Is LICHT autobiographical then?
Only in the sense that the composer draws on his own experiences, which in Stockhausen’s case are striking. If you look at Fellini’s movies, they are also works of poetic vision drawn from his lifetime experiences. Their foundation in real people and events gives Fellini’s visions much of their power. You don’t get that intensity of vision by working to someone else’s script. I still don’t get it. Then read Dante’s Divine Comedy or Milton’s Paradise Regained or Goethe’s Faust. Ask yourself what is the message of Berg’s opera Wozzeck or Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron. These are all monumental works that deal with the most fundamental issues of what it is to be a human being.
