Customer Reviews

Stockhausen - MANTRA

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The melody for MANTRA is four bars of music enveloped by silences, it came to him while sitting next to the driver " I heard this melody -it all came very quickly together: I had the idea of one single musical figure or formula that would be expanded over a very long period of time", the work for two pianos, with crotales and electronic manipulation is now a high water mark. Stockhausen had been moving forever into World Music since his first visit to Japan. And has been utilizing the concepts and musical processes of structured improvisation, Telemusik, "Aus den sieben Tagen", certainly the ode to the world "Hymnen" for quite some time. Mantra however is more a focused construction where this one single cell of a melody directs and regenerates the entire work. The piano texture is wonderful in that the density is distributed between both piano players here. So there are marked contrasts, and exposed single lines, sometimes omitting the middle registers on the keyboard to create this clangorous=like tone.The concept of the FORMULA of course was later expanded into his colossus Licht, an opera for each day of the week. The FORMULA not only directs the music but the dancing and stage lighting and movements on stage. This work has magical charms for I know people who hate Stockhausen, yet love MANTRA.

What can you expect from this CD? An exhilirating, encyclopedic piece of music. Like much Stockhausen, "Mantra" creates its own unique sonic environment, one which takes getting used to, but it's worth it. There's a strong current of mysticism in the music but also a lot of humor and playfulness; passages that sound like brooding 19th century romanticism are mixed in with the avant-garde bravura, crashing dissonances, mutated sounds, and cosmological musings. There's a terrific "duelling pianos" section near the end which by itself is enough to make me glad I have this CD.

Several recordings of "Mantra" are available. I've heard great things about a recording done by Dutch musicians Ellen Corver & Sepp Grotenhuis. Check around before buying. In any case I'm very happy with this performance -- it's a CD I've been listening to again and again, appreciating it more every time.

They put a lot of labels on this type of music..."post modern serialism" and such. I think perhaps some people may be put off by the "intellectual jargon" that surrounds modern music...I just call it beautiful ! Wonderful sounds, echoes, rhythms, are played by 2 pianos (Mikhashoff and Bevan) and "Electronics" (created by Orsted).

This is a great piece to put on very late at night, when it's quiet enough to fully appreciate the sound qualities, or to listen to on a good pair of earphones. In mood, I find it almost meditative.

If you haven't heard this kind of music before, it may take a couple of hearings for one's ear to get tuned into it...and it's worth the time ! You'll get hooked. This is truly wonderful music.

Ever since I heard Gruppen, I've been such an admirer of Stockhausen's music. I came across Mantra's score while browsing my school's music library, and immediately began working on it. Unfortunately, the pianist I had in mind to perform it with me told me, "This is impossible." So, I settled for listening to recordings. I bought this recording on a whim randomly at Border's, and then listened to the 2 recordings that my music library has. The first time I listened to this recording, I thought it was a bit lack luster, but I wanted to confirm this by comparing it to the other recordings. I was disappointingly correct.

HOWEVER, I applaud these two pianists' efforts at performing this piece. It is EXTREMELY difficult, and this recording IS a good recording for those curious in hearing the ideas, the compositional genius, and the essence of Stockhausen. He is a composer who deserves ALL OF THE RESPECT that he has been given, and I love his music to death.

This is a very subtil reading of Mantra. Somewhat different, I would even say a good complement to the "golden standard" (with A. & A. Kontarsky; Stockhausen-Edition CD 16).

Karlheinz Stockhausen composed "Mantra" for two pianos and electronics in 1970. It is historically important as it marked the composer's turn from traditional serialism to "formula composition", basing an entire work on the expansion of some short, basic material. The live electronics consist only of ring modulation. What one gets is basically the sparse, bleep-bloopy pointilistic piano music of 1950s serialism (Pierre Boulez's piano sonatas, Stockhausen's early Klavierstuecke) occasionally giving a timbral shot in the arm by the electronics.

This sort of serialism lacks gestalt, and so in order to be interesting it needs to be fast, rich in timbres, and very busy. Even though Boulez was using similar gimmickry with basic live electronics in "Repons", that piece works pretty good because it was at least energetic. If you've never heard a serialist piano work before, "Mantra" might be interesting, but the sort of crowd who would seek this out has likely already become content with those 1950s pieces and isn't needing any more. Someone interested in Stockhausen's later music would do better to seek out "Tierkreis" or any of the myriad pieces connected with his opera LICHT.

I just don't have words to describe the sensation of hearing stockhausen, even on cd!