Stimmung KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN

Theatre of Voices Paul Hillier

807408 W o r l d w i d e R e l e a s e s e PT E MB e r 2 0 0 7 Grammy Award-winning conductor Paul Hillier revisits Stockhausen’s “Stimmung” and creates a new “Copenhagen” version for Theatre of Voices.

“STIMMUNG is certainly meditative music. Time is suspended. One listens to the interior of the sound, to the interior of the harmonic spectrum, to the interior of the vowel…”

– Karlheinz Stockhausen

“Theatre of Voices, prepared by their founder and director, Paul Hillier, performed with an intensity that made for a unique sonic experience. At the heart of their interpretation was a feat of musical alchemy: they made audible the harmonics that are usually hidden around individual notes. By changing the vowel sound of a held pitch, they created a chorus of ethereal, bell-like sounds that soared octaves above the chord they were actually singing.” – The Guardian (Concert review from 2006 UK Tour)

ith the 1968 Paris première of his Stimmung, Karlheinz In 1990, after many years as Music Director of the Hilliard Ensemble, Stockhausen exploded the very definition of vocal music Paul Hillier founded the Theatre of Voices and began his series of W performance. This tour de force, made up of an unbroken acclaimed recordings for harmonia mundi usa. Flexible in size, the sequence of 51 sonic models – entirely built on the overtones of B-flat ensemble was created to focus on medieval and renaissance polyphony and presented in every possible voice combination – experiments with and contemporary composers of the “new tonality” school, electronica new compositional techniques and explores the mechanics of speech and experimental work. “I like the idea that you can create a world with and song. Paul Hillier, a champion of early and contemporary vocal just the sound of voices,” he has said, “even with a single voice there repertoire, leads Theatre of Voices in his newly created “Copenhagen is so much you can do.” Considered one of the world’s foremost vocal version” of a milestone of 20th-century music that today remains as ensembles, Theatre of Voices now operates in a European reincarnation relevant as ever. out of Denmark where Hillier is based. The size of the group expands or contracts depending on the repertoire, ranging from solo and Hillier’s long relationship with Stimmung began in the 1970s when he small ensemble works such as “Bitter Ballads” and the recent “Cries of performed it as a member of Singcircle with Stockhausen himself at London” to larger ensemble pieces, like Arvo Pärt’s De Profundis. the controls. Written in 1968, a year of revolt and idealism, it is a Variety called one Theatre of Voices concert a “profound musical definitive work of the era based on one chord for its 70-minute expression with vocal performances of bell-like clarity.” duration. Staged for six miked singers in a circle, it allows the performers space to improvise and influence the outcome of the overall perfor- For a complete Theatre of Voices discography visit: mance. The serene but highly charged aural landscape of Stimmung www.harmoniamundi.com has global roots originating in Stockhausen’s absorption of musical experiences as he traveled the world in the 1950s and 1960s – from mystic experiences in Mexico to Tibetan overtone singing. It manages to Worldwide Release be utterly esoteric and yet one of Stockhausen’s most accessible works; highly spiritual and yet very funny; highly mystical, yet September 2007 profane and erotic in its poetry. When performed on tour in the U.K., The Times called it “mesmerizing” and The Daily Telegraph described the performance as “evoking a feeling of ritual and tranquility” and said “its contemplative aura can be salutary.” Karlheinz Stockhausen Stimmung Paul Hillier / Theatre of Voices

Available SACD format only www.harmoniamundi.com This stereo/multi-channel hybrid SACD U.S. Publicity Contact: Sarah Folger can be played on any standard compact disc player [email protected] HMU 807408 / 78:02   2007 harmonia mundi usa / HMU-FLY60076 Design: Scarlett Freund Aa93046c&$)*^XN