John Smyth wrote:

>I like Stockhausen's "Kontakte" very much.

This is also an important piece of music from a historical-conceptual
standpoint.  In fact, I noticed this thread in part because a reference
to his piece is in the opening paragraph of an article I wrote on "tempo"
this month.

The title & implication of Kontakte are derived from the nature of both
note (i.e.  440Hz, etc.) and rhythm as vibrations, the former generally
rather faster than the latter.  The climax of the piece comes when a note
becomes low enough and a rhythm becomes fast enough that they become the
same, contact.

The other major technical piece I would recommend is "Mantra"
which is basically a set of variations, including some rather unusual
transformations of the material.  There are also two recordings of this.

In neither of these pieces is performer freedom really an important issue,
in terms of recognizing them, as discussed previously in this thread.

Todd McComb
[log in to unmask]