Towards a Cosmic Music is a collection of texts by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It includes interviews, conversations, discussions, essays, articles, excerpts, a survey, a litany, a manifesto, and a questionnaire.
The questionnaire is part of an Appendix. Appendix #4. There are 5 appendices.
1. Chronology of Life and Works
2. Five Revolutions Since 1950
3. Comes Awakening, Comes Time…
4. To the International Music Council
5. Mantra
Number 4, To the International Music Council, is a questionnaire.
The introduction to the questionnaire reads as follows:
“To the International Music Council:
Your ‘Questionnaire No. 2’ asks questions which suggest that wise answers may lead to a better world. I have answered them after experiencing the Third Reich, the restoration of the international music scene since 1945, and a critical period of political and economic vulgarization of all music, knowing that I cannot change the situation. But at least my voice may be remembered as one which refused to agree or collaborate with the leaders in power. I am particularly disgusted by the world’s most famous interpreters who are not serving musical progress – which means performing music born during their lifetimes – but who serve their own fame and wealth.
Please excuse my limited English.”
And it’s signed, K. Stockhausen, 21 November 1984
The International Music Council (IMC) is a branch of UNESCO dedicated exclusively to music.
I did not know about the IMC until I read this book some years ago, nor that they had implemented International Music Day on October 1 of every year. I’d like to know more about them but somehow they are always below my easy-chair’s radar. Maybe if I lived in another country?
Their questionnaire, however, is worth revisiting every once in a while. We could probably spend the rest of the days left to this blog answering some of these questions. I have deleted Stockhausen’s answers, because the questions deserve attention by themselves.
25 QUESTIONS
1. Who is the respondent? Please give full name of the respondent, organization, or group.
2. Is the current status of music, in general, satisfactory? Has it changed in the last decade? What facts support your opinion?
3. What should the status of music be, in general? How can this view be substantiated?
4. What is the current status of music in comparison with the other arts, in general? What are the causes of this status?
5. What types of music do you participate in as composer, performer or audience on a regular basis?
6. What is the dignity currently assigned to the particular types of music? What arguments can be given?
7. What types of music dominate the current ‘soundscape’?
8. What would be the optimal hierarchy of the types of music? Is there an optimal hierarchy? How can such a hierarchy be justified?
9. Should the proposed optimal hierarchy of the types of music correspond to the relative proportions of society’s perception? How can this be justified and achieved?
10. What forms of practice (amateur, professional, private, concert, stage, etc) do you engage in when involved in musical activities? What forms of reception do you use (live, cassettes, records, video, radio, tv, etc)?
11. What is the current status assigned to different forms of music practice and different forms of reception? And does this status correspond to the quantitative representation of these forms in society?
12. What, in particular, is the role of live music in the status of music? Why?
13. What, in particular, is the role of the different means of mass communication for the status of music? Why?
14. What is the role of education in the shaping of the state of music? Why?
15. Is this status of music in your city a product of internal factors or are outside factors involved also? What are these factors, e.g. social, ideological, political, organizational, economic, fashion, artistic? Examples please.
16. Which individuals or social groups (classes, layers, professional groups, e.g. music, bureaucratic, social organizations, youth, etc.) currently play an important role in opinion formation as regards the status of music?
17. Which individuals and social groups should play a significant role in opinion formation and determining the status of music?
18. What currently contributes to raising the prestige of music in society?
19. What currently contributes to lowering the prestige or music in society?
20. What can be done to raise the prestige of music?
21. What is the highest position in the hierarchy of the State administration that deals exclusively with music?
22. Can the current attitude of the State and social organization administrations be seen in the level of subsidies given to music?
23. Have any legal acts been passed recently that affect the status of music? Please discuss them.
24. What can be done to raise the prestige of music? What role, in particular, can the International Member Organizations and National Music Committees and the IMC play?
25. Are there any other questions that deserve attention in connection with the status of music?
Stockhausen’s answers can be found here.
Just for fun I started to answer these questions and then just because that was not fun I stopped
That just goes to show that you, sir, are no Stockhausen. :p
It really is not fun to answer all of these. Which is why I recommend just reading them. Answer one or two maybe, then maybe look at it again in a few years. Or not.
Some of them are more interesting than others. The whole prestige and status questions are interesting in a weird way. One of my favorites though is 21: What is the highest position in the hierarchy of the State administration that deals exclusively with music?
Is there anyone, anyone at all in our government that deals exclusively with music? maybe someone at the NIH? I can’t even begin to imagine our government dedicating a whole position to music issues. There must be someone though, right? What would it be like to have Secretary of Music way up in the cabinet? What would they do? Try to save Britney’s career or get Tom Waits to be played in classrooms across the nation?
Is there anyone, anyone at all in our government that deals exclusively with music?
Glen Miller did but then he was probably shot down by friendly fire effectively curbing enthusiasm for this position.
I have no enthusiasm for this state-centered dignity-browsing status-minded focus on music.