Opening with a haunting ostinato passage, the music builds on this phrase to create an air of intensity and excitement until the very end. This unique piece imparts a sense of familiarity with its underlying mainstream harmonic structure. Multiple meter changes keep the feel a little off balance in many places, but there is always a metric resolution that brings it all back together. The piece ends with a restatement of the opening ostinato passage played again by the violas over a tonal cluster in the violins with shifting harmonic motion in the low strings.