Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001): Nekuïa (1981)

"Mute inanimate Nothing! Chill eternal Necessity! Insane Chance! Do you know that which lies beneath you? When will you destroy the edifice and me? -- Chance, do you know when you'll stride with hurricanes through the flurry of stars and extinguish one sun after another, and when the sparkling dew of the stars will be quenched as thou pass? -- How alone each one is in the vast sepulcher of the Universe! Only I am next to myself -- Oh Father! oh Father! where is your infinite breast that I may rest upon it? -- If each self be its own Creator and Father, why can it not be also its own destroying angel? ..."
(Jean Paul, "Speech of the dead Christ from the Universe that there is no God" from the novel "Siebenkäs", 1796 - the "Sternen-Schneegestöber" in "Nekuïa" is the "flurry of stars" from this passage)
"Listen / to the wind / High in the trees. / The wind that disarranges the hair of the dead, / while helmets have rolled far away."
(Françoise Xenakis, from the novel "Écoute", 1972 - her husband Iannis quotes from this passage: "le vent qui décoiffe les morts, / casque roulés au loin")
WDR-Chor & -Sinfonieorchester Köln (WDR Symphony Orchestra & Chorus Cologne), conducted by Michel Tabachnik
recorded in Cologne, WDR-Studio Stolberger Straße (March 24, 1982 - i.e. two days before the first performance in the WDR-Funkhaus am Wallrafplatz)
painting: Hieronymus Bosch (~1450-1516), detail from the "Haywain" triptych (Madrid, Prado)
This recording has already been uploaded on TH-cam, but from a vinyl rip. Here it is from a CD.