Dilettante Music

Aus den sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days) (1968) is the culmination of Karlheinz Stockhausen's exploration of "intuitive" music in the 1960s. Having worked with a select group of highly sympathetic musicians in performances of such improvisational works as Mikrophonie I (1964), Prozession (1967), and Kurzwellen (1968), Stockhausen wrote Aus den sieben Tagen in an attempt to take the group's learned performance practice to a transcendent level of cooperation.

The score consists of fifteen pieces notated with a few graphic indications, but most of the performance instructions are written in prose. Phrases such as "play a vibration in the rhythm of your body" or "Think nothing..." are typical of Stockhausen's compositional directives. The group Stockhausen had worked with throughout the 1960s included pianist Aloys Kontarsky, percussionists Fred Alings and Rolf Gelhaar, violist Johannes Fritsch, and electronium player Harald Bojé; indeed, the makeup of this ensemble determined the scoring for the first version of this work. The work's instrumentation, however, is not specifically indicated; conceivably, any group of musicians may play any collection of sound sources. In addition to being highly developed as musicians, however, the performers should ideally prepare their consciousness (individually and collectively) through meditation and an approach to total awareness.

~ All Music Guide