Under the auspices of 'studio reihe neuer musik', Wergo released outstanding recordings in the 1960s, thus creating a benchmark for advanced contemporary music in the label's early days. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, Wergo now releases these highlights of 20th-century history in excellent sound quality on CD for the first time.

'Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger' [Cycle for One Percussionist] can be heard in two different versions performed by two different performers, Max Neuhaus and Christoph Caskel. Stockhausen originally wrote it as a required piece for the Kranichstein Percussion Competition in 1959. He deliberately did not determine the length of the piece's performance, so as not to be overly specific concerning the work’s multiplicity of meanings, the different characters of various performances, or the technical abilities of the players. Max Neuhaus, for example, tried to find the best possible positions or arrangement of the individual instruments relative to each other to form them into one 'instrument'. In addition, he developed his own playing techniques specially adapted to the piece and instrument.

For 'Klavierstück X', Stockhausen combined two extremes: relative disorder and order, chaos and balance. The interpretation on this CD was performed by the legendary pianist Frederic Rzewski.

The recordings were originally published on LP in 1964 (WER60010).