Studie II

The world premiere took place in Cologne on 19 October 1954 in the concert series Musik der Zeit, together with Stockhausen's Studie I and works by Henri Pousseur, Karel Goeyvaerts, Herbert Eimert, and Paul Gredinger.

[2] In contradistinction to musique concrète, Stockhausen wanted no longer "to use any electronic acoustic sources, with the sound spectra already built up (Melochord, Trautonium), but only produced from the pure tones of a frequency generator ("pure" notes without overtones)"[3] therefore using neither electroacoustic instruments nor other found sounds.

[8] For the pitches, Stockhausen built a scale in which the interval between successive steps consists of the frequency proportion

This differs from the traditional tempered tuning system, in which an octave consists of twelve segments, the interval between two adjacent steps being therefore defined by the ratio

[8] The five sections of the piece are differentiated in the first instance by the types of groups employed: horizontal (melodic) or vertical (chordal).

The pattern is as follows:[10] Studie II was part of the very first "concert presentation of compositions developed in the Cologne studios of NWDR" (from the programme of the premiere of the piece from 19 October 1954).

[11][12] In the course of time Studie II became a milestone not only in Stockhausen's early work, but in the history of the electronic music generally.

In his Gesang der Jünglinge, he used recorded and transformed vocal sounds in addition to electronic sounds; later he built on Gottfried Michael Koenig's procedure of "transforming unification of the originally diverse", as he also incorporated sounds performed live (in the orchestral composition Mixtur as well as in the instrumental and/or vocal pieces of ensemble of Mikrophonie I and Mikrophonie II) or ring modulated recordings of traditionally produced music (in the tape composition Telemusik).