The album contrasts adaptations for string quartet of music from the
Middle Ages and early
Renaissance with 20th-century compositions. The earliest piece is by the ninth-century
Byzantine abbess, poet and composer
Kassia; the most recent pieces are by the twentieth-century composers
John Cage,
Alfred Schnittke, and
Arvo Pärt. Arranging and selecting compositions from ten centuries of music was intended, according to David Harrington, the quartet's founder, "to find a way of relating vastly different pieces to one time, to find a place in time where the elements meet." Harrington described the contrast between old and new music as crucial to the quartet: "There are moments when the music could have come out of the Middle Ages; there are other moments when it sounds like it's coming out of the Vietnam War, let's say. That contrast is something we've been working with for a long time." Allan Kozinn, writing in
The New York Times, describes the album as a
concept album in which "the distinctions between old and new are blurred, and the effect is comforting rather than disconcerting." ==Instrumentation==