Waterhouse composed the work as the closing work of the 2011 Liszt Festival at the Gasteig, Munich, played in a concert of works by Liszt and Waterhouse. He combined elements of Liszt's music such as "virtuosic piano writing", "characteristic harmonic colour through the piling up of similar intervals", "timbre as a structural device, delineating form by extremes of high and low texture, as well as by the return of percussive elements" and "recurrence and transformation of idees fixes"
themes, notably the
Dies irae theme. The work developed to a "scaled down piano concerto", combining concertante elements for the piano with chamber music writing for the strings. The work is in one movement, structured in five sections: • Allegro alla toccata • Presto precipitando • Adagio lusingando • Vivace • Con moto giusto The first section, like a
toccata, is based on two themes, one of them the "Dies irae". In the second section, this theme "appears both in lyrical as well as in satirical guise". The third section introduces a
cantabile line in the strings and leads to a dialogue of piano and first violin. The fourth section is a "demonic scherzo in time". The finale combines the material of all previous sections and ends with a fast
coda. A review in the
Süddeutsche Zeitung compares the music to a dreamlike ride through surreal territory, full of surprising events and turns. A reviewer in
Das Orchester noted that the work has gestural moments ("gestische Momente)" and that it refers to music from the past, including the "Dies irae", discreetly woven in the texture. He described a theatrical danse macabre led by the first violin, using the
tritone. == Performances and recording ==