Zyklus

Wolfgang Steinecke (left), who commissioned Zyklus, in conversation with the conductor Heinz Dressel (1957)

Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger (English: Cycle for a Percussionist) is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, assigned Number 9 in the composer's catalog of works. It was composed in 1959 at the request of Wolfgang Steinecke as a test piece for a percussion competition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where it was premièred on 25 August 1959 by Christoph Caskel. It quickly became the most frequently played solo percussion work, and "inspired a wave of writing for percussion".[1]

  1. ^ Kurtz 1992, p. 96.