Since 1991, a complete edition of all recordings in which Karlheinz Stockhausen has personally participated is being released on compact discs. Each CD in this series is identified by Stockhausen's signature followed by an encircled number. The numbers indicate the general historical order of the works. Stockhausen realised the electronic music and participated in these recordings as conductor, performer, sound projectionist, and musical director. He personally mixed down the recordings, mastered them for CDs, wrote the texts and drew the covers.
Since 1991, a complete edition of all recordings in which Karlheinz Stockhausen has personally participated is being released on compact discs. Each CD in this series is identified by Stockhausen's signature followed by an encircled number. The numbers indicate the general historical order of the works. Stockhausen realised the electronic music and participated in these recordings as conductor, performer, sound projectionist, and musical director. He personally mixed down the recordings, mastered them for CDs, wrote the texts and drew the covers.
Since 1991, a complete edition of all recordings in which Karlheinz Stockhausen has personally participated is being released on compact discs. Each CD in this series is identified by Stockhausen's signature followed by an encircled number. The numbers indicate the general historical order of the works. Stockhausen realised the electronic music and participated in these recordings as conductor, performer, sound projectionist, and musical director. He personally mixed down the recordings, mastered them for CDs, wrote the texts and drew the covers.
Samstag is an opera for 13 solo performers (1 voice, 10 instrumentalists, and 2 dancers) plus a symphonic band (or symphony orchestra), ballet or mimes, and male choir with organ. It was composed between 1981 and 1983. Saturday is Lucifer's day. It opens with the Samstags Gruss (Saturday's Greeting) for four spatially separated brass ensembles with percussion (Bandur 1999). The opera itself consists of four scenes: Luzifers Traum (Lucifer's Dream), for bass voice and piano; Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem (Kathinka's Chant as Lucifer's Requiem), for flute and six perdussionists; Luzifers Tanz (Lucifer's Dance), for symphony band (or orchestra), bass voice, solo piccolo, solo piccolo trumpet, solo dancer, stilt-dancer, and dancer-mimes; and Luzifers Abschied (Lucifer's Farewell), for male choir, seven trombones, and organ.from Wikipedia
Michaels Reise originally was composed for large orchestra and could be called a trumpet concerto. In the version on this CD, it is a chamber piece. Rehearsals and recording were done together with the composer, the quality of both the performance and the sound are fantastic. It is maybe the most accessible of all Stockhausen compositions. Beautiful melodies (or, as Stockhausen calls them, formulas) can be heard. They are exchanged between the leading trumpet and other instruments.
Sirius (1975–1980) has been described as "a modern mystery play, clothed as a science fiction story" (Kurtz 1992, 207). While not described by the composer as an opera, it is nevertheless a musical drama, in which four emissaries from a planet orbiting the star Sirius bring a message to earth. "This was to be the big leap into theatre proper… Sirius is the key work that leads to his magnum opus LICHT (LIGHT)" (Ball 1997).
Performers: Tristan Fry (Percussion), Harald Bojé (Wood Block), Peter Eötvös (Electric Piano, Bamboo Flute; Synthesizer; Reed Pipe; Zither; Wood Block), Christoph Caskel (Percussion), Markus Stockhausen (trumpet) & Margareta Hurholz (Organ)