Kuerten, December 13th 2007

Cold morning. White sky.
The daughter of the Hotel Tritz's owner has kindly proposed to drive us - Bryan Wolf, Stockhausen's last assistant, my friend Lise Daoust, flute teacher and vice-doyen of the Montreal University, and I - to the Kuerten's Waldfriedhof. The cemetery is far up the hills, on the heights of the village.

Near the cemetery, a police car with a barrier. We guess many people are expected. We were wrong.
We arrive. It's almost 10 am. A chapel with modern architecture at the entry of the cemetery. Large triangular and trapezoid windows. In front, two tables with stacks of booklets. The material printed is the same as the email sent by the Stockhausen Foundation when Stockhausen passing away was disclosed. Two posters announcing a free concert on December 22nd. "Freude" for two harps and "Engel-Prozessionen". Two open memorial books. Two warnings : photos and films are forbidden.
While I'm writing a few words on the first pages of one of the books, I hear electronic music, and I recognize "Gesang der Jünglinge" being played inside the chapel. Goosebumps. Thirty-five years ago, when I was 17, it was the first Stockhausen piece I ever heard. The piece that changed my life.
I enter the chapel. Some people sitting, but most standing in the entrance. I edge my way among them. It's almost the end of the piece. And suddenly, I see Stockhausen.

I wasn't prepared. I thought that nine days after his death, there wouldn't be an open casket. But he's there, in front of me, lying in a light wood coffin, on a tilted podium. Wearing one of these particular Mexican shirts he used to wear since the 60s, and a beige woollen cardigan. Cross-handed, the right on the left, with bluish nails . A thin light quilted duvet covers his body from the abdomen. This man who was so tall, so impressively big, seems almost small. His face is peaceful. He seems asleep, his mouth slightly half-open. And yet, his face has this unspeakable aspect of the dead, this wax and unearthly stillness that tells you the soul is gone. I suddenly remember January 1979, when I was living at Stockhausen's Archive House on Hachenberger Weg, writing my poems of "SHU". In this house, my only daily companion was the huge Miron puppet, used for the staging of "Musik im Bauch", with its eagle head, but dressed as Stockhausen, ghostly sitting in an armchair, not far from the desk where I was writing. Again Miron was in front of me today…
Behind the coffin, a row of seven bushes, and on both sides about fifty lighted candles in glass bowls. In front, a green carpet where someone has layed down a rose. Later, during this morning, many more flowers will be layed, as well as a dreamcatcher. If I would have had it, I think I would have liked to lay down a blank score sheet with a pen…
In front, two sided groups of five rows of chairs. On the left, sitting on the chair close to the central empty space, Suzanne Stephens, with her probable relatives sitting in the same row. Symetrically placed on the right side, Kathinka Pasveer, with her family sitting by her. Almost none of all the others chairs were taken up. Maybe because of the "Reserviert" small notice on all seats. Most of the few dozen of people who are inside the chapel are standing.
Now, it's "Unsichtbare Chöre" playing on the four loudspeakers in the corners of the trapezoid space of the chapel. A few hours later, at lunch, at the Hungarian restaurant, the bass singer Nicholas Isherwood will say: "It's when entering the chapel that I realized that Stockhausen was really dead because the sound mixing console was in a corner instead of being in the middle of the hall: he would have never accepted that!"

What did I really think during the two hours I stayed in the chapel? What did I feel? I periodically tried to close my eyes, and concentrate on the music. Does it sound differently today? Of course it does. But in which way? I can't help opening my eyes, and staring at Stockhausen. I will never see him again. It seems insane, unreal, to be standing here, listening to Stockhausen's music, and looking at his dead body… Suddenly his music appears frightening to my ears, completely disconnected to any aesthetic perception. It's freezing my soul, my thinking. These "Invisible Choirs" are pouring out from the beyond. They sound inhuman. All this scenery is at the same time so moving and so ice-cold. All together, strangely, it's sharpening and anaesthetizing the grief. Stockhausen could be such a warm man. This is so far from him… Today, how much would I have loved to hear live music! However he was the pioneer of electronic music, how much today would it have been necessary to see a living performer, playing in front of the coffin, instead of these loudspeakers!
I start looking around. I recognize some faces. People who attended the summer courses the same year as I did, in 2006. I see the composer and conducter Peter Eötvös. I see Johannes Conen, the costume maker for "Freitag aus Licht". I see quite young men. All these people come in, stay half an hour, then leave. Some have tears. Some come to hug Suzanne or Kathinka. They lay a rose, they bend, they leave. My legs are buzzing. I need to sit down, on one of these "Reserviert" seats. As most of the chairs are still empty, because of the people seeming to prefer standing, I sit down in the last row. Sometimes, someones stands just in front of me and I can't see Stockhausen anymore.
After "Unsichtbare Chöre" , it's an unknown work. Still electronic music, with Stockhausen's voice slowly listing about twenty words such as "Joy", "Gratitude", "Awakening", "Faith", "Love", and so on. First in German. Then in English.
When people leave, I can see Stockhausen again, between two shoulders of people sitting in front. On my small sketchbook, I try to draw Stockhausen's face. My drawings are very bad. He almost looks like Lon Chaney in Rupert Julian's 1925 film "The Phantom of the Opera"...

In the left corner, I hear plastic noises. A young guy is indiscreetly extirpating things out of a bag. I'm surprised to see him unpacking a roll of film, and loading a small plastic camera. He starts taking pictures of Stockhausen's body, of the people around. The music drowns the camera clicks, and no one notices this young man who is openly despising the "No photos, no films" sign. I'm on the edge to stand up and tell him his attitude is shameful, but I do nothing. Even when I see him switching his camera with a videocam, and filming again. Later, I have been told that this guy is a Russian student in musicology who attended the Stockhausen courses during several years… What a shame.

Around noon, I decide to go out. I need to walk. In front of the chapel, some scattered small groups of people talking. I realize that actually there is not even the beginning of the crowd one could have expected. No radio. No television. Among the five or six funeral wreathes exposed near the entrance, only two (the Ministerpraesident von Nordrhein-Westfalen, and the Freiburg Electronic Music Studio) have been sent by an official or cultural authority. The others have all been sent by individuals. I feel puzzled. When any mediocre movie star, who will be forgotten in twenty years, passes away, there are crowds of weeping fans, there's a full cathedral ceremony broadcast outside on giant screens. But on this day, when a composer who changed the History of Music, as composers as Bach, Mozart or Beethoven did, is buried, let's say that two or three hundred people came to say farewell. I just can't understand this world. I do try, but I can't.

Outside, I see the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. I also see my friend the dancer Alain Louafi, with Alain Taquet, a Swiss photographer who took photos of all of the last world premieres of Stockhausen's works. I'm so glad to see Alain. Within two weeks, he has lost two of his Masters, Maurice Béjart and Stockhausen. Hard times.
He reveals to me that Stockhausen has had a heart attack. Since a couple of days, he had a bad cold, and started breathing with difficulty. And suddenly, on Wednesday morning, he stood up, and just collapsed in Kathinka's arms. On December 5th. Like Mozart. Like Sri Aurobindo. And some people say that things happen by random?
Alain tells me the burying will take place at 3 pm. While he goes into the chapel, I take a walk in the cemetery paths. My feet are frozen. I spot two loudspeakers in an alley. I guess it's where Stockhausen will be buried. There's a big crude stone, like a huge grey granite beach pebble.

Carved in the stone, in blue: the Michael-sign, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Komponist, 28.8.1928 - 5.12.2007.

The inside of the open tomb is all earthenware tiled in white, blue and grey. At the head and feet, the Michael-sign again. On both sides, the Eve-sign. All around the tomb, a kind of synthetic green carpet.

I walk back to the chapel. I try to warm up myself, leaning back against a wall bathed with a miserly sun. Sometimes, I look inside the chapel, through the window. I can hardly take my eyes off the sight of Stockhausen's face. I can hear the music. Now, it's "Mittwochs-Gruss".
Stockhausen's first wife, Doris Andreae, arrives, and is welcomed by her daughter Suja.
Then a strange character. A chubby man with a white suit and white shoes. About 60. Head shaved. He's carrying a plastic bag too. Weird people always seem to carry plastic bags. He takes out of the bag a hard-back board with a string. He hangs it around his neck. On the board is written:"To the pioneer of electronic music - Karlheinz Stockhausen - SHALOM - Europa - Kuerten". He lights up a large church candle. And just stands there, at the entrance of the chapel, with his board on his chest, and his candle in his right hand. The hot wax slowly runs down on his fingers. He doesn't mind. About ten minutes after, he takes the board off, lays the candle on the ground, takes a rose out of his bag, enters the chapel, lays the rose in front of Stockhausen's coffin, bends, and goes out. He takes his candle, hangs again the board around his neck, and stands there again, like a guard.

I decide to enter the chapel one last time for a couple of minutes. Apart from this permanent impression of inadequacy and coldness between the music on the loudspeakers and the unreal vision of Stockhausen's body, like the Miron puppet, I can hardly analyze my feelings. I take a last look at him, and I leave. Farewell, Karlheinz. Precede us in this journey, as you have so often preceded us.

Alain Louafi, Alain Taquet and I, we go to join Nicholas Isherwood for lunch at the Hungarian restaurant on the road, half a mile from Kuerten.
It's a nice, warm and full of humour two-hour lunch, with Nicholas, his young lady friend, and the very gentle and discreet composer Gerard Pape who I meet for the first time. Of course, everything said around the table is about Stockhausen, and Nicholas and Alain, who were, among us, those who closely worked with Stockhausen, recall many moving or funny anecdotes. Nicholas is surprised Pierre Boulez didn't come. Alain says he didn't come to Béjart's funeral either.
He says he feels uncomfortable with the fact there was no genuine religious ritual. Stockhausen was rootly a Catholic, even if he never flaunted himself as considering the Catholic religion as a priority. But God is in his music, from A to Z. The ceremony we attended this morning, was, in his opinion, a kind of ersatz of ritual, even if it was moving and beautiful... Who decided how this ceremony had to be? How far was Stockhausen involved in its planning and progress? All we know is that he already had chosen the stone for his tomb stele. Last July, after the performance of "Inori" during the summer courses, Stockhausen made Alain promise to perform "Inori" for his funeral. But today, Alain hasn't been asked anything…

Time to get back to the cemetery.
Will eventually more people be there? Alain told me about 1500 persons came to Béjart's funeral.
Well, it's a shame to say that hardly 50 people were there, waiting in front of the chapel… Unbelievable.
I see Simon Stockhausen. Markus couldn't come. He's on a concert tour in South America.
The six undertakers are wearing black coats with a short shoulder cape, a top hat and white gloves. There are impressive. They carry Stockhausen's coffin out of the chapel and lay it on a six-wheel large board. Suzanne Stephens asks everyone to take inside the chapel one of the candles in a bowl, and to follow the funeral procession. When we all have done what Suzanne asked, the procession starts in the alleys of the cemetery.
It's not far. The afternoon is colder than the morning. The sky is coulourless. I remember having read that Schubert was one of the men carrying Beethoven's coffin to the tomb. Stockhausen should have been carried too by musicians and composers, instead of rolling on this board driven by these strange spooky undertakers… There should have been trumpet players all over the cemetery, playing Michael's formula. There should have been music boxes playing Tierkreis melodies everywhere on the surrounding tombs. Someone should have been singing: "In the sky I am walking" or "Comes the dance You must dance Comes the death You can't help it ! Ah What a chill, Ah what a wind…"
But nothing of that.
Only a silent candle procession.
We arrive near the tomb. As the alley is narrow, and as I was near the end of the procession, I'm not very close to the tomb. I hear Suzanne Stephens' voice in the loudspeakers. In German, she pronounces a few words. I can't understand what she's saying (1). Then, she starts reciting in German the Our Father prayer, which is joined by most of the people. She says a few more words, and I hear her voice breaking down, and I guess that Stockhausen's coffin is being now taken down in the tomb. I hear the trumpet player in my head. Invisible and lonely.
Then starts another procession. Those who want file past the tomb. On the left, stands a man with a large basket filled with rosebuds. I lay down the candle I still have in my hands on a kind of copper bench on the side of the tomb. Then a few minutes later, I'm standing in front of the tomb. I pick up a rosebud. Play louder trumpet player! Louder! I squeeze it against my heart, and I throw it on Stockhausen's coffin, already covered by flowers and rosebuds. Farewell Master.

The family is already starting to slowly walk away. Some of us stay around the tomb, scattered between the neighbour tombs. Near the larger alley going down to the chapel, all members of Stockhausen's family gathered together in a circle, holding their hands. Simon reads a text.
It's around 4 pm. That's it. One of the greatest composers of these last 50 years has just been buried. It's a freezing afternoon in a distant German village. Fermata.

I end the afternoon with Lise Daoust, Alain Louafi and Alain Taquet, drinking coffees, hot chocolate and tea in Kuerten. We talk a lot. It's nice. When will we meet again? Tomorrow, Lise is leaving for Montreal, Alain Louafi for Lausanne, Alain Taquet is staying around a few days, and I'll be on my way back to Brittany, France.

That night, I only slept about three hours. Impossible to rest. Impossible to have an empty head. Like trapped in a looping movie, I keep seeing Stockhausen in his coffin. Miron.
I put on my earphones, and start my portable CD player. It's three o'clock in the morning, and I'm listening to Beethoven's 8th string quartet.

Paul Dirmeikis

December 2007

(1) The English translation of Suzanne Stephens' words can be read at : Suzee's prayer