History
Stockhausen began work on Momente in January 1962, with a performance planned for the following May. He had been invited by Baron Francesco Agnello to withdraw for the period of composition of the work to his palazzo in Siculiana on the south coast of Sicily. Agnello was an ardent supporter of modern music, and directed the Settimane Internazionali di Nuova Musica di Palermo. The plan was that Stockhausen would go to Sicily first, and Mary Bauermeister would follow a week later, to work on paintings for an exhibition planned for Amsterdam in June. Stockhausen's wife Doris would join them in March, leaving their children in someone's care in Cologne. The palazzo was freezing cold, as it was really intended only as a summer residence, and for three months both Stockhausen and Bauermeister "worked like crazy" on their respective projects, retreating to a small, easily heated room, furnished with a piano and two tables (Bauermeister 2011, 79–80).
Shortly before Doris was to have come to Siculiana a telegram arrived, saying she had been taken seriously ill and required surgery. Stockhausen decided to return to Germany to support her, and they spent a quiet time in the Black Forest, where Doris went to recuperate (Bauermeister 2011, 84).
A first version of Momente, consisting of all the K moments, i(m), i(d), M(m) and MK(d), was premiered on 21 May 1962 at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. Moment i had already been composed, but was not included in the Cologne performance. A second group of moments, including all the remaining M moments and some of the D moments, was composed for a performance planned for the 1963 Settimane Internazionali di Nuova Musica di Palermo, but the musicians rebelled at the unconventional nature of the music and the performance did not take place. Early in 1964 these moments were revised. Seven of the M moments and the i moment were added for a tour in October 1965, but the D moments were withheld for practical performance reasons (Bauermeister 2011, 130; Kurtz 1992, 128; Stockhausen 1971b, 31 and 38).
Some of the D moments were subsequently reworked, and the long i(k) moment composed for a completely new version, completed in 1969 but only premiered on 8 December 1972 in Bonn. This version was recorded for commercial release and taken on a tour of Europe (Stockhausen 1978, 57).
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