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Listening Report on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte (version Nr. 12 ½)

 Sarah Kumar

Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

The Future of (American) Music

05 Mar. 2023

Listening Report on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte (version Nr. 12 ½)

The composition starts with the piano, then incorporates percussion and not long after electronic sounds. The electronic sounds sound like distortions of the piano at times, like static disrupting the piano’s flow, but it slowly becomes part of it as a deep reverberating noise builds up behind the percussion and piano sounds. The components to this composition have different pitches and tones, and the piano, in comparison to the longer electronic sounds, has rather short, abrupt sounds. It reminds me of music for thrillers or horror movies, in which during scenes of surprise or anticipation, dissonant sounds are played to convey the disarray of the situation. The abrupt high pitches of the piano feel like a jump-scare at times.

However, although I did call the sounds in this composition dissonant, they still fit together as a whole. The lower pitch of the electronic sound – the distorting noises – make the piano sound less random but pulled together into a piece. The sounds in this composition decrease and increase in volume and timbre, until at some point, they sound like brown noise to me. I think this composition is meant to be heard from several speakers that can carry the sound throughout the room, and I would imagine it to be like waves crashing in from one side of the room to the other, from several directions.

This is especially evident in the middle of the composition. It starts off with a very quiet, low electronic sound that slowly grows in volume until some piano notes and percussion set in. The electronic sound in the background is what I imagine visuals of sonic waves to sound like (Kontakte 22:31). If the sound came out of speakers, it would feel like a rolling wave that rises and falls from different directions. I think that this is the effect the composition wanted to accomplish, that is, the effect of sonic waves. The different pitches and timbres and volume of the sounds in it are like separate pieces that flow from different directions of a room to coagulate inside a person’s mind. Therefore, I believe that the pauses in the composition are not simply empty to leave room before the next sounds come in; rather, the electronic sounds are too low to be heard, and only after they pass a certain point can the ear make them out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Herzogenrath, Bernd. Kontakte (version Nr. 12 ½). Google Drive – Reader FUTURE OF MUSIC, 16 Nov. 2023, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QDtXfi9NKoOUnvw7RedhUQ2O2BfQp8lA. Accessed 6 Mar. 2023.
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