News - Right Side

news

one month after karlheiz stockhausen died media is calling me up in order to give statements, reports, essays etc. my connection to the great composer can be only randomly or better privately described. to praize what he has done as a composer i'm not experienced enough. but from my personal point of view i can report some events especially from the time in the beginning of the 60ies when i spent my time studying with him. i often imagine what he would have done in my place becoming an active member in can and how long he would have survived that - probably only minutes! this is one of the points when thinking of stockhausen that he was not signed up working in a team as one parent of all. he was a typical solo man, a composer and may be the last one of a 'classical' design notating his music and thus writing scores same as our classical heros did. and quite some of them could have become very unpatient at times.
only a few months before i visited his lectures i tried to get taken on as a student of composition in the highschool for music in cologne. i failed the ontaking procedure as the headlining composer there stated that i wouldn't be talented enough for the job. i condemned him to death in my mind and to my surprise and satisfaction he soon died. when i told stockhausen all my miseries becoming a composer he only said: "i take you on". in this period the highschool wanted also to cope with stockhausen and offered their services to him, especially that the students could work with the school orchestra testing their compositions. during the test phase the first violinist was all the time talking and giggeling that stockhausen got fed up with him and he shouted:
"hey you! - yes you! what's your name?"
"mangold" the deliquent in spe replied
"mr. mangold, please get up from your seat and sit down in the last violin row "
and turning to the string man sitting there he said:
"you are now the first violinist here in the orchestra, please sit down on mr. mangold's chair." and stockhausen continued:
"mr. mangold, wherever you see me conducting in the world you will automatically get up from your chair as long as i live!"
this was xtmas, eastern and golden wedding in my ears being thrilled by thousand jubilees in my heart as this was the language to get assholes on the run. and that guy was an asshole i can asure you! of course the conductorship professor protested against this decicion and stockhausen - right before a vulcano eruption - let him know that he should follow him outside where he would like to talk to him touchless.
it was a situation as if sylvester stallone would have told his opponent to follow him outside in order to smash him up. even today i could kiss stockhausen's feet for having given the right message.

one day when stockhausen had invited me to have dinner with him in his house he complained about layzy and unwillingly orchestra musicians trying to obstruct his music. so i asked him why he didn't fire them all together. "for example you play a much better piano than i do. why don't you play all instruments yourself and get rid of them?" i asked him. no, no, he needed them too much he argued and i stopped going further more into it. he was the man who he was and i should not compare my situation with his.

also unbelievable, the public radio station in cologne had thrown away the equipment of the historic electronic studio where stockhausen had worked out the first electronic masterpieces as like 'gesang der juenglinge' or 'kontakte' . i always wondered why he didn't have his own studio instead of making himself dependent on institutions? it certainly would have become a great item for the existing stockhausen foundation.

well, people are different and so was stockhausen. i can easily live with that though i must admit that all of can had condemned him to death when we started to do our thing. it was necessary for us to kill the master first in order to achieve something new. continuing as 'composer killers' became obolete.
see also memories...

cheers and bye for now

for older news versions click here to the numbers: