Paris: Darmstadt 1947-1956.

Excerpt from the Autobiographical Portrait

Author(s): Karel Goeyvaerts
Source: Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap , 1994,
Vol. 48, The Artistic Legacy of Karel Goeyvaerts. A Collection of Essays (1994), pp. 35-
54
Published by: Societe Belge de Musicologie

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3687127

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 PARIS - DARMSTADT 1947 - 1956

Excerpt from the Autobiographical Portrait

Karel GOEYVAERTS

This is an extract from Karel Goeyvaerts: Een zelfportret, Ghent, 1988, p. 1

It deals with the development of multiple serialism and the history of electroni
from the point of view of the composer, who was involved in the process from t
set. Given that it was not the author's intention to present an in-depth expose o
basic principles of musical thought in the '50O's, but rather to provide a p
interpretation of developments as Goeyvaerts experienced them, the English tra
tion retains the informal and colloquial style of the original. The extract tr
Goeyvaerts' studies in Paris (analysis with O. Messiaen, composition with D
haud), his activities in the Darmstadter Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik and in the
founded WDR studio for electronic music, and the upheaval in his life in th
Karel Goeyvaerts began to compose again in the 1960's, yet it was 1969 bef
again played any official role in the musical life of his country.

In October 1947 I went to Paris. I lived in the Belgian colony at the Cite-Uni
sitaire. Messiaen was expecting me to enroll in his new class. The entrance exam
the composition class was due to be held in January, giving me thus sufficient
adjust my writing of fugues to the style the French expected and to put the fi
touches to the compositions I wanted to present. They were required to be perf
The Loriod family put me up in their home at Colombes.
On Sunday I went along to the Trinite to listen to Messiaen. On his retu
France Milhaud succumbed once again to the illness from which he suffered
end of his days. He stayed at Aix-en-Provence until the end of the year and his
in the Conservatoire was taken by Henri Busser. The latter was by now sixt
years of age and had actually retired as teacher of composition at the Conservat
For many years Busser was largely responsible for preparing, and then awardin
"Prix de Rome" and he lived to be over a hundred. Henri Busser showed no interest
whatever in our compositions. He spent his time recounting anecdotes, such as the
one about his own teacher Massenet, who used to prod the pages of the scores which
were too heavily orchestrated with his walking stick. The scores were spread out on
the ground and he would occassionally mumble: "Trop noir! Trop noir!". It could
not be said that Milhaud really taught either. I was to get a taste of him later. He just
let the pieces be played (Yvonne Loriod took charge of the transposing instruments)
and put up with anything, on condition it did not drag on too long.
For my entrance exam for the composition class I had fellow-students from the
Conservatoire perform a string quartet, which has since been lost, and a Prelude and
Fugue for piano. I had counted on Yvonne Loriod to play the piano piece, but she

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refused. She was reputed to have learned Schoenberg's Piano Concerto off by heart
in a week so that she could perform it in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In fact it
took her a lot longer. The truth was that she simply could not know my piece by heart
to meet the deadline, and there was no way she was going to play from the score. So
she let me play it myself. I played it rather awkwardly, especially the Fugue, with its
atonal polyphonic texture, and the climax took me by surprise: a perfect triad, which
had the jury in stitches. I did manage to get accepted as a pupil, and that was quite
something. In the Conservatoire National each class is strictly limited to ten French
and two foreign students. My foreign classmate was Pia Sebastiani from Argentina.
I had confined my programme of studies in Paris to composition, analysis and
Ondes Martenot. Maurice Martenot's electronic instrument was the height of fashion
at the time. Some of Messiaen's pupils had tried it out: Boulez and Grimaud were
completely sold out on waves; Loriod left hers to her sister. Jeanne was also a rather
accomplished pianist, yet Yvonne could not tolerate any competition within her
family. Given that my programme was so limited, I only spent two half-days a week
in the Conservatoire attending Messiaen's class, two half-days with Milhaud at his
home and one evening at Maurice Martenot's house. The rest of the week I devoted
to composition and sport (jogging in the park round the Cit6, volley-ball, judo, swim-
ming ...). I wrote a lot of music and was the only one who could produce something
new for Milhaud on every occasion. We managed to put an album together for Mil-
haud's birthday. My contribution was a piece for voice and piano, based on a text
from the Michelin Guide of Paris describing the Eiffel Tower: "C'est la vigie de la
capitale, le monument parisien le plus universellement connu. Le poids de la tour est
celui d'un cylindre d'air, haut de trois-cent metres et dont la base envelopperait les
quatre pieds de l'edifice..." I wanted to keep the piece as tonal as possible. Milhaud's
reaction: "C'est curieux! Quand il veut faire quelque chose de drole, il retrouve les
harmonies de Franck!"
I got to know the violinist Marcel Debot at the Cit6 Universitaire. It was for him
that I wrote my First Violin Concerto, one of my earliest large-scale compositions.
His technical advice helped me greatly. That same concerto was my first submission
for my exam in composition. As one might expect, Marcel played the solo part while
Pia Sebastiani and myself, with the help of a piano and a series of other objects -
anything that could make a noise basically - tried to create an orchestral sound.
There were passages where the violin was accompanied by percussion only and Pia
drummed with her bony fingers on the wooden seat of a chair. It was through Mil-
haud that I got to know Paul Collaer. He immediately offered to organize a radio
broadcast of my Violin Concerto. It was the first time I heard the sound of my own
orchestra, always a big moment in a composer's life. The conductor was Sternefeld.
Later I heard that Lodewijk De Vocht interrupted a meeting so as to listen to it on the
radio. His comment: "It sounds like nothing on earth". I understand him better now.
It was indeed music which floated etherially and soothingly on the air waves, yet ton-
ally one could not pin it down. Nor was it aggressive. It swayed. Marcel Debot gave
Queen Elizabeth advance notice of the broadcast. No reaction was ever forthcoming.

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 After the Violin Concerto I moved on to develop a rather loose polyphonic style,
in which every voice was equally important. Each musician had to phrase autono-
mously and the music as a whole came across as a thickly woven musical fabric,
within which at different moments each component played a prominent role. My first
attempt at this genre was Music for violin, contralto and piano. The contralto sang
Shakespeare sonnets, yet both instruments played music which seemed in no way
related to the sung text. The score for the violin was intended for Marcel Debot. The
score for voice was for my niece Mia Greeve, about whom I have not written a great
deal up to now, yet who was to exercise a major influence on my musical thinking.
At that stage I was not too worried about who should play the piano part. I came to
the gradual realization that my own piano technique would not be up to it. Yvonne
Loriod was once again anxious to duck the challenge, but I did find in Genevieve Joy
a competent and willing performer.
In the January exam session of 1949, when the special prizes were awarded, I
got the Lily Boulanger Prize for my Music. I really don't know whether Nadia Bou-
langer, who founded the Prize, liked a piece which went against all her ideas of
sobriety. Regardless, it provided me with the opportunity of getting to know Nadia
Boulanger a little better. The value of the prize had dropped sharply since the War but
she supplemented it by a donation which I was presented when I went to the Conser-
vatoire to pick up my prize. I wrote her a "thank-you" letter and in reply she invited
me to one of her famous Wednesday afternoons. Nadia sat in state at the far end of
her large drawing room. Her guests always kissed her hand on arrival. On occasion
there were up to between thirty and forty people, and they sat in a serried row on
chairs which were set against the walls. Once I had kissed her hand, Nadia ushered
me to a seat next to Doda Conrad, then at the peek of his career. I knew he was the
son of Marya Freund, the "Sprechstimme" from Milhaud's version of Pierrot
Lunaire. I had heard her in a radio broadcast of Pierrot. She interpreted the "Sprech-
stimme" with quite incredible subtility, totally different from the highly dramatic
Erika Wagner who took the part in Schoenberg's own version. It was Milhaud's claim
that Schoenberg wanted to see these two sharply contrasting versions side by side.
Doda Conrad had inherited his feeling for the new music from his mother (who
was herself his singing teacher), yet he was much closer to the French avant-garde of
the day.
With that Music for violin, contralto and piano I was able to experience for the
first time how a work can enjoy a life of its own. One thing I have always hated is
running after musicians to ask them if they would perform my music. Fortunately,
there are certain works which do not require the hard sell. This was the case with the
Music, which was soon to be broadcast on French Radio and at home in Belgium. In
Brussels Paul Collaer himself played the piano part. He played reasonably well, al-
though some of the tempi had to be slowed down so that he could keep in step with
the sequence of quick chords which I had put in the piano score. French Radio refu-
sed to accept any of the performers suggested by me. The trio was made up of the
following musicians: Robert Quatrocchi, who certainly did not merit the nickname

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he was given in the Opera Orchestra ("pas trop cuit, mais tres con"); Yvonne Mel-
chior, one of Lawitz's daughters; and Ginette Doyen, who for some reason which
never became clear was chosen instead of Genevieve Joy.
In the meantime I was working night and day on a new piece. Initially it had no
title, but later it was to be called Tre Lieder per sonare a venti-sei. My musical lan-
guage soon became highly complex. It was a three-part work for twenty six musicians,
each of whom had to play a more or less autonomous part. In terms of sound it was
very like certain post-serial works: extensive percussion (one player) with vibra-
phone and a whole range of metal and wooden instruments, solo strings, solo wood-
wind and brass, Ondes Martenot... In short, an ensemble of instruments which was
later described in the words of one critic as "every imaginable sound an ensemble of
instruments can produce (this was 1950!) and when all that world of sound was
exhausted Goeyvaerts let us hear this mysterious little sweet-shop bell". The bell was
there for sure. But it did not come from a sweet-shop. It was an altar-bell a priest-
friend of mine in Paris used at Mass. In July 1949 I presented the Tre Lieder at the
composition exam in the Conservatoire National. At our disposal we had an orchestra
(Les Cadets du Conservatoire) and a conductor: no one less than Roger Desormiere,
a distinguished specialist in the new music.
I believe that all this was thanks to Jean Rivier who knew Desormiere well and

who took Milhaud's place when he was away teaching in California. At the recom-
mendation of Maurice Martenot I approached Pierre Boulez to ask him if he would
perform the part for Ondes Martenot. At that time Boulez lived like a hermit in a gar-
ret in the Boulevard Henri IV. A cousin of his lived in the same building and provi-
ded him with food. Boulez had cut off his ties with Messiaen, ran after Leibowitz for
a while but severed contact with him too. He kept up with only a few friends, and this
small circle included Jean-Louis Barrault and Roger Desormiere. He provided theatre
music for Barrault who at the time based his company at the Marigny and produced
some quite remarkable plays. One of these plays was Kafka's The Trial for which
Boulez produced a heart-rending six-tone tune, which he himself played on Ondes
Martenot. I went along to pay a call on Boulez in his garret. He acceeded to my
request immediately, partly because his friend Desormiere would be conducting and
partly, I suspect, to get me off his back. At the time he was working flat out and I had
probably come and disturbed him in the full flight of compositional activity (maybe
while he was working on Le Marteau sans Maitre). My friends found Boulez a tricky
customer. Milhaud said of him: "On ne peut pas faire de la musique rien qu'avec de
la haine". And yet a few years later when Desormiere suffered a total loss of memory
- something he was never to overcome - Boulez went to visit him every day and
brought him systematically through the first six notes: do...re...mi...fa. He would
have forgotten everything by the next day yet Boulez started again from scratch.
Collaer was clear in his mind that he wanted to broadcast the Tre Lieder on the
radio. He was planning to conduct it himself. Then suddenly the I.S.C.M. jury chose
my work. The "World Music Days 1950" were to take place in Brussels. Sterefeld
was due to conduct the piece at the I.S.C.M. World Music Days and when he saw the

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score he declared that I was the most progressive composer in the country. He was
probably right. Robert Wangermee was the then president of the Belgian section of
the I.S.C.M. It was agreed that I would play the part written for Ondes Martenot. The
instrument, with all its appurtenances, was hired from Paris. Jean-Louis Martenot
took care of the customs documents and took me and my cargo to the railway station.
The cargo aroused suspicion and was immediately seized. I was due to rehearse that
very day. Not knowing what to do, I called Wangermee and he got someone from the
radio station to sort things out. After payment of a rather high guarantee, the lot was
shipped to the Place Flagey and there was just enough time to allow the lamps to
warm up before the rehearsal. This procedure had to be executed with great care,
otherwise we ran the risk of having an instrument on our hands which was seriously
out of tune. The 1950 performance was a triumph. Conrad Beck wanted to have my
piece performed in Switzerland. Daniel Lesur came to tell me that my composition
was the revelation of the Festival. Yet inside me there was something fermenting.
At the time the Tre Lieder were being first performed I was already working on
my Sonata for two pianos. It was like as if I had reached the promised land. At
various stages in my life I have turned my back on the past, yet never have I closed a
chapter so abruptly. I began to discourage anyone who wanted to perform the Tre
Lieder. Henceforth my name was going to be linked with a completely different type
of music. For me one of the high points of the I.S.C.M. World Music Days was the
world premiere of Weber's Second Cantata, with Herbert Hafner as conductor, and
with Otto Wiener and Ilona Steingriiber and those members of the choir of the BRT
who had been my colleagues five years before. I had a score. I cannot recall who
gave it to me, yet I do remember how happy Herbert Eimert was to follow it with me
during the performance. During a meal that followed I sat opposite Herbert Hafner
and his wife. He was able to tell me a great deal about the Weber performances in
Vienna. I discovered later that he exaggerated, given that performances of Weber
were as rare in Vienna as they were in Belgium. Yet it was the first time I ever heard
Weber in a concert performance. The impression it made on me was the same as I
was to experience a few years later when, in the company of Karlheinz Stockhausen,
I first laid eyes on a Mondriaan canvas in the Kroller-Mtiller Museum: those things,
of which I had acquired an extremely intimate knowledge, came across as crude and
unfinished when seen in reality.
Somewhere among my possessions I still have the complete list of results from
the Conservatoire National's July 1949 exam session. I kept it not just because my
Second Prize, awarded for the Tre Lieder per sonare a venti-sei, is mentioned, but
also because mentioned in dispatches from Solange Schwarz's Dancing class we can
find a certain Miss Brigitte Bardot, born in Paris on ... The rest we can pass over in
silence. That indiscreet prize list gave not only surnames, but also nicknames (Miss
Vasilescu, called Vales) and place of birth of the winners, and in addition, without
any ambiguity whatever, the date of birth.
In relating about ISCM-Brussels I've run ahead of myself a little. It is necessary
to go back and mention two musical experiences from 1949 and early 1950. One of

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them concerns "musique concrete" on French Radio. I had heard vague stories about
it from Pierre Henry, who had played the percussion part in my Tre Lieder, but it was
over the air waves that I first heard this novel music. That moment serial thinking
began to take shape: it was irreconcilable with the chaotic sound world of the "musi-
que concrete" . Jean Barraque who was a friend of mine at the time had precisely the
same opinion. Yvette Grimaud saw things differently. She went to work with
Schaeffer and with the patience of Job analysed those complex sounds produced by
railway trains and kitchen pots. Yvette could not reconcile herself to accepting
sounds which were totally beyond the composer's control, but she thought she could
avoid the problem by a better understanding of the sounds used. In no time at all she
had to abandon her analysis. In 1950 Jean also began to experiment with concrete
sounds under Schaeffer's direction with a view to finding whether they could be used
serially. He quickly saw how absurd it was.
An experience of a different kind, and a much more profound one, was my first
acquaintance with John Cage. He came along to Messiaen's analysis class to perform
some of his Sonatas and Interludes, a work he had completed a few years earlier and
was still completely unknown in Europe. At that time Cage was tall and thin and
sported a crew cut ("a scrubbing brush"). He came across as shy when Messiaen
introduced him to the class. He had executed the preparation of his "prepared piano"
alone in that classroom of the Conservatory building on the rue de Madrid. The crisp
sounds of his gamelan piano and the precise rhythm of the sonatas kept us spell-
bound. Messiaen claimed that this was his most riveting musical experience since he
first discovered aarngadeva's Degitala (a theoretical work from 13th century India
which had to a large extent influenced Messiaen's own thinking on rhythm).
Myself and Jean Barraque attended a performance of Tristan and Isolde at the
opera, with Max Lorenz and Kirsten Flagstad in the leading roles. It was supposed to
be Flagstad's swan song, yet she turned out to be like Don Basilio in The Barber of
Seville: her farewell performances never ended... She was actually perfectly right to
keep on going as her voice, steady as a rock, flowed like liquid gold and her ecstasy
in the final scene was so authentic that one could completely overlook her imposing
stature. Flagstad was still able to carry off the Liebestod to perfection. I have another
opera memory. I saw my beloved Rosenkavalier twice within three days: in Paris
with Rise Stevens, Hilde Konetzny and Emmanuel List; in Brussels (in the Palais des
Beaux-Arts transformed for the occasion into an opera house) with Maria Miiller,
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (at that stage still in the role of Octavian) and Kurt Bohme.
Even though there was no one who had laid eyes on the score, Boulez's Second
Piano Sonata was discussed a lot in our little group. Once the premiere came along,
with Yvette Grimaud as soloist, it was quite an event. Yvette was slight in statue, not
built to make a big sound. Although she mastered the complex rhythms of the piece,
her fingers were not quite up to doing justice to the sharp contrasts in dynamics
which characterised the work. There were a few wolf-whistles and Yvette, wearing a
sort of negligee she had made herself, acknowledged our applause with a sort of
"Thanks all the same!". This must have been in the spring of 1950, shortly before I

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left Paris. It was my original intention to bring this chapter to a close with the end of
my stay in Paris. But before we get that far it is necessary for me to turn back the
clock a little.

Milhaud got back from California in October of 1949. During the 1949-50
season a few new works by Milhaud were performed for the first time. One of these
was the Service sacre which received its premiere in the Salle Gaveau. Milhaud him-
self conducted: he came on to the stage in a wheel-chair and had to be helped into the
conductor's podium. Despite his illness, he conducted with tremendous energy. The
noble music of the Service sacre made a deep impression. How odd it is that this
work, perhaps the best Milhaud ever composed, is now virtually never performed!
During the interval Milhaud introduced me to Madame Halphen, foundress of the
Halphen prize for composition at the Conservatoire National. I had just won the prize
(so it must have been 1950). A second Milhaud premiere was Bolivar at the opera.
Myself and a couple of class-mates attended the dress-rehearsal. Jeanine Micheau in
contemporary dress had a Bolivar in costume as her opposite number (who the singer
was I cannot recall). There were two spectacular moments in the opera: an earth-
quake, during which the various components of Fernand Leger's decor began to
sway, making many spectators dizzy; and a ball, where the wives of the departed sol-
diers were forced to dance with their victors. Milhaud had composed music in two
styles: dance music (matchiche and other Brazilian dances) on the stage and a drama-
tic musical running commentary from the orchestra in the pit. It must have also been
in the course of that season that Paul Collaer and Mariette Martin-Metten performed
Milhaud's Alissa in the Salle Gaveau. They had often performed it together and theirs
was a performance in which attention was paid to every last detail of that very deli-
cate music.

The first performance of a new work by Messiaen also sticks in my mind. It was
entitled Trois Tdla, although it never appeared in the catalogue of the composer's
works. When later, in his analysis class, Messiaen went through the Turangalild
Symphony, we thought we recognized the Trois Tdla which had been performed in
the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. Messiaen insisted that it was another work. This
was probably because Turangalila had been commissioned by the Boston Symphony
Orchestra and a premiere in Paris, or even performance of a part of it, was strictly
forbidden.

Memories of my 1950 exam leave me with very mixed feelings. I had presented
a piece scored for large orchestra, with a part for contralto voice and piano solo, with
Mia Greeve singing and myself at the keyboard. I had called the work Elegiac music
and the text I had taken from Rilke's Duineser Elegien. All the time I was composing
the work I had Mia's voice and her singing style continually in mind. Where the into-
nation was concerned, it was not an easy work. There was one passage for a sort of
Sprechstimme and solo piano. Mia rehearsed for hours and hours, and had come to
Paris specially. It was Marius Constant who conducted. I too had done a lot of work
on the piano part which was far from easy. I recall that it contained a fugue on a
theme from Rabindranath Tagore (yes, he also expressed himself in music). It develo-

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ped into a furious tutti for piano and orchestra which is suddenly interrupted by the
contralto who bursts for it into a high F with the Je of "Jeder Engel ist schrecklich".
Mia's F was one of the most ravishing vocal sounds one could imagine, casting her in
the role of a "schrecklicher Engel", whose stirring apparition dissipated the violent
chaos. There was only one First Prize left over for me to win, and I was out of luck. I
missed it by one vote: it so happened that Honegger had fallen ill and was obliged to
cry off. A number of the other jury members felt I was on the wrong path, with all my
atonal violence and my penchant for things German. At that time Schoenberg was not
accepted by the majority of French composers, dodecaphonic music was herecy. When
Claude Delvincourt came to inform me that I fell short by just one vote, I answered
with a somewhat inappropriate complacency: "Je veux toutes les voix, ou aucune".
Each in his own way, Milhaud and Messiaen shared the French distaste for
dodecaphonic music. Messiaen found himself able to agree with a rationalized
structure, yet his attention focused much more on rhythmical organisation. His
modal system and serial thinking, which tended towards a closed form, were poles
apart. In his analysis class Messiaen displayed a certain stand-offish opinion of
Schoenberg, Berg and Weber. Their music was hardly ever mentioned, except by
the way in a superficial treatment of the Lyric Suite. Milhaud was only vaguely
familiar with the Twelve-Tone system. As far as he knew, a composer could not
repeat a pitch until all the other eleven had made their appearance. This conflicted
with his feeling for freedom.
One day I presented Milhaud with one of a series of pieces for soprano and
piano, collected under the title La Flute de Jade and based on French translations of
Chinese texts. The fragment I presented was virtually the only dodecaphonic piece I
had ever composed. I came clean with Milhaud: "Maitre, c'est dodecaphonique!"
His answer: "Oh, le vilain !"... Still, he wanted to hear it and once I had played and
sung it for him he announced to those standing around: "Vous voyez, que le systeme
employe n'a rien a voir. On peut faire de la musique meme en faisant appel a la dode-
caphonie". La Flute de Jade enjoyed a certain success: the work was performed
during the first concert organized by UNESCO in Paris in its former base on the Ave-
nue Kleber. The piece was introduced by Roland Manuel. Laure Casamatta sang
(Milhaud called her Laure Maisonfolle) and I played the piano. A short time later
Jane Bathori presented La Flute in a series of broadcasts on "La melodie francaise"
which she prepared for French Radio: she was the very one who in the hayday of
Faure, Debussy and Les Six was the great performer of this genre. Jane wanted once
again to choose the performers herself and her first choice was Leila Ben Sedira, with
her clear, supple voice. When it transpired that she was not free, Lily Jessua was cho-
sen. I rehearsed with her in her beautiful apartment on the Avenue Mozart. (At that
time I still wore sandals, with my trouser-bottoms rolled up; Tony Aubin sarcasti-
cally asked: "Vous venez de la peche?")
In the course of that same programme presented by Jane Bathori, Francis Pou-
lenc and Pierre Berac also had a slot. Like most broadcasts at the time, it was live.
Poulenc was a real extrovert and he had a keen sense of humour. Once he performed

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Les Mamelles de Tiresias for Milhaud. He took on all the singing, singing the parts
designed for women in a high-pitched voice and at break-neck speed.
It was probably also in 1950 that I wrote my Second Violin Concerto. It was in
two movements: "Prolegomenes" and "Transcendances", the first constructed follo-
wing a strictly rational pattern, whereas the second was intended as a sort of irra-
tional variation of the first. The then director of the UNESCO's International Music
Council, Heiter Correa de Azevedo, decided to publish the work with a subsidy from
Unesco, who had just then set up a fund for such purposes. Before even the publica-
tion saw light of day, I was hard at work on my Sonata for two pianos, which marked
such a step forward that I preferred to let all that preceded it disappear in embarrassed
silence. I took no steps to have the Second Violin Concerto performed. I have never
allowed that any of my works be performed against my will. And yet, where that
Concerto was concerned, I broke my own rules. It had its first performance during
the International Ferienkurse 1952 in Darmstadt, with Andre Gertler as soloist and
Bruno Madera as conductor. Karlheinz Stockhausen had put it up, one of the most
painful moments in my life. I was just not emphatic enough in my insistance that the
performance should not go ahead. Dr. Steinecke was on the look-out for a Belgian
work which could receive its first performance from Gertler, who was due to teach
in the Ferienkurse. The pressure was intense and I gave in. I never forgave myself
this error.

The year 1950 marked a turning point in my life. It was a year for reflection. My
thinking matured and ideas which had long been in my head suddenly gelled. It was
like a jiggsaw puzzle when one is left with just a few remaining pieces: they find
their own way to the right place. After three years in Paris, subsidised by my step-
mother, it was high time for me to start earning my living. I decided to stay put in
Antwerp. As so often had happened in my life, work and opportunities came looking
for me. I was hardly back from Paris when Fons Bervoets, then Director of the Music
Academy in Borgerhout, telephoned me. His music-history teacher, Irene Bogaert,
had just been appointed to the staff of Government Minister Harmel. Was I happy to
step into her shoes ? It did not involve an enormous amount of work. Even were I to
take on another job which had been offered at the Flemish Catholic Academy, where
they wanted me to give a series of classes. There was plenty of spare time for me,
tucked away in my study in the house in the Rotterdam Street, to contemplate all
the parameters which determined the structure which was to become my Sonata for
two pianos.
Right from the start it was clear that the whole work should evolve towards a
focal point, a cross-roads, from which all would again flow in the opposite direction.
It seemed to me obvious that there should be an interdependence between the diffe-
rent sound parameters. Effecting this by means of a variety of instrumental colours,
i.e. with an additional sound parameter, still seemed to me a too difficult task. Stock-
hausen had at one stage in 1951 asked me why precisely I had opted for two pianos,
but actually I had my own reasons. The principal one was that for the time being I
wanted to avoid the timbre parameter. Strictly speaking, in the case of identical in-

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struments, e.g. two pianos, it is not possible either to speak of the same tone-colour.
But here the sound production was at least so similar that one could disregard the
timbre parameter. Furthermore, at that stage I hadn't yet reached the absolute struc-
tural purity that seemed so urgent to me one year later. There was also a practical
reason. Who would at that time mind performing absolutely correct durational
values? Not to mention correct dynamic values... The only people to whom I felt I
could turn with these problems were Yvette Grimaud, Yvonne Loriod, Claude
Helffer, Pierre Boulez... They were about the only ones who were musically and tech-
nically equipped to tackle these totally novel performance problems. At least that was
what I thought. It remained to be seen whether or not I was right. One thing I did
know: aside from this handfull of musicians, there was no one capable of playing this
sort of music. The Ondes Martenot were the furthest removed from this approach to
performance: their treatment of volume of sound was highly subjective, depending
more on an inner compulsion felt by the performer than on any physically control-
lable gesture.
With my sights fixed firmly on the central cross-roads in the piece, I opted for
two pianos. In that way there would be an exchange between various opposed ele-
ments, not between the two sets of hands but rather between the two hands of the two
performers. At a later stage in Darmstadt 1951 Adorno raised the question (his first
question after the analysis) as to why I had written the piece for two pianos. I knew
quite well why I had made my choice, yet found it very difficult to answer his
question (and then in German...). Moreover, the group of participants dissolved in
laughter. It was all rather silly, but it made me lose my concentration. I am obliged to
add that Stockhausen and myself had only played section II, the thinnest of the four
movements and that it must have seemed odd indeed to require that those mere notes
be played by four hands.
As my work on the sonata developed it began to dawn on me that a new stage in
the evolution of serial thinking had been reached. It suddenly seemed so obvious, so
unavoidable, that I could not imagine that I was the only one to have reached this
conclusion. In the years immediately following the war Europe remained largely una-
ware of what Schoenberg's little circle had come up with. My brief contact with Cage
made me suspect that the development of musical language in the United States had
gone at least as far. In the spring of 1951 it was announced that Schoenberg was
going to lead a seminar on composition in Darmstadt. He wanted to have a work for
small ensemble performed. I sent off Music for violin, contralto and piano as the
Sonata was not yet complete. The Music proved acceptable and I was offered a stay
in Darmstadt. Naturally enough I enrolled in Schoenberg's class. When I arrived in
Darmstadt I was bitterly disappointed to discover that Schoenberg was unable to
come. He had fallen gravely ill and, as it turned out, died a few weeks later.
The international Ferienkurse were not yet particularly well known. The number
of participating composers was very limited. Luigi Nono was a name on everyone's
lips: he had left a deep impression a year earlier with his Polifonica, Monodia, Rit-
mica. Luigi was also present in 1951. The Ferienkurse actually took place on the

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Marienhohe. All the participants had their lodgings and took their meals there. I sha-
red a room with the Swiss composer Jacques Wildberger. The meadows of the
Marienhohe were the scene of many long conversations. We all felt a great need for
interpersonal contact, for in those post-war years we all worked more or less in isola-
tion. We were all very interested in what others were up to. Right from the first day
we showed one another our manuscripts. What became immediately clear was that
serial thinking had caught on. Nonetheless, I had little response to my ideas concer-
ning "static music", i.e. music conceived as a projection in time and space of a basic
idea generating the structure.
The principle of "synthetic number" which determined my parameters still
looked very like "Hirngespinste". There was only one young man who saw some-
thing in it and asked me more about it: Karlheinz Stockhausen. I can well recall how
he tried to explain the "geistliche Griinde" of my novel techniques to the others over
lunch. When I explained all of this to him I had to resort to a mixture of German and
English, yet despite my inadequate efforts he understood immediately. We both atten-
ded the classes given by Adoro, Schoenberg's replacement. Before even my Sonata
for two pianos came up for discussion in the class, Stockhausen knew it inside out.
He treated us to a penetrating analysis of part II, even if it was greeted with reluc-
tance by Adoro. From that moment on, myself and Karlheinz were "Adrian Lever-
kiihn und sein Famulus", in Adorno's look, referring to Mann's Doktor Faustus.
In his customary exuberance Stockhausen declared that henceforth, whenever
asked with whom he had studied, he would mention only my name. This exuberance
is probably to be ascribed to the enthusiasm he felt when first crossing the threshold
of "the land of promise", because it did indeed seem as if a promised land had opened
up when that manner of thinking and the novel composition technique that went with
it became clear. Karlheinz was naturally curious about its origin and I was able to tell
him a good deal about my apprenticeship with Messiaen, about the circles in which I
mixed in Paris, and above all about my analyses of Weber which had been so en-
riching. In Darmstadt I had the reputation of someone who knew a lot about Webern.
Everyone wanted to learn about my analyses, but the problem was I had never clearly
formulated them in the methodical way a German composer would have done. In
days gone by I just sat tucked away in a corner or on the lawn of the Cite Universi-
taire with a Webern score on my knees and I just jotted down my remarks in glosses
and little signs which I alone understood on the score. Nobody else could make sense
of it. I probably waxed too enthusiastic about my Paris circle, because Karlheinz
became convinced that all salvation could be expected from that quarter. He wanted
to head straight for Paris, in spite of all the obstacles in a young German composer's
path in those days, especially as he did not yet know a word of French.
It was at that stage that Antoine Golea appeared at the Marienhohe with a newly-
released record: Messiaen's Quatre Etudes de Rythme, played by the composer him-
self. Karlheinz and myself listened to the record tucked away in some cubby-hole.
Golea was with us. For both Karlheinz and myself it was our first acquaintance with
Messiaen's most recent work. I had left Paris twelve months now, and Messiaen had

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never spoken about this work in his lectures. What struck us particularly was the
"punctual" style of the Mode de valeurs et d'intensites. There was an unmistakable
similarity between that work and my Sonata. For Karlheinz this was yet another
reason to go off to Messiaen.
My Music for violin, contralto and piano was quite succesful. Antoine Golea
congratulated me and then I told him that I was at work on something completely dif-
ferent. Perhaps I shouldn't have had the Music performed at all in Darmstadt. But
Golea wanted to console me. He told me that the piece was by far the best and the
most progressive he had heard in Darmstadt. Yet, I was not convinced. While chat-
ting with Luigi Nono we were quick to observe that his lyric temperament was at
considerable odds with what I was doing. Luigi did not pursue the experiment with
the Polifonica. He was too bound up with the power of the text, too involved with its
semantic meaning, in short too attached to the extra-musical element a text represen-
ted. This was the subject of our conversation on the "Wiesen". Doris Andreae, still
Stockhausen's fiancee at that stage, caught this conversation in a snap shot. Later on
Karlheinz included'this photo in his Texte.
In 1951 the Ferienkurse were coupled with the IGNM-World Music Days held in
Frankfurt. We heard Orff's Catulli Carmina and Karlheinz dismissed the obscene
texts out of hand, while being ever firmer in his disapproval of Orff's lascivious
musical portrayal of orgasm. Darmstadt was supposed to be the venue for the world
premiere of The Dance of the Golden Calf from Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. This
first performance was due to take place in the presence of the composer himself. We
attended the rehearsals, but then came the big disappointment: Schoenberg had done
nothing about pushing seriality a stage further. Quite the contrary. I wrote to Yvette
Grimaud: "C'est du Verdi seriel", which was just a bit of an exaggeration. Yet one
thing was abundantly clear, my Sonata stood alone.
I went straight back to Paris from Darmstadt. Jean Rivier, who was standing in
for Milhaud, had insisted that I keep my place in the composition class and that I also
enter competition. Such procedure was not only possible in the Conservatoire
National, it was customary. It was a sort of "conge de convenance personnelle". I felt
like Melisande: I had strayed too far and could no longer be understood. How on
earth could I win a "Premier Prix" with the Sonata? For the first time the uselessness
of a competition for composers struck me. A moment comes - and if ever anyone had
reached it, I had then - when one stands completely alone in the darkness of terra
incognita. And yet for Rivier's sake I entered the competition. I entrusted the Sonata
to Yvette Grimaud and Claude Helffer (Yvonne Loriod had again managed to get out
of it). Yvette had become so familiar with the score through repeated practice that, on
my arrival, she was able to draw my attention to an error. She gave all the notes their
due value, but even here she never rose beyond a mezzoforte. Claude Helffer played
genuine fortes so that the whole structure was unbalanced in one of its parameters.
That year Messiaen sat on the jury of the Composition Concours. Once the works
submitted were performed and the jury withdrew, Messiaen came directly to me. He
let the jury go and demanded an analysis of my piece. I briefly explained how I had

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constructed the piece. He said: "For the composition concours you have made too
much progress. You ought to have won your first prize last year". I promised to send
him two copies of my sonata. Once I went home I was as good as my word. I recei-
ved a reply from Messiaen with the following words: "J'ai relu votre sonate. Elle est
belle, pure et absolument neuve. Soyez fier d'etre un musicien". He added that he
and Yvonne would play it together. I knew from earlier experience that I should not
bet on it. And indeed, it never came about.
It must have been about this time that I put in for the examination for program-
mer at the NIR(1). I wrote several pages on the English Virginalists, and put together
a programme for a Romantic Symphony Concert. But there was also a light music
section in the exam, questions about film music etc. I was in luck. I happened to
know what music was used in the film Brief Encounter, a film which had made a
deep impression on account of the measured performance of Celia Johnson. As a
result I was one of the five finalists. One of the five was appointed on the spot.
Another went through a training period and was appointed after a few months.
I remained on the reserve list for quite a while and then was dropped.
Paul Collaer had suddenly become cooler in my regard since I had left Milhaud
and gone back to my native country to try and pursue a career. It went so far that my
compositions, hitherto accepted for performance virtually as a matter of course, now
ended up at the bottom of some drawer and were forgotten. I received a great deal
more support now from the composers at the NIR than from Collaer: Louis De
Meester, Vic Legley, David Van de Woestijne. Vic Legley was regularly invited to
give lectures on contemporary music. He was interested in the very latest develop-
ments and we got together on a number of occasions at his home in St. Pieters-
Woluwe or at my place in Antwerp. Vic generally was producer of those program-
mes which included my music. I originally came into contact with Louis De Meester
in his capacity as a sound engineer. A few years later we were to work together
much more closely. But more of that at the appropriate moment. Both Louis and
David were interested in the novel sound-production techniques which were crop-
ping up more and more as a result of the development of electronic equipment.
Louis already had that intuitive feeling for the expressive value of every sound,
however odd or alien it seemed. This was the origin of a brief but exciting period of
activity in the area of electro-acoustic music which bore fruit in an experimental
programme broadcast on 13th December 1953.
My principal concerns actually lay on another plain. In my search for a purer,
more rationally controlled world of sound, instrumental and vocal sounds no longer
satisfied me. The whole problem was treated at length in an exchange of letters with
Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was at that time that Vic Legley put me in touch with the
NIR's laboratory technicians. He was unable to understand why I wanted to use pure
sinus tones in my compositions, but it was thanks to him that I learned that these
tones were produced by electronic generators. It was thus no purely theoretical con-

(1) The NIR was the Belgian National Radio/Broadcasting Company, the predecessor of today's BRT.

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 cept. One can actually hear sinus tones. I immediately wrote a letter to Paul Collaer
in which I asked him whether it might be possible to experiment with sinus tones on
the NIR. My request was flatly refused. Dr. Eimert from the NWDR (as Cologne
Radio, together with Hamburg, was then known) was more sympathetic to those
experiments. And thus the famous Cologne Radio Studio for electronic music came
into being in 1953. When, a few years later, I bumped into Collaer at a concert he
spoke with admiration of the Gesang der Jiinglinge, the first fully home-grown pro-
duct of the Cologne Studio. He probably no longer thought of the chance he had mis-
sed two years earlier. In any case the bitterness I experienced during this discussion
wasn't noticed at all by him.
The follow-up to Darmstadt '51 might be worth mentioning. At that stage Stock-
hausen and I were engaged in very regular correspondence about the genesis of
Kreuzspiel(2). The correspondance did not deal exclusively with musical issues.
There was the matter of the holiday journey through France with Doris. And then I
helped him get in touch with the Conservatoire National, with Milhaud, with Mes-
siaen ... And then the wedding plans were discussed. Karlheinz and Doris were
anxious to get married as soon as possible, although neither of them had a steady
income. Moreover the Andreae's, Doris' family, were against. She was smart enough
to win over her family and fix the wedding for December, shortly before Karlheinz's
studies in Paris were due to begin. I was to stand as witness for Doris, while the
magician Adrion, with whom Karlheinz had given joint performances, was the other
witness. We had the "Polterabend" in Hamburg, just the four of us. We got a pile of
plates from a restaurant and they were smashed one by one on the threshold of the
house. Karlheinz spent ages playing with the fragments which made a rather nice
sound. A few days after the wedding Adrion and myself did a boat trip of the har-
bour. It was freezing cold. The wedding took place in a Roman Catholic church.
Doris had just recently converted to Catholicism. There was a superb wedding ban-
quet, attended by the upper bourgeoisie of Hamburg. I sat next to the bride at table
and was expected to make a speech. With a little help from "Sekt" my brain was able
to come up with something. In any case Doris' stepmother found my speech just
dandy!
Shortly afterwards Karlheinz made his way to Paris via Antwerp. In Antwerp he
spoke to me confidentially of his fear of psychiatric illness. He felt vulnerable. There I
heard for the first time choral works which he had written earlier and of which Cologne
Radio had recordings. I showed him some of my earlier work which by then I had
renounced. I had been imprudent. This I was soon to experience when Dr. Steinecke
insisted on having my Second Violin Concerto for Darmstadt '52. Karlheinz came
along to my classes in the Music Academy as well as to my lectures in the Academy.
On that particular day my subject was Josquin and the "game" of note series, derived
from names and proverbs, on which his mass settings were based. Karlheinz swore that

(2) see H. Sabbe, Karlheinz Stockhausen....wie die Zeit verging... (Musik-Konzepte, ed. by H.-K. Metzger
and R. Riehn, 19), Munich, 1981.

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he missed not a word. He claimed that no public school in Germany had anything of
that standard. The one thing that stuck in his mind was the idea of the "game".
All of this must have happened in January 1952. Karlheinz travelled on to Paris
and soon I was to receive a report of his first discoveries. He simply could not take
Milhaud ("Der redet nur Quatsch"). Where Messiaen was concerned, he had initial
difficulties with his language, yet the analysis classes did interest him. A short time
later I was able to see his interest for myself. I went along to visit Messiaen after his
class was over and invited him to dine with myself and Stockhausen. Messiaen wan-
ted the company to include Yvonne Loriod. The four of us went off to the "Le Roi de
la Biere" opposite the Gare Saint-Lazare. Yvonne ordered oysters and an expensive
fish dish. When the bill came I had to call Karlheinz aside as my finances (I was not
earning much at the time) could not take such extravagance. We pooled our resources
and the next day survived on bread and cheese.
I had just received an offer from NWDR-Hamburg: they wanted to put on a new
composition of mine. Karlheinz had already submitted the Sonata to NWDR-
Cologne and he claimed that it could not be submitted to both stations since they for-
med the one NWDR. Thus the Hamburg option was a non-starter and the broadcast
was from Cologne, with Astrid and Hansotto Schmidt-Neuhaus as soloists. I did not
meet the couple on that occasion. From Karlheinz I learned that they had no under-
standing of the music and just played what was on the score before them. Actually, in
that particular case that was quite an achievement.
In the meantime I completed my Number 2 and 3 (at that time I used "Number ..."
as the title of my works, and the Sonata was "Nr. 1"). Yet they were not to be inclu-
ded in the programme for Darmstadt '52. What was included was the Second Violin
Concerto with Andre Gertler as soloist. Karlheinz slaved away on Kreuzspiel and he
was ready for Darmstadt well in advance. Yvonne was due to play Boulez's Second
Sonata. Messiaen had been invited for an analysis seminar at which I was to act as
interpreter. Boulez also turned up in Darmstadt that year. Kreuzspiel proved a verita-
ble sensation. Yvonne played the Boulez Sonata magnificently (I turned the pages of
the score as she was not playing by heart on this occasion). After the performance
Yvonne, with a sideways glance in my direction, announced casually: "Les deux
revelations du moment sont manifestement Stockhausen et Boulez...". At Merck's
(Doris' uncle of pharmaceutical products fame) Karlheinz could not stop talking
about the sensation created by Kreuzspiel. Uncle Merckx asked whether any piece of
mine had been performed, and Karlheinz answered "Ja, und zwar mit Orchester". We
toasted the occasion with Sekt and wild strawberries.
For me that ended Darmstadt(3). I have never been back. I have attempted to get
my new compositions performed elsewhere, yet the climate for such things was not
yet favourable. Leonce Gras conducted my Nos. 2 and 3. It was very noble of him,
for these works required a lot of work with meagre rewards. I remember the No. 3

(3) In 1988 Goeyvaerts was to lecture in Darmstadt.

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being performed at one of the Midday Concerts, with all those monumental Rubens
canvasses staring down from the walls of the Brussels Museum.
No. 3 was accepted forthe I.S.C.M. '53. I no longer remember who was on the
selection panel: it must have been a jolly adventurous one, unless the selection was
based on earlier known works of mine. The ISCM World Music Days that year
were in Oslo. I wanted to travel north, yet the trip was too expensive. I only got a
second-hand report of what went on. My piece was conducted by the Wagner-spe-
cialist 0ivin Fjeldstad (who was only 50 at the time) and when the performance
came to an end the members of the audience looked at one another in amazement.
There followed a half-hearted applause combined with a faint buzz and Fjeldstad
had the kettledrum gently tapped by way of an "encore". Later I heard various
comments on the ISCM in a programme on the BBC. There were a brief few
seconds of music, then a series of derisory remarks about my text in the programme
- a text which they had not understood at all. Nonetheless, CeBeDeM (or was it
still known as Becemudo?) was asked for the score of No. 3. It was a strange
request, especially as it came from the "Rameau Chamber Music Society of
Tokyo". I learned later that No. 3 was performed there with Takeshi Takezawa as
conductor, and that it was politely received and favourably reviewed: the review
was sent on to me by the ever-faithful CeBeDeM. This was certainly the first per-
formance of "punctual" music in Japan and the respectful reaction of the Japanese
was much stranger than the derision of the English.
One thing became very clear to me as a result of all that had happened: I was
facing a period of prolonged loneliness. When one has reached that stage, one treasures
those rare moments when one is understood. I was to experience such moments thanks
to Herman Van San, a fellow pioneer who had tried to make his mark but failed and
finally threw in the towel, and even more thanks to Henri Pousseur. Henri was doing
his military service at Mechelen at the time. He occasionally visited me at home in
Antwerp, but it was more often I who went to Mechelen on the motorbike to see him.
(I forgot to mention the fact that I had now progressed to my second motorcycle.) We
used to meet in a caf6 at the foot of St. Rombouts Tower. We talked about the new pro-
spects opened up by the sinus tone, while Henri again and again drank white Martini.
Early in 1953 I wrote a score for sinus tones which was originally called Number
Five with pure tones. What I meant by "pure tones" was the sound substance of the
sinus tones which was at last tamed and controlled. Before this I had written Number

Four with dead tones which can be considered a pre-electronic work. No. 4 was
made up of pure time values, expressed in sound (four distinct clusters of sound
which were not to touch one another) and silence. The sound substance was to be
completely inert, i.e. without internal movement, dead tones ... It took thirty years for
that piece to ring, and that was thanks to an initiative of Herman Sabbe's who,
together with the engineer Walter Landrieu, took care of it.
When in July 1953 Karlheinz returned to Cologne from Paris, he was well expe-
rienced in sinus tones. I was curious to discover how these tones could be combined
with one another. Given that it was impossible for me to experiment with them in

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Brussels, I had told Stockhausen that he should try in Paris. He was well in with
Pierre Schaeffer. He had managed things so cleverly that he was exempted from
Schaeffer's experimental programme and got permission to find himself a basement
somewhere where he could quietly carry on his own experiments. In Cologne he had
Herbert Eimert wrapped around his little finger (he was favourable to him right from
the start) with the result that the latter set up an embryonic studio for electronic music
at the NWDR-Cologne.
Eimert displayed a personal interest in the Trautonium, the Melochord gnd the
Monochord, electronic instruments still at that stage awaiting their musical destiny,
while the Ondes Martenot had long since won acceptance. These instruments were
tucked away in a room at the NWDR awaiting a composer who would have mercy on
them. Karlheinz tried at one stage to pass them off on me so as to be able to provide
justification for the existence of the studio. I was obsessed by one single idea: to
realize Number Five. Only once Stockhausen's Studie I was finished would I be in a
position to come. That occurred in the autumn of 1953. Eimert was so well disposed
to me that he let me produce a Webern programme for the NWDR so as to help me
meet the travelling expenses. That was urgently necessary as I had reached financial
rock 6ottom. I have to say that the journey plus bed and board did not cost me a lot. I
travelled by motorcycle and slept at Stockhausen's place. It was the first time I saw
my goddaughter Suja. At her baptism it was the sacristan who stood in for me. Two
of my faithful pupils from the Academy of Music looked after a christening present:
a delightful little white coat.
The work for the NWDR was very trying. I discovered at an early stage that
electronic music was at best tolerated: it certainly had not a firm foothold. Apart
from the electronic musical instruments, which we did not even want, there was no
equipment whatever and no area reserved for electronic music. It was only once a
studio was free that we were able to use one. Moreover we often had to move from
room to room, carrying all our accoutrements with us. When one thinks back and
reflects with what care everything had to be executed in those days, perhaps one can
imagine how many hours were invested in the production of a piece of music that
lasted no more than a few minutes. Karlheinz was extremely helpful, even when it
was necessary to work in the early morning or in the small hours.
I was unhappy with Number Five as a finished product. To begin with there was
a lot of crackle on the tape as a result of the repeated playovers. Then one could
clearly hear the different component tones, while I had hoped that by adding and sub-
tracting component tones the tones themselves would sound more bright or more
muffled. That a composition with sinus tones, at that time the only ones I would con-
template using, was so disappointing was something I found hard to accept. As yet
absolute certainty lay outside my grasp. That was the reason why, after my return
from Cologne, I began to think about sound objects, i.e. units which always behave
the same (same sound, same volume, same duration, followed by the same silence). I
came up with a draft with one hundred and eighty such objects, Number Six with 180
sound objects. When all these musical building-blocks were pieced together, I had on

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hand a score which was unperformable. The tones generally fell on small subsections
of the beat. It was then that Louis De Meester came up with a suggestion: record
each of the hundred and eighty tones separately and then put them together by play-
over. The suggestion demonstrated great perception. I agreed with it totally and
immediately began to put together a plan for the playover: all would be subdivided
into different layers, then a final mixing. There was considerable work involved and
it was impossible to tackle it during the daytime: we could not get a studio, and Louis
had his day job to look after. We burnt the midnight oils rather frequently. Louis did
it out of sheer devotion without any payment. I arrived late in the evening in Brussels
with my bike and we continued working until four or five in the morning. Each sound
object was numbered, some of them were no more than a few millimetres tall: we
kept them in a shoe box which Louis held on to for many years.
In the meantime work continued in Cologne: Eimert produced his Glockenspiel
and his Etude uber Tongemische; Paul Gredinger, a Swiss architect who was a pupil
of Max Bill's and, just like us, was in search of "pure" material so as to translate his
ideas into reality, produced Formanten Iⅈ Henri Pousseur produced the Seismo-
gramme; and finally Stockhausen put on his Studie II. All of this, with my Number
Five thrown in, was put together into one single programme, which lasted a little
less than half an hour but which had an interminable commentary by Eimert, under
the title Die sieben Stiicke. It was first produced in concert in Cologne and subse-
quently made available to other radio stations at a high price. The Cologne concert
took place on 16th October 1954. The term "electronic music" itself electrified and
all those who wanted to belong to the avant-garde snobbery of the day (and in
Cologne that amounted to quite a crowd) were there. It was a marvellous spectacle:
the audience, bedecked in the most outrageous garb, were as still as church mice
while listening to Eimert's lengthy commentary. The music came from two enor-
mous loudspeakers on the stage, making an extraordinary occasion even more pecu-
liar. This is impossible! You cannot do things this way! It became plain that a new
way of listening to music had to be discovered, a new function for music to fulfill.
Yet the fact remains that right up to the present time electronic music is still listened
to in the same fashion.

The crazy hats and the purple hair alone have changed! Was it on the occasion
of that visit to Cologne or on a subsequent one? I only know that I saw John Cage
again, his hair a little longer and himself a little less shy than when I knew him in
Paris. Himself and David Tudor performed his 34'46.776. The ladies with the purple
hair were sitting in their places and it was a consummate avant-garde evening. I
would like to relate the following incident at this juncture: Cage had somehow got
wind of my Number 1, the Sonata. He and David Tudor wanted to hear the Schmidt-
Neuhaus recording. Karlheinz kept coming up with objections: we needed to eat right
away so as to be in time for the concert; or our time in the studio had run out. Cage
kept on insisting and when resistance was no longer possible he gave in.
Karlheinz stood there with the box in his hand, took the tape out, and then ...
the whole bottom fell out, something which easily happens if it is lightly pressed.

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Anyone who has encountered the problem knows that it takes hours before the
damage is repaired. Cage went off without ever hearing my piece.
Number 7 followed Number 6. It too was electronic and was a "constellation",
just as Numbers 1, 2, and 3 had been before them. Each point in the space was provi-
ded with a bundle of sinustones, which converged towards the point or had the point
as their point of departure, i.e. a combination of glissandi. I was to be a guest in
Cologne on yet another occasion. By this time Karlheinz was only remotely interes-
ted in what I was doing. He gave me Gottfried-Michael Koenig as my assistant. I was
put up in a student residence. My contacts with the Stockhausens had cooled a little.
Suja was now well able to talk. She would sit on my knee and tell me all about what
she had seen in the Tiergarten. My stay in Cologne was quite short. I left it up to
Koenig to elaborate the score. He put a lot of work into it. All the glissandi had to be
carried out by hand. The superimposition was far from simple. And then it transpired
that my calculations were way off the mark. The layers of sound did not overlap as I
had intended. To put it bluntly, the work was never finished. It got stuffed away in the
NWDR archive, just a stack of loose documents.
It is clear to me now that I was rather confused, even if at the time I was not
aware of the fact. After the failure of my Number 7 I saw no future. My daily life
hung under a dark cloud: I used to go along to the Rockox House and keep myself
busy with working out the musical programme for the "Artists' Masses". A lot of
"artists" came along who otherwise never got the chance to "still get an opportunity
to sing or play in an Artists' Mass." It was a distressing occupation. It was all made
possible by a rather dubious outfit called the "Artists' Fund". I came face to face
with every form of hypocricy imaginable. The trouble was that I became tainted by
all the underhand manipulation involved. There comes a stage where you no longer
know where idealism ends and deception begins. I was having the gravest doubts, yet
no one noticed it. It was at that stage, in 1957, that I wrote Diafonie, an orchestral
work which had all the external features of the structural constellation music of the
day, yet which was no longer supported by a strong inner conviction. I did nothing
about having it performed.
It is distinctly possible that I might well have engaged in further gestures of the
sort. It is easy for me to imagine now that, with a list of attainments to one's credit,
one can continue with an activity in which one no longer really believes. It has to be
admitted that there are a lot of people in this situation. Think of all the politicians
who have ceased to believe in the cause they would once have given their lives for!
They go on automatic pilot and play their role, without any deep conviction in what
they are doing.
I quickly reached a crisis and had to be treated by a neurologist. It took only a
short time before all my defences were down. I felt myself hopelessly delivered to an
outside world for which I was extremely ill prepared. It was undiluted misery.
Teaching cost me incredible effort. I couldn't bring myself to write any more music.
My step-mother died in 1957. I have never been so bereft by a death. And then I
got the idea which was to save me: give up everything and start again from scratch.

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I began to scour the jobs column in the newspapers. I applied for a job with
SABENA and when I got a positive response I threw myself heart and soul into my
new life, even before I was assured that I had been taken on. This new life was more
than just a new profession. I wanted to turn my back on everything in the past. Only
later would I be able to see what was really me. I handed in my resignation at the
Academy of Music and at the "Artists' Fund", and abandoned the lecture circuit.
I rented a brand new apartment in Brussels. I gave up the motorbike which up to
then I was so fond of and bought a car. I also ordered furniture. On New Year's Day
1958 I moved to Brussels. All my belongings I was able to put into my Volkswagen:
manuscripts, books and camping equipment. The latter items of luggage were so
compact that I had been able, during my wanderings through France, Italy, Greece,
Denmark and Norway to carry them around on the back of my motorcycle. I had to
wait several weeks for my furniture to be delivered so I just camped in my apartment
- it was just heaven: to take a hot bath, make my coffee on a petrol stove, sleep on
my inflatable matrass in my sleeping bag. It was an escape from my former life, and
there was nothing I needed more.
Acquiring a new profession and just getting down to doing my new work had a
therapeutic effect. This was all an unknown and pleasant experience for me. I felt
great to be just an "ordinary person".

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