Electronic Frequencies

Gottfried Michael Koenig passed away 30 December 2021

Gottfried Michael Koenig was the composer who gave form to electronic music by a systematical approach.

Gottfried Michael Koenig, born in 1926 in Magdeburg, Germany, is one of the most important composers of electroacoustic music.
Koenig studied church music in Braunschweig, composition, piano, analysis and acoustics in Detmold, music representation techniques in Cologne and computer technique in Bonn.
He assisted other composers as Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Mourice Kagel, Franco Evangelisti and Györgi Ligeti at the WDR Studio’s in Cologne. He lectured at the Darmstadt music summer schools. From 1962, he was director and chairman of the Institute of Sonology at the University of Utrecht., the Netherlands. Under his direction this institute became one of the formost studio’s for research and composition in electronic music.
Started as a serial music composer, he developed his computer programs “Project 1”, “Project 2” and “SSP”“. These programs were used to formalise the composition of musical structure-variants. From this, Koenig’s works like Terminus 2, the Function series emerged. His computer applictions were used to develope acoustic works like Übung for piano, 3 ASKO Pieces, String Trio and the Segmented series.
Koenig lectured worldwide about his ideas in formalized music, music created by sets of rules. These rules were capable to create music systems which define sonic fields and sonic possibilities by interaction, contextual imprecision and context dependent parameters.
About Project I: „In interpreting the data structure composed by “Project 1”, I favour a division of labour, a method, incidentally, with analogies in serial composing and electronic music.“- GM Koenig
In 1961 Koenig received an incentive award from the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1987 the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize from the City of Amsterdam, in 1991 the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Prize. In 2002 the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Saarbrucken, Germany, awarded Koenig an honorary doctorate.
More information about Gottfried Michael Koenig: https://koenigproject.nl/

1/ Essay, 1957/58 08:18 *
2/ Terminus X, 1967 11:42 **
3/ Funktion Orange, 1968 17:20 ***
4/ Funktion Violet, 1969 12:38 *

* Acousmatrix – History of Electronic Music I-II Gottfried Michael Koenig . B.V. Haast . BVH 90012
** Terminus X (1967) · Gottfried Michael Koenig · Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology Les Espaces Électroacoustiques II ℗ ZHdK/ICST Released on: 2020-02-28 Artist: Gottfried Michael Koenig Artist: Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology Composer: Gottfried Michael Koenig Sound Engineer: Kees Tazelaar Music Publisher: col legno music GmbH
*** Institute of sonology 1959-69 : Early electronic music Sub Rosa EBX0699
Fotography: Rineke Dijkstra