It was done brilliantly (Stockhausen’s Stimmung)

26.03.12, Herald Scotland

Stimmung, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow

In a darkened Fruitmarket sat a hushed audience, some on chairs, some cross-legged on cushions they'd brought from home.
At the centre were six members of the Theatre of Voices – three men, three women – each holding a microphone and lit radiantly from within. In a sense this was utter period performance of Karlheinz Stockausen's 1968 masterpiece Stimmung. The singers even looked the part in bare feet and flowing earthy robes.

Not for a minute to suggest it was simple peace, love and relaxation. Stimmung is technically fiendish. If it's done well – and it was done brilliantly here – the voices sound fluid and spontaneous, but look closely and you'll see the singers counting furiously with their fingers. Stockhausen's score is an elaborate web of 51 musical models (all harmonic overtones), erotic poetry (his own, written for his first wife and sung here in English), magic names (gods of various ethnicity) and a few other words. Much of it would sound funny out of context – in fact, much of it sounds funny in context, which is Stimmung's saving grace. For all its 1960s hocus pocus and dense serialism, it never gets too heavy handed. In his programme note, director Paul Hillier points out that Stimmung is like "an extended madrigal – one that interweaves love poetry, mythology and word painting". Certainly this performance had all the virtuosity, enchantment and interchanging purity and dissonance of a Monteverdi madrigal.

Kate Molleson