STIMMUNG

KARHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN: STIMMUNG

(6 VOICES: SSATTB)

Nicholas Isherwood worked regularly with Karlheinz Stockhausen for 24 years. He studied diphonic singing with Mongun-ool Ondar in Tuva. Our interpretation of STIMMUNG is unlike any other. Making use of the numbered harmonics and notated rhythms in the score, we achieve Stockhausen’s wish of having the harmonics be louder than the fundamental at all times, creating an extraordinary polyphony of vocal harmonics. By restoring the original concept of reciting the
erotic poems in the language of the country where the piece is performed, we enable the audience to understand these witty, sensual, poetic “love letters” to his second wife, the fluxus artist
Mary Bauermeister. The richness of six solo voices not only strengthens the harmonics, but enhances the richness of the vocal texture.