A Look at Mikrophonie

Musicareaction, mourning the death of a "giant," has posted a video made up of scenes from a rehearsal of Stockhausen's piece Mikrophonie, in which a tam-tam is subjected to various objects while a microphone captures the sounds produced. The video gives a sense of the preparation and precision needed to pull such a work off: the percussionists look like a team of surgeons operating on the tam-tam.