Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) composed 376 individually performable works, including the opera cycle LICHT, The Seven Days of the Week, which was written between 1977 and 2003 and comprises a total of about 29 hours of music. All seven parts of this music-scenic work have been premiered: THURSDAY (1981), SATURDAY (1984), MONDAY (1988), produced by La Scala di Milano, TUESDAY (1993) and FRIDAY (1996) at Oper Leipzig, and SUNDAY from LIGHT (2011) by Oper Köln. With MITTWOCH, Birmingham Opera Company presented the final day of the LICHT heptalogy on Wednesday, August 22, 2012.

Stockhausen, whose goal after the week was also to musicalize the hours of the day, the minute and the second, continued his work following LICHT with the cycle KLANG, Die 24 Stunden des Tages. Until his death in December 2007, he composed 21 hours, beginning with the 1st hour HIMMELFAHRT and ending with the 21st hour PARADIES. Karlheinz Stockhausen began his compositional career in the early 1950s. Already with his first works of »Punktuelle Musik« such as KREUZSPIEL (1951), SPIEL for orchestra (1952) and KONTRA-PUNKTE (1952/53) he achieved international fame. Since then, many of his compositions have influenced significant achievements in music after 1950: »serial music«, »punctual music«, »electronic music«, »new percussion music«, »variable music«, »new piano music«, »space music«, »statistical music«, »aleatoric music«, »live electronic music«; new syntheses of »music and language«, of a »musical theater«, of a »ritual music«, »scenic music«; the »group composition«, polyphonic »process composition«, »moment composition«, »formula composition« up to »multiformal composition«; the integration of ‘found objects’ (national anthems, folklore of all countries, short wave events, »sound scenes«, etc. ) in a »world music« and a »universal music«; the synthesis of European, African, Latin American and Asian music in a »telemusic«; the vertical »octophonic music«.

Stockhausen’s entire oeuvre is defined as »spiritual music«, which is not only evident in compositions with sacred texts, but also in »Oberton-Musik«, »Intuitive Music«, »Mantric Music« up to »Cosmic Music« from STIMMUNG, AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN, MANTRA, STERNKLANG, INORI, ATMEN GIBT DAS LEBEN, SIRIUS, LICHT or KLANG. Stockhausen himself conducted or participated in almost all of the world premieres of his works, or directed them as a sound director, and thus realized numerous model performances and recordings all over the world.

In a spherical auditorium designed by Stockhausen, during the World Expo’70 in Osaka, Japan, 20 instrumentalists and singers performed 5! hours a day, most of Stockhausen’s works composed up to 1970 were performed for an audience of over one million.

Stockhausen held several visiting professorships in Switzerland, the United States, Finland, Holland, and Denmark. In 1971, he was appointed professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany; in 1996, he received an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin; and in 2004, he received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast. He was a member of 12 international academies of 2 arts and sciences, an honorary citizen of the municipality of Kürten since 1988, and a Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

He has received many record awards and honors, including the Bundesverdienstkreuz I. Class, the Siemens Music Prize, the Picasso Medal of UNESCO, the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, several Music Edition Prizes of the German Music Publishers Association, the BACH Prize of Hamburg, the Culture Prize of Cologne, and the Polar Music Prize with the laudation: »Karlheinz Stockhausen receives the Polar Music Prize of the year 2001 for a composer’s career characterized by impeccable integrity and never-ending creativity, and for having been at the forefront of musical development for 50 years.«

Stockhausen’s early works were published mostly by Universal Edition Wien, all later ones (from Work No. 30 on) by Stockhausen-Verlag, founded in 1975, which has also published 150 compact discs since 1991 in a complete Stockhausen edition. In addition to the musical works, there are 10 volumes of texts on music by Stockhausen, a booklet series with sketches and explanations of his own compositions, and a text CD edition with lectures and interviews.

www.karlheinzstockhausen.org