Abstract

The present article examines K. Stockhausen’s Stimmung (1968) as an example of intuitive music, a concept that the composer developed during the 1960s to describe his own performer-focused compositions. Stimmung is also part of the “new traditionµ that Stockhausen referred to as “auralµ in 1971, which is transmitted through the ears and based on direct experience with sounds. The term Stimmung has multiple meanings and is difficult to translate, but for Stockhausen it specifically signifies tuning. Lastly, the article considers some composition’s atmospherological quality in relation to concepts borrowed from New Phenomenology.