Karlheinz Stockhausen - Prozession

Featuring:

Musicians on the recording

Kazimieras Jušinskas, sax
Monika Kiknadzė, vla
Simonas Kaupinis, tuba
Deimantas Balys, gt
Domantas Razmus, tamtam
Kristupas Gikas, microphones
Kristupas Kmitas, perc.

Recording track list

NoBusiness Records NBCC 11
Release year - 2022

Credits and release info

Live recording at the "Improdimensija" Vilnius, Lithuania 6th February, 2019.

Prozession (1967) is one of a series of works dating from the 1960s which Stockhausen designated as "process" compositions. These works separate the "form" from the "content" by presenting the performers with a series of transformation signs which are to be applied to material that may vary considerably from one performance to the next. In Prozession, the performers choose material from specific earlier compositions by Stockhausen as a starting point and modify it using plus, minus, and equal signs. Each plus, minus, or equal sign indicates that, upon repetition of an event, the performer is to increase, decrease, or maintain the same level in one of four musical dimensions (or "parameters"): overall duration of the event, number of internal subdivisions, dynamic level, or pitch register/range. It is up to the performer to decide which of these dimensions is to be affected. Despite this indeterminacy, a large number of plus signs (for example) will result in successive events becoming longer, more finely subdivided, louder, and either higher or wider in range; a large number of minus signs will produce the reverse effect. In this way, a continuing process of changes is controlled, and the work's title is taken from this concept at its core: German Prozeß = "process" means "procession” in english.