Praise the Lord - Preiset den Hernn - Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Gesang der Junglinge" 1955-56 ("Song of the Youths")

"The text of Gesang der Jünglinge is from a Biblical story in The Book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace but miraculously they are unharmed and begin to sing praises to God. This text is presented in a carefully devised scale of seven degrees of comprehensibility, an idea which also came from Werner Meyer-Eppler's seminars (Stockhausen 1958,Heike 1999, 210–14)...

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are people recorded in the biblical Hebrew book of Daniel Chapters 1–3, known for their exclusive devotion to God. In particular, they are known for being saved by divine intervention from the Babylonian execution of being burned alive in a fiery furnace. They were three young Jews, of royal or noble birth from the Kingdom of Judah, who, along with Daniel, were inducted into Babylon when Jerusalem was occupied by the Babylonians in 606/605 BCE, under the campaign of Nebuchadnezzar II, during the first deportation of the Israelites." (Wikipedia)