What is "ausmultiplikation"

Ausmultiplikation (literally, "multiplying-out") is a German term used by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen to describe a technique in which a long note is replaced by shorter " melodic configurations, internally animated around central tones", resembling the ornamental technique of divisions (also called " diminutions") in Renaissance music. Stockhausen first described this technique in connection with his "opus 1", Kontra-Punkte, composed in 1952–53 , but in his later formula composition there is a related method of substituting a complete or partial formula for a single very long tone in a much slower, "more background" projection of the formula . When this is done at more than one level, the result is reminiscent of a fractal .