The composition was commissioned by Phynea Paroufakis and Peter Paroufakis from Australia for the pianist Roger Woodward,[1] the New York Philharmonic, and conductor Zubin Mehta, who gave it a first performance on 13 November 1986 at the Lincoln Center in New York.

He also refers to the legend from the Mycenaean era of Cecrops I, originally from Sais in Egypt, who, in a reign of 50 years, introduced civilization into Attica, fortified the Acropolis of Athens and divided the people into four tribes.

It is scored for a solo piano and a large orchestra consisting of four flutes, four oboes, four clarinets in B-flat, four bassoons, four French horns in F, four trumpets in C, four trombones, one tuba, one harp, timpani, a percussion section consisting of two bongos, three tom-toms and one bass drum and a large string section consisting of sixteen first violins, fourteen second violins, twelve violas, ten cellos and eight double basses.

[3] In this piece, the piano and the three families of the orchestra (that is, strings, woodwind and brass) are equal strands of the whole composition.

In some instances, entire melodic phrases are played as "cluster lines", with players taking the same melody one semi-tone apart from their neighbour.