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Since we'll have a unique opportunity to hear the first public Australasian performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Hymnen", readers may be interested in a small account of a February performance this year:

When the BBC Symphony Orchestra performed works by the modern genius Stockhausen last month, the master was introduced to the Orchestra's sole percussionist, Tristram Fry.

"How old are you?" asked the maestro.

"23," replied Fry.

"Well, you are too young to have the integrity to play my piece Necrophily," said the composer.

This riled the Symphony Orchestra, but they were most put out by that part of the programme entitled (rough translation) Sailing Away to Eastern Skies. There was no score for this piece. Instead, the master had caused to be placed before members of the orchestra a card with four lines of verse on it—by himself. The verse gave the title, set the mood and suggested one note. The orchestra were then urged to strike out on their own for the next twenty minutes.

This seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so the orchestra read the verse carefully, played the note and then carried on tuning up operations for one minute. After that, silence.

Stockhausen was so angry that he vowed that he would never attend a concert of his works in Britain again.

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Utopian Myth

Anti-apartheid demonstrations arc. to my mind, the greatest confidence stunt in the history of man the beginning of the move by the coloured peoples towards world dominance. Unfortunately, they are able to use the white do-gooders and so-called idealists to promote their designs. The Maori Council is to be congratulated on its levelheadedness and its expressed intention of moving forward with its pakeha brothers. We must stand together to protect our heritage. Peaceful co-existence in the international sense is a Utopian myth.

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Of course, everyone's heard by now the joke about the Prime Minister who gave himself a knighthood and went on to prove (on Gallery) that he was still a simple ignorant country hick by referring to "Charles Dickens' book The Origin of the Species." Well, I'm grateful to Stuart Loudon, Chaff's "Over the Teacups' columnist, for an extra detail. After referring to Sir Keith's (choke) Dickens faux pas (and guessing that the P.M. "is still adding books to his library, colouring them in when he gets a spare moment"), Loudon mentions that Holyoake referred to "the Nixon-Kennedy Debates of 1964." (Communication by ouija board, no doubt?) I missed the programme, of course. I'm inclined to think I might have shared David Smith's wonderment that Brian Edwards did not "leap up and smash this cloying dwarf around the face (both of them)."