KÜRTEN, GERMANY-The archbishop of Milan has invited Stockhausen to perform the works FREIA, Xi, AVE and the electronic 4-track space music GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE (SONG OF THE YOUTHS) at the Milan Cathedral on April 1st 2004. Stockhausen realised GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE from 1954 to 1956 at the Studio for Electronic Music of the WDR in Cologne. He had initially intended that the work be an electronic mass for the Cologne Cathedral. But at that time it was not permitted to perform loudspeaker music in the cathedral, so he changed his plan and composed the Song of the Three Youths in the Fiery Furnace based on the text of Daniel 3:57.

Further information: Mons. Luigi Garbini, e-mail: artache@tin.it, Fax. 0039 02331 9993.

Beginning of the lecture Music and Speech given during the Darmstadt Vacation Courses in 1957, first published in die Reihe 6, Vienna 1958.

The Hymn of Praise of the Three Youths is a series of acclamations from the apocryphal Book of Daniel, and is thus more or less universally known. The composition GESANG DER JÜNGLINGE is based on the German version as recited following the Catholic Mass (there are several translations of the Latin in common use, and I have selected syllables and words from each of them, according to my requirements). These are the lines which were used as the verbal material:

O all ye works of the Lord, praise (exult in) the Lord –
laud Him and exalt Him above all forever.

O ye angels of the Lord, praise ye the Lord –
O ye heavens, praise ye the Lord.

O all ye waters that be above the heavens,
praise ye the Lord –
O all ye hosts of the Lord, praise ye the Lord.

O ye sun and moon, praise ye the Lord –
O ye stars of heaven, praise ye the Lord.

O every rain and dew, praise ye the Lord –
O all ye winds, praise ye the Lord.

O ye fire and heat of summer, praise ye the Lord –
O ye cold and harsh winter, praise ye the Lord.

O ye dew and fall of rain, praise ye the Lord –
O ye ice and frost, praise ye the Lord.

O ye hoar frost and snow, praise ye the Lord –
O ye nights and days, praise ye the Lord.

O ye light and darkness, praise ye the Lord –
O ye lightning and clouds, praise ye the Lord.

These are nine verses of the Hymn of Praise; the translations in use contain another eleven verses. I have sometimes used exult in (jubelt) rather than praise (preiset), depending on the context.

Essentially the text consists of three words – preiset den Herrn (praise ye the Lord) – which are continually repeated in connection with an enumeration of all kinds of things. Clearly this enumeration can be continued endlessly or broken off after the first line, just as lines and words can be permuted without altering the basic meaning: alle Werke (all ye works). Thus the text lends itself particularly well to integration in a purely musical, structural order (especially in a permutational serial one) without regard for the literary form, message, or anything else. The Song of the Youths reminds us of a collective idea: whenever the word preiset (praise) emerges at one moment and the word Herrn (Lord) at another – or vice versa – one immediately associates them with a familiar verbal context. The words are memorised, and the important things are that they have been memorised at all, and how they have been memorised – the detailed content is of secondary importance. Attention is directed towards the spiritual – speech becomes ritual.

(End)