lördag 8 Dec 2007, 1:02

I just heard, on BBC News 24, that Karlheinz Stockhausen is no longer with us *fighting back the tears*
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/3408833.jpg
Associated Press look to have the best early coverage.

Melissa Eddy said:
At La Scala, the famed Milan opera house, conductor Daniel Barenboim said Stockhausen "will have an influence on music history."

"The force of his music will be very much missed," Barenboim said.

Stockhausen's electronic compositions were a radical departure from musical tradition and incorporated influences as varied as psychology, the visual arts and the acoustics of a particular concert hall.

He was considered by some an eccentric member of the European musical elite and by others a courageous pioneer in the field of new music. Rock and pop musicians such as John Lennon, Frank Zappa and David Bowie have cited him as an influence, and he is also credited with having influenced techno music.

So taken were the Beatles by Stockhausen's music, they asked permission to use his photo on the cover of the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He appears fifth from the left in the back row.

Not everyone's admiration was so great. British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who founded the London Symphony Orchestra, was famously quoted as answering a question of whether he had ever conducted any Stockhausen by saying, "No, but I believe I once trod in some."

Stockhausen sparked controversy in 2001 when he described the Sept. 11 attack on the United States as "the greatest work of art one can imagine."