“Each of these movements is a masterclass on the strategies of musical storytelling. Ephemera, conceived as the earliest movement and placed at the center of the work, may be one of the shorter pieces in the suite, but its role is nonetheless foundational. It presents the seeds of the elemental materials, gestures and textures, that return in the other movements. The strings and woodwinds of the quartet movements explore timbral and textual qualities in different pairings; the pulsating chords that orbit around Mercury return with full force in Ananke. This final and most extensive movement performs its title – Necessity – with an obsessive focus on a recurring gesture, equivalent to the Beethovenian “Muss es sein?”, that returns in various guises, be it as ambient chords, as bristling sharp attacks, or violent piano clusters. It is a study in extremes.”