A true chamber music showpiece, Cataclysmic Hyper-virtuosity in Perpetual Motion demands intense focus and technical prowess from all four members of the ensemble. The intensity is high throughout, although the emotional effect shifts from ecstatic to darkly brooding and back again. Each player takes a turn tackling a demanding solo passage of twisting and surging virtuoso writing. The searching middle section is anchored by a viola solo that takes the form of a contorted psalmody. This plain chant represents a wordless incantation of Psalm 23:4, and was written with my good friend and collaborator Keith Hamm in mind, whose first child was born at the height of the pandemic. An echo of a time when we were so vividly reminded that new life and the shadow of death are always woven together in our world.