Dissonance

World Reception

The Performance History of Stockhausen’s Hymnen

Stefan Fricke im Gespräch mit Péter Eötvös
Péter Eötvös not only experienced the genesis and performance history of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Hymnen at close hand, but also helped to shape them. As a student of Stockhausen he followed the composition of the electronic version, then the one for soloists (a version in which he featured countless times as pianist), and finally the orchestral version commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, with which Eötvös kick-started his own conducting career, years after the tumultuous world première in New York in 1971. In this interview with Stefan Fricke, he offers his reminiscences of various performance situations and their precise details.

by moxi