Kontakte

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Kontakte (1958–60)
Angharad Davies: Empty Spaces II (2023)

GBSR Duo
George Barton (Percussion)
Siwan Rhys (Klavier / Piano)

Today, Karlheinz Stockhausen's groundbreaking work Kontakte for percussion, piano and tape would probably be described as hybrid music. The piece was created at the end of the 1950s and was the fifth artistic “yield” from Stockhausen's intensive exploration of electronic sounds, which led to something completely new in endless phases of work in the studio of Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne: here to a trio for two live instruments and tape, in which acoustic and electronic sounds blend into one another and blur the previously clearly separable sound areas. At the Darmstadt Summer Course in 1961, it was performed in the “Night Program” by David Tudor and Christoph Caskel – the following day, Stockhausen analyzed the piece as part of his lecture “Moment-Form”. Photos of the densely written chalkboard and tape recordings are preserved in the IMD archive.

In 2019, the young London-based duo GBSR – George Barton (percussion) and Siwan Rhys (piano) – recorded Stockhausen‘s classic and caused quite a stir in the UK. For its debut at the Darmstadt Summer Course, GBSR will perform this piece in different versions: first in the “original” (quadrophonic) version on the stage of the Lichtenberg School gym, then one day later (Wed. 30 July) in the 3D Audio Art Lab at the Bessunger Knabenschule in a version that experimentally explores today’s technical possibilities of the interplay of acoustic and electronic sounds.

However, the fact that GBSR is also primarily interested in contemporary repertoire for its instrumentation is reflected in the two other pieces that flank Stockhausen's Kontakte in the duo‘s performances: Angharad Davies’ Empty Spaces II, a piece that emerged from a close collaboration with the Welsh violinist and improviser, and the world premiere of Aaron Holloway-Nahum's Dig It!, a virtuoso exploration of the possibilities of 3D audio sound.