| Maha-
Good question! I have had several discussions with Marco Blaauw about this- my feeling is the same as you: that once a composer has published a work it has its own life, and should be trusted to the hopefully capable hands of performers. While I was at the Courses, I couldn't help but feel quite resistant to this 'micro-management', as you put it.
In retrospect I believe what Stockhausen was doing was not over-managing, but demanding an extremely high level of accuracy in the reading of his scores. None of what he was asking of me could I disagree with on an interpretive level, because he was only asking me to play exactly what he had written. And there always remains a level of interpretation which can only come from the performer- the sound(s), the unique spiritual energy that a musician transmits in performance.
One of the goals of the Stockhausen Courses seems to be to establish a school of performance of these works which will live on after Stockhausen has shuffled off. Understandably he wants this to be at the highest possible level.
Tristram |