Formula Composition - Stockhausen's Music

Stockhausen's Music

Though foreshadowed in Stockhausen's once-withdrawn Formel (Formula) of 1951, the technique made its first appearance in Mantra in 1970, and became the central focus of Stockhausen's music up to 2003. Stockhausen's mammoth opera cycle Licht is based on a three-strand "super-formula".

Hermann Conen (1991, 57) identifies two kinds of formula composition in Stockhausen’s works prior to Licht:

formula compositions in which the form results from projection of the formula, . . . works in which melodies in themselves possess many internal characteristics of formulas, but where the formal idea itself does not originate from the formula(s) used in their realisation

Works of the first type include Mantra (1970), Inori (1973–74), Jubiläum (1977), and In Freundschaft (1977); works of the second type comprise Alphabet für Liège (1972), the “Laub und Regen” duet from Herbstmusik (1974), Musik im Bauch (1975), Harlekin (1975), Der kleine Harlekin (1975), and Sirius (1975–77). Other works from the 1970s, such as Sternklang (1971), Trans (1971), Ylem (1972), the first three parts of Herbstmusik, Atmen gibt das Leben (1974/76–77), Tierkreis (1974–75), and Amour (1976) do not employ formula technique, according to Conen, though the composer includes Atmen gibt das Leben amongst the works composed using "formula complexes" (Stockhausen 1989a).