Analysis and Performance of Stockhausen's Klavierstück X

Abstract

Herbert Henck's (1980) analysis of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Klavierstück X (1961) offers a fascinating insight into the composer's compositional process at an important juncture in his career. In this article I draw on the now significant recording tradition, including Henck's own canonical version (on Stockhausen [1986] 1996), and Stockhausen's contemporaneous moment‐form theory to explore the influence of the performer – confronted with the many novel rhythmic and technical features of the score – on the salience of the serial processes that Henck describes and the concomitant emergence of the piece's form in performance. I begin with a summary and contextualisation of Henck's analysis in terms of performance practice and audience perception. This then informs my analysis of the eight commercially available recordings, proceeding from discussion of global and sectional tempo data and their bearing on the teleological drive of the piece to qualitative close readings of five case studies, whose serial aesthetics, structural properties and interrelationships are negotiated with recourse to Stockhausen's moment classifications. As well as illustrating the contingency of the performer's contribution on the piece's teleological, serial‐statistical and moment‐formal properties, my methods have epistemological implications for the reciprocal and peculiar relationship that, I argue, must continue to inform the relationship between analysis and performance in the field of New Music.