Lasting circa 18 minutes, it was premiered in Helsinki on 20 March 1991 by flutist Petri Alanko, cellist Anssi Karttunen and the Finnish Radio Symphony conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
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Both compositions form the title From Glass Into Smoke, inspired by Henri Atlan's 1979 essay Entre le cristal et la fumée: Essai sur l'organisation de vivant.