the role of a theme, upon which are built seven variations. Each of these creates a ‘shadow’ of the original material (or perhaps, a series of different shadows, cast by different lights and displaying varying degrees of stretching or transformation), enabling us to hear it in a new way. The computer part too casts its shadows, responding with different shades of resonant hues, reflections and ripples all diffused by the piano’s light.

Although Schattenklavier takes quite a systematic approach to its material (Stockhausen was a pioneer of advanced serial and ‘formula’ techniques), these systems are often left incomplete and unfinished, just as Stockhausen’s life itself seemed to end with a strangely inappropriate and (to Stockhausen disciples) surprising sense of incompleteness: he died in December 2007 just before the start of a year of worldwide concerts intended to celebrate his 80th birthday.