Fresco (Stockhausen)
Encyclopedia
Fresco is an orchestral composition written in 1969 by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen
as foyer music for an evening-long retrospective programme of his music presented simultaneously in three auditoriums of the Beethovenhalle
in Bonn
. It is Nr. 29 in his catalogue of works, and a performance takes about five hours.
conducting Orchestra III (winds and strings) in the exhibition space by the inner courtyard, and Georg Földes conducting Orchestra IV (strings) in the small cloakroom foyer in front of the Studio auditorium (Stockhausen 1971, 149).
Live performances were given by Alfred Alings and Rolf Gehlhaar
, tamtam (Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen), Harald Bojé, electronium (Klavierstück VI, Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen), Christoph Caskel, percussion (Refrain, Zyklus), the Collegium Vocale Köln
(Stimmung), Péter Eötvös
, piano (Hymnen, Kurzwellen), Johannes Fritsch
, viola (Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen), Aloys Kontarksky
, piano (Klavierstücke I–V, VII–XI, Kontakte, Refrain, Prozession), Gisela Kontarsky, speaker (poetry and texts written by Stockhausen), Michael Vetter
, recorder with short-wave radio (Spiral), and Stockhausen himself, on celesta (Refrain), as reader of his own poem, "San Francisco", and as sound projectionist in Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen, and Stimmung. Sound projectionists for the films and playback from tape were Péter Eötvös, David C. Johnson, and Mesías Maiguashca
(also for Hymnen).
This type of programming, called a Wandelkonzert ("promenade concert"), had been pioneered in Germany by Stockhausen in 1967 with a Darmstadt group-composition project titled Ensemble (Gehlhaar 1968; Herbort 1970). For over a year, Stockhausen had been involved in planning the auditorium and programming for the German Pavilion at Expo '70
in Osaka
, which would open on 14 March 1970. In a programme note written for the premiere of Fresco, Stockhausen described his vision for future performance spaces:
In the 1970s Stockhausen would return to this Wandelkonzert idea in Sternklang and Alphabet für Liège
(Stockhausen 1989, 152–53), and much later in the final scene, Hoch-Zeiten, of the opera Sonntag aus Licht (1998–2003), as well as in his last work, the unfinished cycle of twenty-four chamber-music compositions Klang
.
". By strolling (wandeln) through the space, the listeners constantly change their individual perspectives (Kohl 1998, 6 and 9). This is the sort of music that, a few years later, Brian Eno
would name "ambient music
".
The glissando surfaces move independently in each of the four orchestral groups. The manner of their movement is prescribed in two ways, first according to whether they fall or rise, and secondly according to whether they become narrower or wider. The work begins with descending glissandos in all four orchestral groups. In three of these groups the glissando surfaces are progressively compressed into the low register (in processes with different lengths), while in the fourth group they widen as they descend. The direction then reverses, with a superimposion of a rising-spreading form of motion on a falling-compressing one. The development of the form continues in this way, with characteristically different forms of motion and section durations.
The orchestras were scheduled to play in overlapping segments, three per orchestra, with pauses of 30 or 40 minutes between segments (Stockhausen 1971, 149).
The exact scoring is flexible. According to the score preface, the groups at the Beethovenhalle (including the conductors, who also played instruments) were arranged in rows in the following order:
The remaining musicians participated in the well-attended (about two thousand listeners) performance on 15 November but many only under protest, leaving a hand-painted placard in the warm-up room reading, "We are playing, otherwise we would be fired!" (Anon. 1969). As the evening progressed, things deteriorated as the four conductors lost control over their groups.
folk songs, and the clatter of overturned ashtrays, beer bottles, and music stands filled the air of the foyer and corridors (Kurtz 1992, 175). Pranksters were at work, too, replacing some of the instruction sheets on the music desks with slogans like "Stockhausen Zoo. Please do not feed the animals!" Antagonists in the audience taunted the musicians, some of whom tired of the "monkeyshines" and went home after only an hour had gone by. Shortly after, another prankster switched off the stand lights, leaving the remaining musicians in the dark. The whole thing ground to a halt after 260 minutes (Anon. 1969). Apart from the hecklers, some of the mainly young listeners in the audience (many of whom were schoolchildren) were not experienced in concert etiquette and made so much noise that Stockhausen and the performers frequently had to ask for quiet (Kurtz 1992, 175). The really remarkable thing, according to the composer, was that so few of the children misbehaved in this way (Stockhausen 2009, 251).
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
as foyer music for an evening-long retrospective programme of his music presented simultaneously in three auditoriums of the Beethovenhalle
Beethovenhalle
The Beethovenhalle is a concert hall in Bonn. It is the third hall in that city to bear the name of Bonn-born composer Ludwig van Beethoven.- History :...
in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
. It is Nr. 29 in his catalogue of works, and a performance takes about five hours.
History
In October 1968 Volker Wangenheim, general music director for Bonn, offered Stockhausen all of the rooms of the Beethovenhalle in Bonn for an evening concert of his music. In addition, he suggested that Stockhausen might consider writing a new piece for the Bonn Orchestra, though he could offer only three rehearsals, and warned that Bonn did not have much money for expenses. Wangenheim also wrote that he had heard about Stockhausen's Ensemble and Musik für ein Haus projects at Darmstadt in 1967 and 1968, implying that he hoped for something along the same lines (Stockhausen 1971, 143). Stockhausen proposed an evening-long programme of his music to be performed simultaneously in all three auditoriums of the building. At the same time, there would be a new work played at four places in the foyer and lasting four-and-a-half hours. This work was composed in the Fall of 1969 for the Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn, and was titled Fresco, Wall Sounds for Meditation (Kurtz 1992, 174). The world premiere took place on 15 November 1969, with Volker Wangenheim conducting Orchestra I (winds and percussion) in the cloakroom foyer at the main entrance of the Großer Saal, Volkmar Fritsche conducting Orchestra II (strings) on the "bridge" in the foyer of the Großer Saal, Bernhard KontarskyBernhard Kontarsky
Bernhard Kontarsky is a German conductor, pianist, and teacher.Kontarsky studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. In 1964 he began his conducting career as Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater Stuttgart...
conducting Orchestra III (winds and strings) in the exhibition space by the inner courtyard, and Georg Földes conducting Orchestra IV (strings) in the small cloakroom foyer in front of the Studio auditorium (Stockhausen 1971, 149).
Musik für die Beethovenhalle
The larger project into which Fresco was incorporated was called "Music for the Beethoven Hall", and was described in the programme book as "3 x 4 hours of non-stop programmes simultaneously / in 3 halls and the foyers of the Beethovenhalle" (Stockhausen 1971, 148). The programmes in each of the three auditoriums were performed in the usual way, only the seats were removed and the audience was seated on the floor on rugs and mats. These programmes were carefully timed so that the intermissions would coincide, at which point the members of the audience were free to move to one of the other halls for the next segment. "The idea was that my music should be experienced like exhibits in a museum" (Stockhausen 1989, 151–52). Conceptually, "instead of the usual chatter, the whole house, from cloakroom to auditorium seat right up until the entrance of the conductor, could already be filled with sound, so that the listener could begin listening, if he wanted, from the moment of entry, making his own selection from a timetable placed at the entrance giving details of the three programmes to take place simultaneously in the three auditoriums" (Stockhausen 1971, 143, 150–52):| Großer Saal | Kammermusiksaal | Studio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:00 | Gesang der Jünglinge Gesang der Jünglinge Gesang der Jünglinge is a noted electronic music work by Karlheinz Stockhausen. It was realized in 1955–56 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk studio in Cologne and is Work Number 8 in the composer's catalog of works... |
Momente Momente Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists... (from tape) |
Kurzwellen Kurzwellen Kurzwellen , for six players with shortwave receivers and live electronics, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 25 in the catalog of the composer’s works.-Conception:... |
| 20:15 | Kontakte | ||
| 20:50 | Gruppen (from tape) | Aus den sieben Tagen Aus den Sieben Tagen Aus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer... : Litanei & Ankunft (poetry reading) |
|
| 21:00 | Klavierstück VI | Film: Eine Aufführung der Mikrophonie I Mikrophonie (Stockhausen) Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which “normally inaudible vibrations . .... |
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| 21:15 | Refrain Refrain (Stockhausen) Refrain for 3 players is a chamber-music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is number 11 in his catalog of works.-History:... |
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| 21:25 | Carré Carré (Stockhausen) Carré for four orchestras and four choirs is a composition by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Work Number 10 in the composer's catalog of works.-History:... (from tape) |
Mikrophonie I Mikrophonie (Stockhausen) Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which “normally inaudible vibrations . .... (from tape) |
|
| 21:30 | Prozession Prozession Prozession , for tamtam, viola, electronium, piano, microphones, filters, and potentiometers , is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1967. It is Number 23 in the catalogue of the composer’s works.-Conception:... |
||
| 21:55 | Zyklus Zyklus Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, assigned Number 9 in the composer's catalog of works. It was composed in 1959 at the request of Wolfgang Steinecke as a test piece for a percussion competition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where it was premièred on 25... |
"Gedicht für Dich" (poetry reading) | Klavierstück XI |
| 22:05 | Mikrophonie II Mikrophonie (Stockhausen) Mikrophonie is the title given by Karlheinz Stockhausen to two of his compositions, written in 1964 and 1965, in which “normally inaudible vibrations . .... (from tape) |
"San Francisco" (poetry reading) | |
| 22:10 | Hymnen Hymnen Hymnen is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is "Nr. 22".-Musical form and content:... with soloists |
Stimmung Stimmung Stimmung, for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work number 24 in the composer's catalog... |
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| 22:20 | Klavierstücke I–IV/IX Klavierstücke (Stockhausen) The Klavierstücke constitute a series of nineteen compositions by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierstücke "are my drawings"... |
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| 22:40 | Mixtur Mixtur Mixtur, for orchestra, 4 sine-wave generators, and 4 ring modulators, is an orchestral composition by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1964, and is Nr. 16 in his catalogue of works... (from tape) |
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| 23:10 | Klavierstücke V, VII, VIII | ||
| 23:15 | Film: Momente Momente Momente is a work by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written between 1962 and 1969, scored for solo soprano, four mixed choirs, and thirteen instrumentalists... |
||
| 23:25 | Spiral Spiral (Stockhausen) Spiral , for a soloist with a shortwave receiver, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968. It is Number 27 in the catalogue of the composer’s works.-Conception:... |
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| 23:40 | "An den der mit mir ist" (poetry reading) | ||
| 23:50 | Klavierstück X Klavierstücke (Stockhausen) The Klavierstücke constitute a series of nineteen compositions by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.Stockhausen has said the Klavierstücke "are my drawings"... |
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| 00:05 | (end) | ||
| 00:10 | (end) | ||
| 00:15 | (end) |
Live performances were given by Alfred Alings and Rolf Gehlhaar
Rolf Gehlhaar
Rolf Gehlhaar in Breslau , is an American composer.Gehlhaar is the son of a German rocket scientist, who emigrated to the United States in 1953 to work at a rocket-development research centre in New Mexico...
, tamtam (Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen), Harald Bojé, electronium (Klavierstück VI, Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen), Christoph Caskel, percussion (Refrain, Zyklus), the Collegium Vocale Köln
Collegium Vocale Köln
Collegium Vocale Köln is a German vocal ensemble, founded in 1966 as a quintet when its members were still students at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. It is directed by Wolfgang Fromme, who also sings tenor in the ensemble...
(Stimmung), Péter Eötvös
Peter Eötvös
Péter Eötvös is a Hungarian composer and conductor.Eötvös was born in Odorheiu Secuiesc/Székelyudvarhely, Szeklerland, Transylvania . He studied composition in Budapest and Cologne. From 1962, he composed for film in Hungary. Eötvös played regularly with the Stockhausen Ensemble between 1968 and...
, piano (Hymnen, Kurzwellen), Johannes Fritsch
Johannes Fritsch
Johannes G. Fritsch was a German composer.At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle's house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Knapp...
, viola (Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen), Aloys Kontarksky
Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky
Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky were German duo-pianist brothers who were associated with a number of important world premieres of contemporary works. They had an international reputation for performing modern music for two pianists, although they also performed the standard repertoire and they...
, piano (Klavierstücke I–V, VII–XI, Kontakte, Refrain, Prozession), Gisela Kontarsky, speaker (poetry and texts written by Stockhausen), Michael Vetter
Michael Vetter
Michael Vetter is a German composer, novelist, poet, performer, calligrapher, artist, and teacher.-Biography:Vetter was born in Oberstdorf in the Allgäu region of Germany, and received a conventional school education...
, recorder with short-wave radio (Spiral), and Stockhausen himself, on celesta (Refrain), as reader of his own poem, "San Francisco", and as sound projectionist in Hymnen, Prozession, Kurzwellen, and Stimmung. Sound projectionists for the films and playback from tape were Péter Eötvös, David C. Johnson, and Mesías Maiguashca
Mesías Maiguashca
Mesías Maiguashca , is an Ecuadorian composer, an advocate of the new music, especially electroacoustic music.-Biography:...
(also for Hymnen).
This type of programming, called a Wandelkonzert ("promenade concert"), had been pioneered in Germany by Stockhausen in 1967 with a Darmstadt group-composition project titled Ensemble (Gehlhaar 1968; Herbort 1970). For over a year, Stockhausen had been involved in planning the auditorium and programming for the German Pavilion at Expo '70
Expo '70
was a World's Fair held in Suita, Osaka, Japan between March 15 and September 13, 1970. The theme of the Expo was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." In Japanese Expo '70 is often referred to as Ōsaka Banpaku...
in Osaka
Osaka Prefecture
is a prefecture located in the Kansai region on Honshū, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Osaka. It is the center of Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area.- History :...
, which would open on 14 March 1970. In a programme note written for the premiere of Fresco, Stockhausen described his vision for future performance spaces:
I have published articles, given lectures, and taken part in many discussions about new auditoriums, especially about the music house, which I imagine to exist in any large city: a house in which one can continually hear music, a house that consists of a whole complex of different auditoriums, which are to be used separately or simultaneously for a composition; a sonorous labyrith of rooms, corridors, balconies, bridges, movable platforms, nests, shells, caves, 'sound storehouses', 'vibratoriums', 'sound boxes'. (Stockhausen 1971, 144–45)
In the 1970s Stockhausen would return to this Wandelkonzert idea in Sternklang and Alphabet für Liège
Alphabet für Liège
Alphabet für Liège, for soloists and duos, is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Work Number 36 in the composer's catalog of works. A performance of it lasts four hours....
(Stockhausen 1989, 152–53), and much later in the final scene, Hoch-Zeiten, of the opera Sonntag aus Licht (1998–2003), as well as in his last work, the unfinished cycle of twenty-four chamber-music compositions Klang
Klang (Stockhausen)
Klang —Die 24 Stunden des Tages is a cycle of compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, on which he worked from 2004 until his death in 2007. It was intended to consist of 24 chamber-music compositions, each representing one hour of the day, with a different colour systematically assigned to every hour...
.
Material and form
The "wall sounds" of the composition's subtitle consist of slow rising and falling cluster-glissandos and scalewise progressions—slowly evolving bands and surfaces of sound that enter and depart against a background of silence (Kurtz 1992, 175; Maconie 2005, 322). The division of the four orchestral groups into foyer spaces separated by walls and by distance makes only portions of the music audible at any one location. It is literally Wandelmusik—music for the "foyer" (Wandelgang or Wandelhalle)—and is intended as a spiritually superior form of "elevator musicElevator music
Elevator music refers to instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, telephone systems , cruise ships, airports, doctors' and dentists' offices, and elevators...
". By strolling (wandeln) through the space, the listeners constantly change their individual perspectives (Kohl 1998, 6 and 9). This is the sort of music that, a few years later, Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
would name "ambient music
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
".
The glissando surfaces move independently in each of the four orchestral groups. The manner of their movement is prescribed in two ways, first according to whether they fall or rise, and secondly according to whether they become narrower or wider. The work begins with descending glissandos in all four orchestral groups. In three of these groups the glissando surfaces are progressively compressed into the low register (in processes with different lengths), while in the fourth group they widen as they descend. The direction then reverses, with a superimposion of a rising-spreading form of motion on a falling-compressing one. The development of the form continues in this way, with characteristically different forms of motion and section durations.
The orchestras were scheduled to play in overlapping segments, three per orchestra, with pauses of 30 or 40 minutes between segments (Stockhausen 1971, 149).
| Orchestra I | Orchestra II | Orchestra III | Orchestra IV | |
| 19:10 | start | |||
| 19:20 | start | start | ||
| 19:30 | start | |||
| 20:10 | stop | |||
| 20:30 | stop | |||
| 20:50 | start | stop | ||
| 21:00 | stop | start | ||
| 21:20 | start | |||
| 21:40 | start | |||
| 22:10 | stop | |||
| 22:30 | stop | |||
| 22:40 | stop | start | ||
| 23:00 | start | |||
| 23:10 | start | stop | ||
| 23:35 | start | |||
| 0:20 | stop | |||
| 0:25 | stop | |||
| 0:30 | stop | |||
| 0:40 | stop |
The exact scoring is flexible. According to the score preface, the groups at the Beethovenhalle (including the conductors, who also played instruments) were arranged in rows in the following order:
- Group I: 1 tuba, 2 trombones, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 1 percussionist (2 pedal timpani, marimba)—conductor (oboe)—2 oboes, 2 trumpets, 2 clarinets, 2 flutes, vibraphone (soft mallets)
- Group II: 2 contrabasses, 3 cellos, 4 violas—conductor (harmonium)—5 second violins, 6 first violins
- Group III: conductor (piano)—1 trombone, 2 contrabasses, 1 bassoon, 2 cellos, 2 horns, 2 violas, 1 oboe, 1 trumpet, 2 second violins, 1 clarinet, 2 first violins, 1 flute
- Group IV: 2 contrabasses, 3 cellos, 3 violas—conductor (accordion or chromatic harmonica)—4 second violins, 7 first violins
World-premiere scandal
Knowing that there would be only three rehearsals, Stockhausen had deliberately written music that would be simple enough to be sight-read (Maconie 2005, 322). However, he greatly overestimated the good will of the Bonn orchestra, which was unaccustomed to playing contemporary music. Rebellion erupted already during the rehearsals (Kurtz 1992, 175). The Bonn musicians, "sworn bravely and honestly to their good old classics" according to the City Manager Fritz Brüse, complained they could not understand such "complex playing instructions" as to play "glissandos no faster than one octave per minute". Interpreting a Stockhausen score was clearly too much to ask from these traditionally trained musicians, who "plainly had had no time since their conservatory days to learn anything more". Still, the musicians requested Stockhausen to come for a "teach-in" at their next rehearsal and explain what he had in mind. According to one news report Stockhausen, who was preparing for an upcoming four-day festival of his music in Lebanon, declined their request—a decision described by Wangenheim as "unwise" (Anon. 1969). Stockhausen's own account conflicts with this report. He reported that he was in fact present at the first rehearsal, where there was a dispute between him and some of the musicians. One objected that, "If we are not playing on the stage, then we won’t get any applause," and Stockhausen conceded that this might be true. The musician retorted: "Yes, but in that case we won’t play. It’s absolutely out of the question! We are supposed to play for four hours. You're really crazy—and we are supposed only to make some kind of finger exercises, slow glissandos that go on for over 20 minutes? We're not a bunch of Bozos! You would be better doing this over loudspeakers!" When he explained what he wanted was "music internally animated through the concentration of the musicians", it made no difference. "They thought I meant to spoof them, in that I had given them something so simple to play that it could easily be accomplished in three rehearsals. … They didn’t understand this, and they also didn’t want it. They wanted to play a piece, maybe with ten rehearsals, seven minutes long—and then quit" (Stockhausen 2009, 250). Some orchestra members telephoned their union to find out whether they really were obliged to play such a thing, and learned they were. The concertmaster, Ernesto Mompaey, chose to ignore this union ruling and, complaining he felt "so spiritually tormented by Mssrs. Wangenheim and Stockhausen", threatened to murder the head conductor and walked out of the rehearsal, followed by some like-minded comrades (Anon. 1969).The remaining musicians participated in the well-attended (about two thousand listeners) performance on 15 November but many only under protest, leaving a hand-painted placard in the warm-up room reading, "We are playing, otherwise we would be fired!" (Anon. 1969). As the evening progressed, things deteriorated as the four conductors lost control over their groups.
The performance of FRESCO was completely wrecked by the orchestra, whose players made a lot of crazy nonsense, got drunk during their breaks, and finally handed over their instruments to members of the audience. The whole thing ended up like a primitive student happeningDuring the performance, familiar excerpts from the standard repertoire, RhenishHappeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
, whose actors were no longer really "with it". (Stockhausen 2009, 250)
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
folk songs, and the clatter of overturned ashtrays, beer bottles, and music stands filled the air of the foyer and corridors (Kurtz 1992, 175). Pranksters were at work, too, replacing some of the instruction sheets on the music desks with slogans like "Stockhausen Zoo. Please do not feed the animals!" Antagonists in the audience taunted the musicians, some of whom tired of the "monkeyshines" and went home after only an hour had gone by. Shortly after, another prankster switched off the stand lights, leaving the remaining musicians in the dark. The whole thing ground to a halt after 260 minutes (Anon. 1969). Apart from the hecklers, some of the mainly young listeners in the audience (many of whom were schoolchildren) were not experienced in concert etiquette and made so much noise that Stockhausen and the performers frequently had to ask for quiet (Kurtz 1992, 175). The really remarkable thing, according to the composer, was that so few of the children misbehaved in this way (Stockhausen 2009, 251).