Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gnosticism



German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (born in 1928) has earned a reputation as an active participant in the post-war European avant-garde, along with Pierre Bulёzom, Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono and other composers have long disappeared from the field of view of the public. Stockhausen has won its place in the history of music diamond series of his works issued in the 50s and 60s: Kontra-punkte; Klavierstucke I-XI; Zeitmasse Woodwinds; Gruppen for three orchestras; e Gesang der Junglinge; Zyklus for percussion; Carre for four orchestras and four choirs; Kontakte for electronic sounds, piano and percussion; Momente for soprano, singers and instruments; Kontakte for electronic sounds; Musique concrete for Orchestra; Stimmung for six vocalists and so on. These works have created a new world of sound through electronic music and the use of space, as well as new ideas on the form, either via serial organization, and through the assumption of the role of chance or choice.

Since 1977, Stockhausen abandoned composition of individual works and devoted himself to a single giant project: a cycle of seven operas, collectively called Licht (Light), which is expected to be completed early in the next century. Individual opera called according to days of the week. As of 1994, four of them have already been fulfilled (Donnerstag, Samstag, Montag, Dienstag), and three recorded (same Donnerstag, Samstag and Montag).

Stockhausen creates not only the music for his operas, but also words, gestures, and a variety of visual solutions, as well as electronic controls of all of these representations. One can hardly imagine the work that is to be embedded, as well as the obstacles overcome by the author in the creation of such extraordinary works that are placed in conventional opera houses. Until 1993, when the opera Tuesday (Dienstag aus Licht) was first performed in Leipzig, no German Opera House did not want to put his work. Donnerstag, Samstag and Montag were first placed in the Milan La Scala.

Stockhausen puzzles and confuses the average critic, impresario and orchestral musician its so obvious "spirituality." Another famous religious composer-garde, Olivier Messiaen, for them is more acceptable because it is easier to classify it-as glorious eccentric, whose music is a matter of respect, despite the fact that disguises itself in the garb of Catholic theology. But Stockhausen does not fit into the Procrustean bed comfortable. He obviously accepts all religions, both Western and Eastern, both northern and southern, and makes no secret of his belief in reincarnation and astrology. In contrast to the humility and self-abasement Messianovym, Stockhausen avoid them, regardless of how he treats himself. As soon as he gave the interviewer that (See below.) Was a part of Sirius, incarnate on Earth to fulfill a special mission through music, the so-called intellectuals ceased to believe in its truth. Because he was still in the avant-garde "age of deconstruction," he became so unfashionable as he could be: speaking in a nutshell, he appeared to be a sort of cheesy boy, "New Ager." Besides those impulses and beliefs that are somewhat confused minds-the only thing that gives him the will and the imagination to realize their huge project at a time when other old avant-garde or even died down, or busy samopovtorov.

«LIGHT. Seven days of the week »(LICHT. Die sieben tage der woche), a cycle of seven operas (geptalogiya) (1977-2003)

Draft of seven operas Licht, unlike Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen, really cyclic in the sense that it has no beginning and no end. In cosmology, the time East is eternally spinning wheel, and not a straight line, starting with the creation of the world and ending with the Last Judgment. Death in Saturn's Day (the theme from the opera Samstag)-a prelude to the idea of ​​the Day of the Sun (Sormtag) and his marriage, as well as the revival of the Lunar Day (Montag). Then, on the Day of Mars, the war begins (Dienstag), on the Day of Mercury, or Odin,-reconciliation (Mittwoch), on the Day of Jupiter, or the Torah-the incarnation (Donnerstag), and on the Day of Venus or Freya-Temptation (Freitag). Stockhausen says: "There is nowhere beginning. I wrote the first Thursday, but a week in the Light-this spiral without end! "This-the formal idea has embodied them in the early pieces, such as Zyklus and Spiral.

score

Musical organization cycle Licht also reflects the cosmology of the composer, which in this respect, carefully updated. This principle resembles something recursive-mathematical images, which is a copy of the whole. Full cycle is based on the musical trёhsostavnoy hermetic or as it calls itself Stockhausen, "ternary formula." It includes a formula thirteen notes Michael, twelve and eleven notes Eve-Lucifer. Each formula contains not only contacts, but also the specific dynamics, rhythms, pauses, vocalizations, and so on. At its highest level, these formulas control the entire cycle of operas. At the least, they are often perceived as keynotes.

Stockhausen

Shtokhauzenovskoe vision formula as the key to the promises of the Hermetic beyond the material world. As he says, "this formula-matrix and plan micro-and macro-, but at the same time it is a psychic gestalt, and vibrating the image of supernatural manifestations." The roots of this attitude are far behind in the "total serialism", which Stockhausen, and other composers used in the 50s, when all the parameters or particles are integrated by swapping individual series. Then even had a spiritual intention, when Stockhausen (while active Catholic) paid tribute to the Creator that made ​​every aspect of their microcosmic universe in a rational and solid. According to his biographer, Michael Kurtz, this early music "was not an expression of human feelings and passions, but rather an attempt to peresotvoreniya, re-establishment of the cosmic order and the laws of nature sounds." Along with the formulaic composition of Light, the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm becomes much closer to nature. At each level of complexity or, one might say, at every level of reality is perceived, like recursive, the same sample. Three main character of Light-it is Michael, Eve and Lucifer. In the first act we see Michael Donnerstag'a child with her mother and father, and then, growing up, he was tested and promoted in their various talents. In the second act of Michael taking a musical journey around the world, culminating in a symbolic crucifixion and ascension. Effect of the third act takes place in heaven, when Michael called home again to the accompaniment of invisible choirs singing excerpts from Jewish apocryphal literature.

Stockhausen said in an interview in 1981 that Michael-Angel creator, now governing our universe. Angels-creators can create an entire universe in his own image. And they continue to do until they see that the process has reached completion, and gives a sense of each creature. And to begin the process of re-work and internal improvements, it is possible only when the fullness already achieved. Our universe is still involved in the process of improvement and re-process (where creation is regulated, fermented, and then harmonized) has not quite started. In the meantime, still remains in the experimental stage, and the creation is still going on. Michael-the owner of our universe. It manifests itself in various forms, as well as the personality manifests itself in his writings, and their children.

Unusually for Stockhausen here is that these fundamental ideas are well-defined and modern source-The Urantia Book. Michael Kurtz tells how the composer was familiar with the Urantia one of New York hippies in 1971 and how he persuaded his students to study it, while he used some of her ideas in his Inori in 1974. Urantia-is the text of about two thousand pages, composed in 1934-35 through mediumship activities Wilfried Kellogg (died 1956), a Chicago businessman and a member of the family grain threshers Kelloggs. In a trance, he uttered messages, each of which was marked angelic sign; they were "going down" and edited by Dr. William Sadler, a psychiatrist and a priest Seventh-day Adventist. Urantia doctrine consistently associated with Adventism-movement that began in 1844 with the apocalypses of Ellen White. But apocalypses Kellogg-Sedlora go much further, introducing themselves at the beginning of space and a panorama of human history, and then-yea-report on the life of Jesus.

Licht Stockhausen

Stockhausen always think independently, did not slavishly adapt to the doctrines of Urantia, but his admiration for this book led to the fact that a number of his ideas were included in Donnerstag. In the first act ("Youth Michael"), the name of CHRIST MICHAEL occurs twice, standing out in the libretto in capital letters. The identity of Christ and Michael-one of the fundamental doctrines of Urantia, as well as the original Adventism. In the second Act Donnerstag'a («Third Test"), Uri calls Michael "Michael of Nebadon." Urantia often uses these concepts, arguing: "Sometimes we turn to master your universe Nebandonu as Christ Michael." Land in the Urantia named Satania; in Donnerstag'e, the third act, Michael says Lucifer, "You all Satania seduced his lzhesvobodoy." Shortly thereafter, he refers to Lucifer, lord it over "607 th inhabited worlds", while its source claims that the land (whose name is Urantia) is "606-m world in the local system, in which a long evolutionary life process culminated with the appearance of human beings. "According to Michael, "You were horrified to two hundred thousand years" are consistent with the dating of the Lucifer rebellion in Urantia. As for the Michael, according to The Urantia, he-one of the "Sons of the Lord", which should appear on each of the seven levels of existence before he can become a creator, or ruler, of his own universe. Incarnation of him as a man-the seventh and last in this series of incarnations, after which he'll come back and sit "on the right hand of the Father"; we, in fact, we see the return of Michael in the third act Donnerstag'a. In the end, the emblem of three concentric Michael sky-blue circles, evolved in the formulation and design Donnerstag'a, taken directly from the Urantia Book, where it appears (as a registered trademark!) On the main page.

Urantia, as most of these sacred texts, the greatest preference for their own religion, giving the Judeo-Christian tradition of the importance of much greater than the importance of any other. Stockhausen's not just the church. Choirs in "The Return of Michael's home" welcome Michael as "the Son of God, the Spirit Guardian of Mankind, Light, Hermes-Christ, the Torah-Donar." In a later interview with Stockhausen said: "This Michael soon recognized as an emanation of Michael, known since ancient times, which in the Germanic languages ​​is called Donar, or Thor, Thoth-Egyptians, Hermes-the Greeks, Jupiter-the Romans ..." In an ancient tradition that dates back to the Indian, Michael is Mithra, and among the Jews it-guardian spirit of a whole nation, just as he was-a folk saint Germans.

At these words, we reserve the influence of The Urantia Book to Stockhausen and proceed to consider its myths in a broader context. Academic mythologist his syncretism can have its drawbacks. But Stockhausen, like all great creators, to a greater extent than the mythologist or commentator myths himself-Myth-maker, creates his own myths.

The figure of Michael

Figure it Michael-this is primarily a figure of the demiurge, or creator of a subsidiary responsible for the creation of the universe in the midst of a myriad of others. Secondly, he is an avatar, or divine incarnation, to voluntarily adopt a human birth in order to present certain gifts of the Earth, in this case through music. Third, it is-incomplete creature who needs to discover what a human life. Incarnation-the purpose for him, and for the Earth. This Michael final opera, covers it all in a few words:

«... I became a man in one of the days of the world, to live in the dark, just knowing that there is an angel, an angel-creator, god, God of the universe-like a child who came out of the womb of a human mother to grow, to learn, to try, like a child opening the game with sounds that even in their human form is driven by the souls of angels, that's what means "Thursday" from "LIGHT». »

Fourth, Michael-every man (and every woman). It has its own interpretation, based on the fact that Stockhausen used his own childhood as a model for childhood Michael. Hostile critics encroach on this image as a bloated composer identity with Christ. But more often it is interpreted in the context of the potential divinity of every human being-this doctrine is common to esoteric sects. Christian Gnosticism, for example, teaches that we all have a divine spark that Christ-within us, and that if given a spark to awaken gnosis, it allows us to "go home."

The figure of Lucifer

Figure of Lucifer as complex. In one aspect, it is his-the rebellious angel of Judeo-Christian mythology. In an interview in 1980 Stockhausen explains the motives of the Lucifer rebellion: He wanted independence, self-government for the manned "underneath" the planets. His guide subordinata-Satan, who could be called his prime minister. So, the two of them and then led an uprising, which was joined by the majority of the inhabited planets, and we still live in this situation.

Every day we experience on this planet, in the name of what it is rebellion and what is his motive: antiierarhizm, self-government, equality. And because it violated due to our part of the universe. No one else knows how to communicate with other parts of the universe. We are cut off, we are on the island, not connected to other areas of the Cosmos. That, in a nutshell, the theme of "Light."

We were Stockhausen and other statements in the same vein, for which he was vilified in the press and leftist excluded from predominantly prone to leftism artistic and media circles. In the atmosphere of the Federal Republic to engage in harassment of an apolitical person there is no difficulty for the right elite.

Shtokhauzenovsky myth about Lucifer was further developed in the following words of dialogue in 1982: as the main coordinator of our system. Satan [Lucifer] did not approve of the experiment by creating humankind, for example, through cross-breeding animals with the angels (with regard to consciousness) and thus, as he says, to create a sort of "sick polususchestv" imperfect bastards who need to be conscious in order of their development. Lucifer simply against these processes, because he knows that "the universe is knowable, and meaning-in harmony," and he was just opposed to the idea, the process of "climbing through death." Michael spawns a process plan in motion; He-the creator of our universe. Beginning with the Lucifer rebellion, Michael is directly responsible for the fate of our planet.

Stockhausen Lucifer mocks and scorns humanity efforts of Michael, and especially his own incarnation, for the benefit of his creation. Like many villains in the drama, Lucifer-the main comedian in Donnerstag'e, And to the extent that we are not always taken seriously this cosmic war. Michael, whose different playing tenor singer, boyishly-feminine dancer and a virtuoso trumpeter, has a kind of "knight in shining armor", which almost asks her removed. Lucifer, on the other hand, appears as a bass singer, trombonist, who publishes grotesque noises as tap dancer. He is miserable, cynical, all-knowing. Stockhausen was well aware of the ambiguity of both characters. And he wrote in the early notes for the Light, "Lucifer: freedom from; Michael: freedom to do what? "

Light Stockhausen Eve

Opera Samstag-portrait Lucifer, just as Donnerstag-Portrait of Michael, and Montag-Portrait of Eve. In the first of her four scenes Lucifer sits on a chair, while the pianist plays long, phantasmagoric piece supposedly being his grёzoy. Sometimes he sings, drowning out the piano. Stockhausen says that Lucifer "generally would prefer that the whole world was so vague, so a compromise, it was to form an amorphous, he's against the creation of banal forms! He would prefer to see all ascended to the more spiritual, much more clearly. "

The second scene Samstag'a, «Requiem Lucifer"-devoid of text, long solos for flute accompanied by percussion (percussion instrument). During the creation of the scene in 1981, Stockhausen has already had to know about certain teachings of Tibetan Tantrism, especially the teachings of Dzogchen school that privnёs Europe Namkhai Norbu Riponche. Norbu teachings emphasized the importance of understanding the man immediately after his death, the moment of "Clear Light", which, if it is open, guarantees freedom of involutional degeneration. Stockhausen conceived "Requiem Lucifer" as a practical aid for the soul of the deceased. He suggested that "Requiem" will be executed after someone's death for forty-nine days, or at least be used for someone else's travel arrangements through the Bardo (posthumous world) and the choice of what to expect here the soul: the incarnation, destruction or entering the "Clear Light".

All this has little to do with the "War in Heaven» Dormerstag'a. In fact, Samstag had little to do with the opera, since the remaining scenes (including "Dance of Lucifer" for the big brass band and two dancers on stilts, which ends on musicians who want to leave to go on strike) and ending with the "Hymn of virtues" of St. Francis, the executable monastic choir. Once he decided to light Stockhausen devoted his life to the generation of a variety of creative ideas, and they all take their places as parts of a particular opera. Although each piece is thematically as if locked in a system of formulas that permeate the whole cycle all together, they could not form the opera, united overall plot, even if Stockhausen wanted just that. Thus, his conception of the opera (including its hermetic cosmology) is more reminiscent of Renaissance pictorial image masks than dramatic and umonastroencheskie construction of the last two hundred years.

The figure of Eve

The third character, Eve, appears in two forms in the act 1 Dormerstag'a. At first, she-the mother of Michael, appeared in the form of a triple: soprano player in the basset horn and dancer. Then she was Mandeva-female bird devotes Michael in eroticism. Not need to be a professional or a Freudian to see this certain feeling or Jungian to see in Eve archetype anime. "Own" opera Eve-Montag, in which Eva herself appears as a giant sculpture of a woman, which was born out of a variety of creatures. According to Stockhausen, Montag'a idea is a new birth, a new Christmas and regeneration of humanity through Eve, that our universe is responsible for the improvement of the human body. It is always a huge problem: how the spirit can incarnate on different planets or stars. To live on for the purpose of awakening their spirituality and guidance to you and takes itself a body. And as the body you always-a child of the individual planet. So, you can be the flesh of an individual planet to incarnate there. It is always an important decision-so hard to limit yourself ... You get into the skin of the monkey and must transform it through the mediation of the angelic forces. Of course, you will never succeed completely, because it's so hard.

Light Stockhausen

Statue of Montag'a Eve gives birth to two different creatures. The first consists of seven creatures with animal heads and the Seven Dwarfs, which at the end of Act 1, all returned to her womb. The second consists of seven men; all of them-the kids (and I do not know why they are all male), which correspond to the seven planets, seven days a week, seven colors and so on. Piper then leads them all to the Green Heaven, where children sing and birds. In this place it should be noted that generally permeated Licht doctrine signatures. Color Eve-green and Montag'e full of its elements, such as water, steam and ice. Donnerstag, about which we are talking about here is more than likely ruled by the planet Jupiter, and it is dominated by Michael color: blue primary, secondary, magenta and purple. Stockhausen says that all of his comments, opera libretti and CDs issued in the respective colors.

In terms of Gnosticism, shtokhauzenovskaya Eve is Sophia, mother and enlightening power of humanity. Two of her generation repeats the passage of the Valentinian myth, in which the first generation of Sofia rejected as a failure. Her story continues in Freitag'e, in the opera of her seduction by Lucifer and the separation of the sexes, in Sonntag'e, which celebrated her wedding with Michael and Mittwoch'e-Day Hermes-Mediator, in which the three protagonists develop relationships in their meeting. "God," which Stockhausen accidentally mentions in his libretto and published texts is uncertain Deus absconditus, which may be the object of meditation, or devotion, but plays no role in his mythology. He is impersonal Parabrahm Vedanta and some rare mystics Abraham traditions. Perhaps it is the same as that of pure light on the posthumous union with which its hopes to initiate Tantrism. In any case, in our earthly incarnations, we are dealing with the deities of a lower order and with the same problems of being as the "Michaels" or spiritual beings temporarily inhabiting the physical world of Eve.

Couple Lucifer-Michael, once isolated from the moralistic Urantia cosmology, its ambiguity creates an opportunity to study it with a passion. Seen from the point of view of Gnosticism, both components of the pair are aspects of the Demiurge. Michael-the creator god in preparation. For him, the whole complicated process of connecting and disconnecting the mind and body, as well as the wheel of birth and rebirth are invaluable, and the experience of being a human being in the body of a man or woman needs-even for the sake of God itself. He hopes that when it comes to create their own universe, he is doing a good thing.

On the other hand, for Lucifer is the whole thing is too sloppy and inharmonious. He would have preferred to creation and remains on the spiritual, or imaginary level, where it could be established or liquidated-at will, like his own grёze in Samstag'e. Because he refuses to incarnation, it arrives on Earth grotesque and even pathetic. He, unlike Michael, do not agree with these rules of the game, and so it is always impregnable. In addition, it mirootvergayuschee voltage spirit has much in common with Gnosticism, and the plan of Lucifer may seem preferable to the plan of Michael. And if the dream of "Bearer of Light" come true, mankind has been able to get rid of the bonds of matter and tribulations of physical existence.

Stockhausen, of course, had no reason to sympathize with the claims of Lucifer. In 1978, when the project was in the light of the first phase of his training, he made a number of frivolous comments in an interview with Gill Poor. In it, he spoke about the enormous difficulties of the all that is happening in the world, where even such a trivial job as carrying speakers and musical equipment installation may take five or six hours, and where so few of its inhabitants are listening to his music. "Here, everything is terribly primitive"-he says. Its main feature Sirius in stark contrast to the above: "Everything is there music, live art coordination and harmony of vibrations." Music in a much higher sense than on the planet-is a highly developed art in which each song is born in connection with the rhythms of nature. Intuitively, I often felt that I was trained on Sirius and here came from Sirius. But people usually laugh without realizing it, so there is little sense to talk about it.

I do not see any reason to laugh. On the contrary, I find it commendable that such a distinguished man as Stockhausen, risked his reputation, saying these words, and I see no reason not to trust him. Musician, with his eager anticipation of a world free from conflict and materiality, making the music that is so time consuming and often imperfect thing, I do not like this world.

Gnosticism includes the myth, and the method, and the latter is the gnosis, or knowledge of salvation, implying bring us back to our spiritual nature. Stockhausen offers his music more than the gnostic method applied to many levels of perception, in accordance with the ability of the candidate. Simple exposure of his music is present and at the lowest level, which he did not particularly despise. After all, he says of the German Pavilion at the World Expo 1970 in Osaka, Japan, as one of the highest of highs of his life. There, his music was broadcast hours every day, so that it heard about a million visitors. Proceeding from the method by which it is composed, he claims that his music has a beneficial effect on people, even when their attention is not focused on it. It reminds me of the Buddhist idea: just listen to the Noble Truths of Buddhism, no matter whether you believe in them, follow them or not-is to sow the seed that will protect your lives a whole lot of optional suffering.

Go. Stockhausen

At the other end of this hierarchy is a fan of studying the intellectual structure of Stockhausen's music, and then listen to it repeatedly as long as it does not generate it in the same intuitive feeling that most of us have endured from fragments of Mozart or Bach. To do so-then confer sensuality dynamics, timbre, harmonics and other aspects of sound, which are normally held on deaf ears. In a separate class includes experts directors, especially companion Stockhausen Suzanne Stephens playing the basset horn Eve in all operas, and his son, Marcus, who plays Michael as a trumpeter. These difficult roles are perfect for them, and as almost all the music of Stockhausen, it is so huge, that the master is almost superhuman sharpness in the ability to hear and the ability to perceive time. Undoubtedly, such elegance affects the perception of life and personality in general.

It can be concluded that the Hermetic and musical paths are parallel paths to the same goal, and in fact mutually exclusive. Stockhausen and his musicians seem to be examples of people who have reached the highest spiritual development and implementation through music. It is tempting to speculate, along with the composer on other worlds, where this kind of musicianship-a normal way of life. It seems almost certain that in an infinite universe such worlds can exist.



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