A few months ago, there was some discussion on the list concerning the 2001 Polar Price ceremony in Stockholm, where Karl Bartos spoke the laudatio for Karlheinz Stockhausen (The other award winners were Bob Moog -see below- and Burt Bacharach). Someone asked whether Stockhausen even knew Kraftwerk, as he did not recognize "Autobahn" in the first place. Well, now some quite interesting first hand information has appeared on the Stockhausen website (the text was written by Suzanne Stephens, a longtime collaborator of Stockhausen): ... As we ate, Karl Bartos of the group Kraftwerk came over to our table to introduce himself and to say that he had been asked to speak Stockhausen’s laudatio during the awards ceremony, and that he was honoured to do so. As many of you know, Kraftwerk is another one of the many groups who says that they were greatly influenced by the music of Stockhausen. Therefore, it is a very fitting choice to have asked him. ... After the interview we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with the German ambassador and his wife at the German Embassy in Stockholm. (...) The German ambassador in Stockholm often has the occasion to entertain German nobel prize winners, but this was the first time that a German had been awarded the Polar Music Prize. Also present were Stuart Ward, manager of the Polar Music Prize, Ake Holmquist, General Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, all of the musicians who were performing Stockhausen’s works that weekend, Karl Bartos and his wife,and several other guests (...) ... The performance of GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE went perfectly and then Karl Bartos walked onto the stage to read the laudatio. He first briefly spoke to Stockhausen in German, saying that he felt very honoured to be present on this occasion and that he extended his own personal warm congratulations for the well-deserved prize which Stockhausen was now being awarded. Then he spoke the official laudatio: “Ever since his first compositions in the 1950s, Karlheinz Stockhausen, from Germany, has stood at the forefront of musical development. While no contemporary composer has generated as much heated discussion as he does, no one can deny Stockhausen’s importance and pivotal role. Stockhausen’s work, GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE, composed in 1956, first brought electronic music to the public eye and is still considered to be one of the masterpieces of its kind. At the start of the 1960s, Stockhausen turned his interest toward live electronics. At the same time, he began exhibiting an interest in oriental philosopy and religion and became a pioneer of world music and the meditative form. Since 1977, he has been working on his soon to be completed LICHT-opera, the greatest musical endeavor since Wagner’s ring. Karlheinz Stockhausen is being awarded the Polar Music Prize for 2001 for a career as a composer that has been characterized by impeccable integrity and never-ceasing creativity, and for having stood at the forefront of musical development for fifty years.” Then HM King Carl XVI Gustaf walked onto the stage, presented Stockhausen with the citation, and shook his hand. ... Following this, Stockhausen gave an interview with the Swedish national television for the Culture News during which he was asked, among other things, how he felt about the fact that many of the young generation of techno musicians claim that Stockhausen’s music greatly influenced their musical ideas. He said that he is pleased that the younger generation is finally beginning to spend time experimenting with sound in studios, and that he considered it a compliment that they were familiar with, and respected his work. Asked in detail about the music of some of the groups, he said he was not well informed, but that young musicians regularly send him recordings of their work and he often listens to them and sends them his comments. In one of the many interviews which he had given per telephone and in person in connection with the Polar Music Prize prior to coming to Stockholm, he had been asked about the fact that he has always had a major influence on progressive pop music, such as that of the Beatles, Can, and Kraftwerk, and he was asked how he thought his music had influenced them. He couldn’t answer that question, but upon hearing an excerpt played over earphones and asked if he knew what group it was, he guessed correctly when he heard the words Autobahn Autobahn Autobahn… ... We just had time to deposit our suitcases in the rooms before we walked over to the nearby Royal Swedish Academy of Music where the press conference was to take place. Before it began, Stockhausen and Robert Moog had a chance to briefly chat. During the activities of the weekend they never had time to “talk shop”, but they agreed to keep in touch because, Stockhausen is very much interested in Moog’s new analogue synthesizers, which allow better individual sound synthesis than the commercial digital synthesizers do. ... It seemed as if they could have gone on talking with each other forever, but finally had to stop for questions from the audience. Moog and Stockhausen agreed to keep in touch to discuss Stockhausen’s many complaints about the synthesizers presently on the market and Moog’s development of a new analogue synthesizer which could quiet allot of those complaints. I hope this was interesting to read for some people on the list. For me, it was.

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As many of you know, Kraftwerk is another one of the many groups who says that they were greatly influenced by the music of Stockhausen.

Have they ever actually said that they were? (Genuine question!).

I don't think so, but I just wanted to pass on the text without personal comments. What I know for sure is that Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay from Can were students of Stockhausen in the sixties. But tell Klaus Schulze that he is in any way influenced by Stockhausen (as some interviewers did) and he will tell you that this is plain nonsense. But anyway, Stockhausen has never been very interested in pop music, although recently some journalist had the silly idea to send him some recordings by techno artists to ask him what advice he could give to his "younger colleagues". As you would expect, the advice was always something like: "Stop using these regular rhythms" and "Stop using these conventional major/minor harmonies", which of course for pop musicians comes close to saying: "Stop making music altogether"!

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It seemed as if they could have gone on talking with each other forever, but finally had to stop for questions from the audience. Moog and Stockhausen agreed to keep in touch to discuss Stockhausen's many complaints about the synthesizers presently on the market and Moog's development of a new analogue synthesizer which could quiet allot of those complaints.

Phat filters? :-D

I read an interview with Stockhausen on this topic some years ago. What he seems to be primarily looking for in a synthesizer is not the "sound" as such but the possibilities to edit given sounds as radically as possible and to "compose" sounds from scratch. This is why he hates the ROMplers that became popular in the 90s, while he likes devices like the early DX models and sophisticated analogue synthesizers. I'm quite sure, though, that he is not very well informed about the current market situation, as there are now some instruments which come close to his conceptions. OK, as this is the Kraftwerk list, I don't want to go into further details.