Stockhausen’s hugely ambitious tape piece created in the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne during the height of the Cold War uses around 40 different national anthems as its raw material. Stockhausen subjects these symbols of nationalism to an enormous range of transformations and rearrangements, creating a four-channel piece which ranges from massed ensembles with electronic sound and screaming feedback, reducing everything down to the sound of a single human breathing.
This piece is rarely performed, and the Eliot Hall provides an amazing space in which to hear it.
Runtime: 120 minutes
Pre-concert talk: 6:30 pm
Concert: 7:00 – 9:15 with interval
Tickets available from the Gulbenkian Box Office: £8 (£5 concessions)
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