This work, translated from the Latin as "crossroads," is scored for four percussionists and four orchestral groups, and was originally written for the Royan Festival. The orchestral groups are made up of strings, woodwinds and brass, and the percussionists have available a large array of relatively non-pitched instruments (claves, cymbals, bell trees, woodblocks, gongs, timbales, ratchets, quiro, tambourines, etc.) as well as tuned percussion, including two vibraphones, two xylophones, two marimbas, two glockenspiels, and two sets of tubular bells. Each percussionist is associated with one of the four orchestral groups.

The score is written in an open, indeterminate style providing materials for live structuring and decision making during performance (in the tradition of Earle Brown's Available Forms). The conductor stands at a "crossroads" as it were, continually selecting details that make up the progression of the music, the sound complexes, and the entry point for each of the groups. The distribution of the instruments is guided by the traditional Venetian concept of the imitative polychoral or echoing style of Baroque composers such as the Gabrieli's.

Many fascinating and colorful timbres—from the transparent to the overpowering—are the result of the various combinatory decisions. And, of course, the combinations of the given material are different for every performance. Some sections are formed with a considerable amount of silence and occasional small touches of widely distributed sounds. Other passages give vent to wild gestures among the brass segueing into dense, quietly floating harmonies among the strings. At other times, flights of poly-melodic tuned percussion remind one of the massed bird songs of some of Messiaen's pieces. There are also dense string and woodwind passages with furious trills and tremolos, followed by intense blasts from the percussion while the strings sustained massive tone clusters.

Given all the possibilities, Maderna's sense of clarity and rich timbral writing still comes through.

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