Karlheinz Stockhausen

German avant-garde composers of the mid-20th century, born in Cologne in 1928.

In 1953 Stockhausen helped found Cologne's important Electronic Music Studio. His works include the wind quintet Time Measure (1956); Gruppen (1955-1957), written for three orchestras; Zyklus (1961), for solo percussionist; the multimedia work Beethausen von Stockhoven (1970); and the chamber works Ylem (1973) and Tierkreis (1977). Youthsong (1956) projects a singing boy's voice, mingled with electronic sounds, through five spatially separated loudspeakers.

Mentioned in "My Favorite Records", an FZ penned article in Hit Parader (1967): There's a record by Karlheinz Stockhausen on the Deutsche Gramophon label called "Gesang der Jünglinge", it's the "Song Of The Youths"; "Kontackte" ("Contact") is on the other side. Buy that (DGG 138811).

It was the 1956 "plick-plop" piece "Gesang der Jünglinge" (a boy's voice construed and converted with a panoply of electronic sounds), that inspired Paul McCartney to utilize his Brennell tape recorders for less conventional purposes, as Stockhausen himself had done. McCartney, an advocate of all things melodious, had undergone a reformation of thought, no longer subscribing to the ingrained belief that rhythm, time signatures and even melody were essential. the cover art of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band depicts Stockhausen, top row, fifth person from left. The Beatles recycled his Hymnen ("Anthems") in the Revolution Number 9 of The White Album.