XI. “Mycelium Superhighway” This frenetic perpetual motion piece is the result of an attempt to distill musical ideas from my quartet Cataclysmic Hypervirtuosity in Perpetual Motion down to a workable form for two voices. The result is a high-energy post-minimalist work that is incredibly mentally and physically demanding for both performers. The title comes from the film Fantastic Fungi, which features great artist renderings of fungi communicating through chemical signals passed along their mycelium networks.

XII. “Più docile sono” A mellower perpetual motion piece, this time with the violin getting a turn on the sixteenth-note train. Halfway through a trade-off is made and the clarinet takes on the more virtuosic roll, spinning out rippling lines in the chalumea register. The allusion to “alberti-bass” becomes clearer when the music day-dreams its way into an absent minded quotation from the sublime finale of Act IV of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.

XIII. “For Arvo Pärt” A dark work in Bb minor, this simple movement for violin and bass clarinet pays hommage to composers of so-called “sacred minimalism” such as Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki.

XIV. “Ground” A pairing of two favorite musical motions of mine: “pendulum” or "oscillating" music dominates the violin writing and a sort of “stride bass” is found throughout the bass clarinet part. Set in a fairly ambiguous mode (maybe just f-sharp minor?) this fairly substantial duo spans a range of affects from objective to sentimental.

XV. “Cradle Song” Composed just prior to and during the period where it was becoming clear that my wife Emily’s breast cancer had returned, having spread to her spine, Cradle Song searches for simplicity and naivety. An aleatoric introduction built from fragments of more “pendulum music” gradually coalesces into a gently rocking ¾ music. Even here things are uneasy. The clarinet line can’t seem to find firm ground, obsessively tracing over a bittersweet oscillating figure, unable to find the proper barline. The violin soars above, spinning out a simple melody. Aleatoric music returns, and our voices find a brief reconciliation of their material in a moment of triadic repose. The violinist then reflects on earlier material, taking time to consider our earlier oscillating music through the lens of three different harmonic modes. Finally we settle back into the naive D-flat lydian music that forms the heart of this short piece, for one final passage hazy reminiscence.