Alphabet für Liège

Alphabet für Liège, for soloists and duos, is a composition (or a musical installation) by , and is Work Number 36 in the composer's catalog of works. A performance of it lasts four hours.

The fundamental idea underlying Alphabet is the notion that sound vibrations can affect both living beings and inanimate matter (Maconie 2005, 341). There are thirteen scenes, or musical images, each illustrating the physical effects of sound, ranging from making acoustic vibrations visible to a demonstration of Asian mantra techniques. These ideas were developed in conversations with the British biophysicist and lecturer on mystical aspects of sound vibration Jill Purce, who also called Stockhausen's attention to the work of Hans Jenny (Kurtz 1992, 192–93; Jenny 1967). In a radio interview three months before the premiere, Stockhausen explained his purpose was to show "how sound waves always change the molecules, even the atoms of a being who listens to music, making them vibrate. And that is what we want to make visible, because most people only believe what they see" ().

Alphabet was created as a commission from the City of Liège on the initiative of Philippe Boesmans, for the Nuits de Septembre festival, and was premiered during a "Journée Karlheinz Stockhausen" on 23 September 1972. Stockhausen envisaged the work for performance in a labyrinth-like building. The venue chosen for the premiere consisted of fourteen still-empty areas, all leading off of a central corridor, in the basement level of the half-completed radio and television building in the Liège Palais des Congrès, before the wall coverings, doors, and office partitions had been installed. The bare concrete and breeze-block surfaces were whitewashed especially for the performance, and the rooms were all open to each other through open doors and windows. In this world premiere, only eleven of the thirteen situations were included (Kurtz 1992, 193; , 193). Performers included members of the British group Gentle Fire (Hugh Davies, Michael Robinson, Richard Bernas, Stuart Jones), five of the six members of the Collegium Vocale Köln (Wolfgang Fromme, Dagmar von Biel, Hans-Alderich Billig, Karl O. Barkey, and Helga Hamm), Rosalind Davies, fish expert Dr. Johannes Kneutgen, Joachim Krist, Michael Vetter, Atsuko Iwami, Herbert Henck, Jill Purce, with Peter Eötvös as "musical leader" (; , 185–92).

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