Bozar’s Total Immersion festival aims for complete auditory immersion: from historical compositions to new creations and a night-long happening. The Brussels Philharmonic performs Stockhausen's Gruppen, an iconic avant-garde work that places the audience at the center of three orchestras for the ultimate, analogue 3D audio experience.

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“a completely new conception of musical time"
Where does sound end and music begin? Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, explored this premise in his electronic works as well as his orchestral compositions – of which Gruppen is the most iconic. "Groups of sounds, noises, and sound-noises move as completely independent units, each at its own tempo," he noted. The inspiration came from the rugged Swiss Alps: "Whole envelopes of rhythmic blocks are exact lines of the mountains that I saw right in front of my little window."

The sheer scale, technicality, and acoustic setup mean that Gruppen is rarely performed: it requires three orchestral groups with three conductors – 109 musicians in total – surrounding the audience. At the 1958 Cologne premiere, Stockhausen conducted one orchestra, while none other than Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna led the other two. Just like then, Gruppen will be played twice at Bozar, seating the audience right in the middle of the orchestras.