This composition seeks to "externalize as fully as possible that which has been internalized...that is what matters today" (Nono). The music is guided by lines from Holderlin's famous poem (Diotima was Socrates' teacher, and is associated with the concept "Time"), which are present only as unspoken meditations and guideposts written into the score in 52 places. Nono addresses the fundamental questions "Where am I, and who am I ?" by examining, fragmenting, and modulating old music and memories from the distant past as producers of both pain and hope. Written for the 1980 Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Nono uses Beethoven's piano sonata instruction mit innigster Empfindung (roughly, "with innermost searching of the heart") to imply a readiness to break out of the habitual "into the open air." Toward its finale, this quartet manages to produce the sensation, appearing as an instruction in several of John Cage's works, "Play until you feel the presence of silence." This is a beautiful as well as a mentally rewarding experience.

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