Henri Pousseur, David Tudor, Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez at Darmstadt in 1956
In the eleventh episode of No Sounds Are Forbidden, host Matthew Friedman explores how European composers built a new avant-garde, virtually out of nothing after the Second World War. Growing out of the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, this transnational community of composers sought to build a new music for a new, united Europe, although they could never escape the shadow of Europe’s traumatic past.
This episode features music by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Hans Werner Henze, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and J.S. Bach.
View the full episode playlist.