as "jewel-like", and a New York Times critic found "its clusters of attractive percussive sounds" to be "fresh". On an all-Stockhausen programme in 1965, the Times critic found Refrain the "most intriguing of all with its blends of keyboard timbre and percussive sound"., and a Los Angeles critic admired its "highly refined, luminous percussion" with "pensive strokes of vibraphone, celesta, and piano six times interrupted and reactivated by the only slightly more dynamic refrain of the title" . Controversy mainly centred on Refrains unconventional notation and its relation to the resulting music. In a 1962 review of the printed score, Robert Henderson doubted whether "there are people with the energy and enthusiasm to work out in detail the precise significance of all these complex signs and then make from them a performance" and, if there were, whether "the labour involved could ever be justified by the end-product", pronouncing it merely "an amusing musical kaleidescope for those with unlimited amounts of unoccupied time". Another critic initially shared Henderson's reservations but, "Having heard both these works performed 'live', … I am moved to add that some of the perplexities mentioned above now seem less puzzling. In fact Refrain seemed a fascinating and lively performance on stage. … I was most pleased to discover that the composition 'projected' most successfully" and "the live performance was brilliant, convincing, stimulating, perhaps even fathomable". At around this same time, Peter Stadlen had similarly attacked the notation of Refrain in a programme on BBC Television. For this he was scolded by Tim Souster for having an "obsession with notation", while at the same time seeming oblivious of the fact that "Refrain is one of the finest examples of notation in the history of music". Souster concluded that One cannot stress too often the importance of letting new music, serial, indeterminate, improvised or electronic, speak directly to the ear, uncluttered by preconceptions or by anxiety about the way the score works. How the music is written down is a very minor consideration to the hundreds of people who fill concerts of Stockhausen's and Cage's music. They respond directly to the audible reality of the music, not to written abstractions, in a way which is all too rare in the critical fraternity. If he trusted his ears, Mr. Stadlen would be a happier man. The highest-profile attack on Refrain, however, was made as part of a political polemic by