Inori, Nr. 38

Inori is a meditative work. The word inori (祈り) in Japanese means "prayer, invocation, adoration" (Stockhausen 1978a, 215). "It is like an opera with only one character and no singing, only thoughts visible as gesture and audible as reciprocally modulated sound" (Maconie 1976, 310). "The solo part is composed as a melody and is theoretically performable by a melody instrument; however the relationship between solo gesture and orchestra response is so complete that the solo melody is invariably interpreted in silence by a dancer-mime, employing a vocabulary of gestures drawn from a variety of religious practices" (Maconie 2005, 352).