Musik für ein Haus

[1] Between the original planning, which began as early as November 1967, and the start of the courses in August 1968, Stockhausen experienced a personal crisis that changed the shape of the project.

Following the premiere of Kurzwellen in Bremen on 5 May 1968, Stockhausen received a letter from his second wife, Mary Bauermeister, informing him that she would not be returning from America and declaring that their marriage was at an end.

[2] He called this intuitive music, and resolved to use these verbally described processes as the basis of the Darmstadt composition studio, which lasted for the seventeen days preceding the Ferienkurse.

As part of his efforts to sharpen the participants' awareness for this new kind of composing, Stockhausen scheduled some seminar sessions late at night or early in the morning, which included listening to recordings of Japanese Gagaku and temple music, as well as field trips to services at a Jewish synagogue in Frankfurt and a Russian Orthodox church, and a specially arranged Catholic mass at a Capuchin monastery.

[5] The fourteen participating composers and their works were:[6] Twelve instrumentalists had also been invited: They were joined by Johannes Fritsch (viola), and David C. Johnson (alto flute and electronics).

[12][13] Musik für ein Haus was premiered on 1 September 1968 in the Moller-Haus [de], the masonic lodge in Darmstadt, in a performance that ran continuously from 6:00 to 10:00pm.

[1] After the experience of Ensemble and Musik für ein Haus, Stockhausen continued the idea of simultaneous performances in different spaces with a project for the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, including a mammoth composition Fresco for four orchestral groups, with unhappy results.

It was provisionally titled Musik im Wald (Music in the Woods), but in the end Stockhausen abandoned the idea in favour of a series of retrospective analytical lectures.