In the early 1970s Karlheinz Stockhausen was the most highly regarded member of the brilliant generation that had emerged soon after World War II. His renown depended on works that were already old, such as his electronic piece Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–6) and Gruppen for three orchestras (1955–7), but it held, and large concert halls would fill for his works. He was an inevitable presence at the great European festivals of new music, which still existed, if with less authority than they had enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s. (See the report below from La Rochelle and Royan in 1973.) But the excitement had been partly that of a composer constantly beginning again. After he had settled into a mature style based on slow melody in long, loose forms, and particularly after he had embarked on the enormous project of dramatizing this style in a sequence of science-fantasy operas, both his audience and his critical reputation steeply declined.

London 1971

The English Bach Festival and the Institute of Contemporary Arts gave us five consecutive evenings with Stockhausen, a rare opportunity to catch up with his recent thought and works. Since his intuitive music depends so much on close contact over a long period between composer and performers, the four concerts given by his chosen singers and players were specially valuable. Apart from a short piano piece, all of the music played dates from the last four years, and three of the programmes were devoted to works not previously heard in Britain: Stimmung, Hymnen (version with instrumentalists) and Mantra.