Benglis created Crescendo by pouring additional polyurethane material directly onto a bronze fountain titled The Wave of the World that she created in 1983-84, and then recasting this material into bronze. This type of layered creation over time has a precedent with sea life, as Benglis has explained: “The result is this kind of crustacean-like a shellfish, or a snail on top of another thing, making its home out of this thing.” The Wave of the World was the first fountain-and the first major work in bronze-that Benglis ever made. She completed it after winning a commission to produce a fountain for the Louisiana World Exposition, a World's Fair held in New Orleans in 1984. For Storm King's exhibition Benglis has paired it with a two-part work, Double Fountain, Mother and Child, For Anand, which she sees as having a more playful feel. As she has explained, “The smaller one was almost as a jumping porpoise or some such animal leaping out of the water, and the larger one was twisted in a contrapposto fashion, looking at the child.”