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Kontakte

About twenty years ago I aquired a wonderful and educational 3-CD box set called OHM: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music. Among its tracks was an excerpt from Karlheinz Stockhausen's piece 'Kontakte'. As with much of Stockhausen's output, it's not the most immediately-accessible music, but I did acquire a fondness for it, and became curious to hear all 35 minutes of the piece. I suspect I would have ordered my CD copy a couple of years later from a long-defunct UK on-line classical specialist called "Crotchet". It's a 1992 re-issue of a recording made in 1960, the same one from which the excerpt on the compilation had been taken.

'Kontakte' exists in two versions: the original all-electronic one; and the better-known "hybrid" version with parts for live piano and percussion backed up by electronic sounds on tape. The possibilities of modern "live electronics" would doubtless have thrilled Stockhausen, but were a long way from reality in 1960. Despite the OHM compilation's electronic focus, it was a section of the hybrid version that was featured on it. One aspect of the piece not captured on this, or on most other recordings, is the that the electronic parts were always designed for 4-channel "quadraphonic" playback.

Despite that limitation, and the age of the performance, it still sounds fresh and weird to this day. For me it conjures up mental images of alien beings attempting to communicate with each other in mutually-unintelliglble ways. I did try sampling some of Stockhausen's other work after this, but none quite hit the same spot.

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