The hyphenated title signifies a "counter-action" against the punctual style currently in vogue in the early 1950s, an action embodied in the composition itself as a process of transforming dissociated "points" into cohesive "groups" of notes, and therefore from an essentially static condition to an audibly dynamic one.
[3] Kontra-Punkte was first performed during the ISCM World Music Days in Cologne on 26 May 1953 by members of the WDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hermann Scherchen.
This performance, however, was only of roughly the first two-thirds of the work, owing to lack of sufficient time for the pianist to prepare the extremely difficult closing part.
This unidirectional process has been compared on the one hand to that of Maurice Ravel's Boléro,[10] and on the other to Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony.
[11] Countless minor changes have been introduced in subsequent revisions, the last of which, in January 2004, replaced the A clarinet with the B-flat instrument.