Punkte, Nr. 1/2

Punkte originated as a punctual orchestral work which was begun in September in Hamburg and had reached a first-draft stage by 30 September. The final draft was completed on 24 October 1952, but the work remained unperformed and unpublished (Blumröder 1993, 97–99; Frisius 2008, 56). The work did not receive the title by which it is known today until much later, however. In a letter dated 4 November 1952 to Alfred Schlee (de) (the editor from Universal Edition in Vienna who, at the premiere of Stockhausen's Spiel at the Donaueschingen Festival in October, had offered to publish his works), Stockhausen initially called his new score Zweites Orchesterspiel / Kontrapunkte / für Saiten- und Blasinstrumente, and in a letter to his friend Karel Goeyvaerts dated 14 January 1953, he calls the orchestral work Nr. 4 Kontrapunkte, adding, "It will be very difficult to perform this work". At this point in time, the chamber composition now known as Kontra-Punkte (with a hyphen) was instead called simply Nr 5…, für 10 Instrumente. After a heated discussion in March with Hermann Scherchen, who Stockhausen hoped would conduct the work at a festival in Cologne, he decided to withdraw the score, and substituted the chamber work for ten instruments, now redesignated "Nr 1", and eventually given the title Kontra-Punkte. The withdrawn orchestral score, which has never been performed, was renamed Punkte at some unknown point in time (Blumröder 1993, 99–101).