Quintet for Strings No.2

The Finale of this work introduces a certain harshness or contrapuntal severity I had never previously associated with the quintet form. It began, in my mind's ear, as an essay in minimalism, but quickly turned instead into a 5-voice fugue with an impossibly long subject, some 180 measures long. By way of consolation, I remind myself that - in 50 years of listening - I have never quite managed to reconcile myself to the harshness and severity in the outer movements of Bartók's 5th String Quartet: but love the piece, all the same. So perhaps it will be all right, in the end.