In 1971, Pierre Boulez was asked to contribute a short musical tribute to Igor Stravinsky, who had died that year. Boulez created what amounted to a musical puzzle, a page of seven musical fragments labeled Originel and Transitoires II-VII. The notes are written out, but the instrumentation is left open, moving from a single line in the Originel, introducing the seven-note cell that underlies all the material, to two lines in Transitoire II, to three in Transitoire III, and so on. There are instructions given for going from one fragment to another, elaborating the form, and so on.

This compositional schematic was published in 1972, and Boulez worked that year and the next on a "realization" of the music for an ensemble of flute, seven other instruments, and an electroacoustic component for spatializing and manipulating the instrumental sounds. Performances at that time were not completely successful, due primarily to the instability of the halaphone, the electronic element developed by German engineer Hans-Peter Haller. Boulez put the piece aside to work on other projects, but the music was never far from his mind. In fact, the seven-note cell underlying ...explosante-fixe... was used in 1974 for Rituels, and in Repons in 1981.

In the late '80s, with new technology available to him at IRCAM, the research institute he founded in Paris, Boulez returned to ...explosante-fixe... once more. The expanded version of ...explosante-fixe... consists of (as of 1993) Transitoire VII, Transitoire V, and Originel, with two entirely electronic transitional passages, Interstitiel 1 and 2. The solo flute is "shadowed" by two other flutes as well as transformed versions of its music processed live by computer. The supporting ensemble is a mixed group almost identical to that used in Repons, six keyboard/percussion soloists.

As one might expect from a piece featuring the flute, the music is bright. It is also dramatic. The amplification of the soloist ensures that it will be heard even when the ensemble is playing full out. The seven-note cell underlying the score ensures a degree of harmonic coherence, and this is apparent from close listening. Each of the three main sections uses a different transposition of this cell, and Boulez has taken care to feature the main pitch of each prominently, providing tonal anchors. As the title might suggest (taken from a poem by André Breton), the music proceeds in fragments, in fits and starts, alternating between flurries of activity and more reflective passages. The electronics are very well-integrated into the instrumental textures, enhancing the instrumental palette rather than opposing it.

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