Spiral (Stockhausen)

[2] Spiral was composed in Madison, Connecticut in September 1968 and was premiered on 15 May 1969 at the Muzički Biennale Zagreb, with the oboist Heinz Holliger as the soloist.

[5] Between 14 March and 14 September 1970, Spiral was given 1300 times at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, in daily performances by twenty different musicians including the composer.

The score is dedicated to the other nineteen: the six singers of the Collegium Vocale Köln (Dagmar Apel, Gaby Rodens, Helga Albrecht, Wolfgang Fromme, Siegfried Bernhöft, and Hans Alderich Billig), and instrumentalists David C. Johnson (flute with synthesizer), Michael Vetter (electric recorder), Edward Tarr (trumpet), Karlheinz Böttner (electric guitar), Christoph Caskel and Michael Ranta (percussion), Rolf Gehlhaar (tamtam), Harald Bojé [de] (electronium and piano), Péter Eötvös (55-chord and piano), Gérard Frémy and Aloys Kontarsky (piano), Johannes Fritsch (electric viola), and Mesías Maiguashca (sound direction).

[3] Spiral consists of a sequence of 206 events, grouped into ten sections which are divided in the score by wavy barlines.

Most performances last between fifteen and twenty-five minutes, and Stockhausen did not authorise a full-length version until Michael Vetter convinced him to permit such a thing.

Stockhausen (back, centre) at the Shiraz Arts Festival , September 1972, with several of the Expo 70 performers: front: P. Eötvös , D. von Biel, G. Rodens, W. Fromme, H. Albrecht; second row, second from left: H.-A. Billig; far right: C. Caskel . Also in the photograph, but who was not involved in the Expo 70 performances of Spiral , standing at the left, next to the composer, is the sound engineer Volker Müller
German Pavilion at Expo '70, where Spiral was performed 1300 times in 1970, in the spherical auditorium (out of view to the right)
Graetz Pagino receiver, 1969