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In 1983, at the age of 34, French–Canadian composer Claude Vivier was stabbed to death in his Paris apartment by a man he had picked up. When Vivier’s body was discovered a few days later, another discovery was made: the manuscript on his desk was an unfinished work called Do You Believe in the Immortality of the Soul, which appeared to prophesy the very circumstances of Vivier’s death.

“Very briefly, the protagonist in this work comes into a subway and sits down, and a stranger — a young man — joins him in this mini opera, you might say,” explains Lawrence Cherney, artistic director of the Toronto contemporary music collective Soundstreams. “They have a conversation that goes on for some minutes, and in the end, the stranger pulls out a knife and stabs [the protagonist] through the heart.”

Read the full story on CBC Music here.