Reception
Momente caused a sensation at the first (partial) performance in Cologne on 21 May 1962, in part because the moment used to begin that version, the so-called "clapping moment" I(m), begins with applause in the choirs. This was seen by some as a mockery of the audience, but by others as a means of intensifying the connection between audience and performers (Cott 1973, 143; Kurtz 1992, 119; Stockhausen 2009, 128). Besides the opening I(m) moment, this first version consisted of just two of the M and all of the K moments, separated by the I(d) "organ moment". This version was also heard in the first American performance, at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York, on 1 March 1964 (Parmenter 1964). At the Donaueschingen Festival in October 1965, an expanded version was given, which added the remaining M moments and the I(i) "praying" moment, which is meant to conclude all versions. This version, with additions composed in the summer of 1963 and early 1964, was perceived as more good-humoured and less confrontational than the first version (Maconie 2005, 245). A recording of this version was released on the Wergo and Nonesuch labels. Completion of the D moments was only accomplished in 1969, and the first complete performance took place in Bonn on 8 December 1972, in a version beginning with the newly composed, 25-minute-long I(k) moment, which is very different from the previously composed moments and which some critics at the time felt was out of proportion to and out of character with the rest (Griffiths 1973; Maconie 1973, 33; Maconie 1976, 175). Rudolph Frisius simply regards the original "applause" moment beginning as being characteristic of the "informal" music in the spirit of the early sixties, whereas the new beginning of the 1972 version looks forward, in its evocative ritual gestures, to Stockhausen's works of the seventies (Frisius 2008, 148). Although it seemed to some at the time that the "long and exhilaratingly dramatic section" of I(k) "could never be anything but an opening" (Griffiths 1981, 147), the version prepared under the composer's direction in 1998, begins with the original I(m) "applause" moment, and I(k) opens the second part, after the intermission (Peters 1999, 105).
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