I.

It opens mid-motion, as if caught unraveling. A noise, brisk and grained, emerges from the second violin, bow hairs pressed against string. Col legno: The cello draws the wooden back of the bow upward and then down—a rustle makes itself heard and is gone. Now the second violin traces light, oblique arcs, upward, then across, then back down the strings. The viola answers with kindred motions as the cello loosens the sequence through fluttering strokes that thin the phrase to its edge. The first violin enters, grinding noise into the hushed fabric, before yielding again to the second violin, which drops the bow directly onto the strings, punctuating what materializes piece by piece as a terrain of sound.