With his first venture into the genre of the string quartet in 1985, Gavin Bryars primarily concerned himself with making the sonority of the ensemble his own, utilizing various "special effects" (extensive harmonics, slightly altered tunings, etc.) to lend the piece a slightly multimedia feel, and applying special scoring techniques to give the ensemble the sort of rich, bottom-heavy sound that characterized so many of his works involving string orchestra. Five years later, in his String Quartet No. 2, Bryars still demonstrates an interest in instrumentational nuance and timbral experimentation, but applies the various contrasting sounds in his string quartet palette in a less eclectic, more integrated manner. His second effort thus moves more seamlessly between its various and continuous episodes, all of which stake out their space primarily through shifts in texture. Bryars is not exactly a minimalist composer, although there is undoubtedly considerable overlap between his audience and that of composers normally falling under that description. And although his formal schemes often rely on the combination and concatenation of extended passages with repetitive underlying rhythmic patterns, the compelling force behind his music is not the repetition itself, but rather the subtlety and microscopic attentiveness that repetition lends to his clear and changing dramatic trajectories. In this regard, Bryars' String Quartet No. 2 may fall somewhere between minimalism and neo-Romanticism. A kind of meditative pulse is present virtually throughout the piece, which draws the listener in to observe the harmonic shifts and arching melodies that characterize Bryars' expressive compositional voice. The work opens ( not coincidentally, in a similar fashion to how his Quartet No. 1 closes) with high string harmonics. The plaintive harmonies, rendered in the reedy timbre of overtones, set off the unabashedly lyrical solo lines. The interruption of this passage is the most cinematically sudden shifts in the piece as the entire ensemble engages in fast-paced repeated chords whose relentless iterations are jolted by heavy accents falling on seemingly random beats (the allusion to Stravinksy's Rite of Spring is clear). Soon, however, this pattern begins to slow and the sharp articulation of the chords becomes blurry. The transition into the subsequent sections is one of the piece's finest moments, as the thumping accents transform into a more muted texture of chord repetitions occasionally peppered with chromatic grace notes. As a variety of instruments take turns spinning out long-breathed lines, the background chord repetitions subtly change shape as different instruments assume the accompanimental roles; Bryars creates one of his most engaging sonorities by giving the rhythmic impetus to the viola and one violin, while pairing the other violin with the cello and giving them the same pensive melody two octaves apart. The chordal repetitions eventually dissipate into a kind of nimble, wide-ranging arpeggiation figure (the type heard in much of Bryars' string music) before settling into a series of long-sustained harmonies adorned only with faint tremolos and hazy portamenti. These sustained chords fade as well, smoothly dovetailing into silence.

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