Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen wrote a piece for four helicopters and a string quartet, and meant it. His childhood was destroyed by the war - his mother was killed under the Nazi euthanasia programme, his father died at the front - and he worked as a stretcher bearer at seventeen. He studied in Cologne and with Messiaen in Paris, and at Darmstadt became, with Boulez, the figure the post-war generation organised itself around. He worked at the West German radio's electronic studio from 1953 and produced Gesang der Junglinge, which fused a boy's recorded voice with synthesised sound and is the first masterpiece of the medium. Gruppen sets three orchestras with three conductors around the audience. From the 1960s he wrote text pieces with instructions rather than notes, toured with his own ensemble, and grew increasingly mystical. Licht, a cycle of seven operas named for the days of the week, occupied him from 1977 to 2003 and runs about twenty-nine hours. The Beatles put him on the Sgt Pepper cover. Remarks he made about the September 11 attacks caused a scandal that cost him concerts. Klavierstuck XI is printed on a single large sheet with nineteen fragments the pianist may play in any order. Stimmung has six singers holding one chord for over an hour, singing overtones and names of gods. Helikopter-Streichquartett puts each player in a separate helicopter with the rotor sound scored into the piece and was first performed in Amsterdam in 1995. He built a studio and a circular house at Kuerten and published his own scores and recordings after the record companies lost interest. Bjork and Frank Zappa both sought him out.

• Lived: 1928 CE – 2007 CE
• Nationality: German
• Roles: artist