The composition was commissioned by Phynea Paroufakis and Peter Paroufakis from Australia for the pianist Roger Woodward, the New York Philharmonic and the Indian conductor Zubin Mehta, who gave it a first performance on 13 November 1986 at the Lincoln Center in New York.
According to the composer, the title of the composition, as most of his other works, is a compound from other Greek words and roots: krekoo and opsis.