Commissioned by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, "Hay que caminar" was born out of expanded material from Nono's previous work, La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, and was the fourth and last piece to bear a title related to the "Caminantes", after Caminantes... Ayacucho, No hay caminos, hay que caminar... Andrei Tarkovsky, and La lontananza.
[1] The original title also bears an additional inscription: "KOE 20 A", which refers to the house the piece was composed in — Königstraße 20a, in Berlin.
The piece was premiered at the Sala Grande del Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, in Milan, on October 14, 1989, by violinists Irvine Arditti and David Alberman, and was published later that year by Casa Ricordi.
A lot of its musical material is derived both from his previous work for solo violin, La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, and Giuseppe Verdi's scala enigmatica used in his "Ave Maria".
[3] In much the same way as in La lontananza, a minimum amount of eight music stands are dispersed around the stage.