A string quartet in 5 movements, divided into two unbroken parts.
Grave sostenuto e tranquilo -: a mysterious, searching movement on which the rest of the quartet's material is based.
Allegro energetico: a fast fugato, quasi-sonata form movement briming with energy, although not enough to complete its recapitulation, tailing off to a quiet end to the first part.
Adagio molto intensivo - Molto tranquilo -: a bold, augmentation of the previous movement's fugue subject opens the second part in the cello before dying down to the calm, rocking molto tranquilo that leads attacca into the fourth movement via the closing motive of the first movement.
Poco più mosso - Risoluto - Presto con fuoco -: via a transitionary introduction that moves from the the tranquility of the third movement and a compound metre variation of the second movement's fugato material, the presto con fuoco starts dissonantly and violently on material from previous movements, notably the rocking 4ths of the third, now reimagined as fast oscillating compound time semiquavers. This is a false start as shortly after the music dies away to a ppp that gradually builds up through offset ostinati into a new fugue that spirals onwards until it gets stuck in a loop of rhythmic ostinati  before returning to a climactic statement of the risoluto material and a simultaneous statement of all the fugue subjects that came before and climbing to a chord that disspates all energy and diminuendos into the epilogue.
Misterioso: through a brief, disjunct variation on the opening of the third movement (itself a variation on the second movement's fugue subject), the material from the first movement returns to finish the work, this time allowing the Db, that had been denied its resolution to C  that was established at the very beginning to properly resolve in the very final bars of the work.