Programs

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Himmelfahrt - KLANG First Hour

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has just opened Met Breuer, celebrated its physical expansion with a long exhalation of Klang. And so, on a bright spring Saturday, I followed the ley lines connecting the Met’s three branches, beginning with an 11 a.m. performance of Hour 1, “Himmelfahrt” (“Heavenward Journey”), in the Fuentidueña Chapel at the Cloisters. It felt a little early in the day for a 45-minute organ ritual, in which the soloist, Taka Kigawa, occasionally paused the clotted flow of notes, took up a mallet, and struck a gong or a bell. Periodically, a tenor and soprano interjected an impatient “Gott!” The music clattered off the chapel's stone walls." - Justin Davidson, Vulture

"Stockhausen's music is dense, atonal, and meandering, and ever eager to embrace harmonic dissonance, conceptual kitsch, and high volumes. It can be baffling and overwhelming, and being forced to choose between this movement and that movement allowed the listener to taste just a bite of this or that from the very heavy dish of Klang's offerings. In fact, as space allowed, ushers permitted audience members to come and go in the middle of a piece as they saw fit. The resulting sampler menu revealed some bonafide masterpieces, some more forgettable works, and some musical experiences that defied evaluation. The First Hour, Himmelfahrt ("Ascension," at the Cloisters), fell decidedly into the third category, pummeling the audience with relentless blasts of sound from an outstanding, indefatigable trio of pipe organ (Taka Kigawa), tenor (Eric Dudley), and soprano (Amanda DeBoer); the organist also struck bells and wind chimes as he played. The Fourth Hour, Himmels-Tür ("Heaven's Door," at the Met Fifth Avenue) verged on performance art: Percussionist Stuart Gerber knock-knock-knocked at a giant, specially constructed pair of wooden doors for some 20 minutes before the doors finally opened to allow another ten minutes of offstage cymbals, gongs and sirens; a little girl then appeared to silently follow the percussionist through those doors. Both pieces are a must for listeners seeking a large dose of pure, uncut Stockhausen, especially in performances as majestically theatrical as these." - Daniel Stephen Johnson, MusicalAmerica