Stockhausen - Klavierstücke I to XI

The Guardian 80

Sabine Liebner
Wergo, two CDs

By the time of his death in 2007, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s catalogue included 19 works that he listed as Klavierstücke. Of those, however, three (Nos XII to XIV) are piano solos taken from scenes in his opera cycle Licht, while the final five, also derived from Licht, are written for a synthesiser or sampling keyboard, sometimes with pre-recorded tape.

Stylistically and chronologically, though, it’s the first 11 piano pieces, all composed between 1952 and 1957, that form a distinctive and totally coherent cycle.