“Apart from the ten 5-minute string quartets that I wrote in 1992 as theoriginal version of A Man in a Room, Gambling, there are 8 years between my second and third quartets. Another element which finds its way into the quartet comes from my work with groups from the world of early music, particularly from the experience of writing for a consort of viols …. In several places I ask for little or no vibrato from the strings, occasionally preferring open strings and natural harmonics to stopped notes.”