Who were the great influences on Stockhausens music?
That’s always a tricky question because the composer is touchy about having others get the credit for his personal musical achievements. We should always remember that the work is the thing. Mozart had his precursors, and we value them in Mozart, not for themselves. Read the books. It’s a great pity Richard Toop’s English translation of Volume 2 of the DuMont Texts was not published, because the early essays, for example on Mozart’s cadence structure (masculine and feminine endings), on the Webern Concerto (multiple time-layers), and on the textures of Debussy’s music (statistical form) are extremely illuminating. I look forward eagerly to the new English editions. If you don’t read German and have had to rely on the English-language translations of the Die Reihe era you are in for a treat. Of course, many of the later commentaries are printed in the sleeve-notes to the LP and CD recordings. Bartók and Webern were already dead of course by the time he got to know their music. The Bartó
