Shortly afterward Herbert Eimert introduced Stockhausen to the director of the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Heinrich Strobel, who asked if he would be willing to compose an orchestral work for the festival, for which Strobel was prepared to pay a sum of 1500 DM—the largest sum of money Stockhausen had ever received for any single job up to that point in his life.
Stockhausen agreed to send a two-piano reduction of the movement he had already begun to Hans Rosbaud, the conductor of the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, which would give the premiere at Donaueschingen.
By the end of May, he had completed the orchestra work but had decided that the first movement (which would later be published separately under the title Formel) was too melodic and motivic.
This revised score, with the complete second movement, was recorded for radio broadcast in July 1973 by the Südwestfunk Orchester Baden-Baden under the composer's direction, and on 14 September 1975 it was publicly performed for the first time by Stockhausen conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.
[4][5] The orchestra consists of 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 3 horns, seven percussionists, glockenspiel, vibraphone, celesta, electric organ, piano, and strings.
It is "a music of high contrasts between the brilliant flashes of percussion and the muted glow of the sustaining instruments: a nocturne with exploding shells".