This world premiere performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic was commissioned by the LA Phil with generous support from the MaddocksBrown Fund for New Music as part of its centennial celebrations. It was recorded live in May 2019 at Walt Disney Concert Hall and conducted by LA Phil Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen with solo vocalist Nora Fischer. Additional commissioners include NTR ZaterdagMatinee and BBC Radio 3.

In the words of the Los Angeles Times reviewing the piece:

‘Andriessen used bits of old music, an allusion to the Dies Irae motif and some Minimalism, a jazz riff here and a Mexican brass allusion there, as he often has. But he always remakes it into a complex and powerfully blatant new thing, and here edge-of-your-seat operatically so.’

And in the words of the Guardian, Andriessen is:

‘not only the leading Dutch composer of our time, but one of the most important figures in European music in the last half century, whose influence has spread far beyond that of his own works.’