The 1989 Piano Quartet, commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation and first performed by the English ensemble Domus, demonstrates an opening-up of Daniel Asia's style; instrumental doubling and thinner chords give this music a new clarity and sparkle. The delicate first movement is the most tonally evasive, with pointillistic piano writing echoed by one or another of the string instruments, while the others paint their lines with longer strokes. The second and third movements adhere to a more conventional idiom, forming an outwardly craggy musical landscape through which flows a stream of lyricism. Together with some rapid shifts of meter and vigorous rhythmic complexities, this style harkens back to that of Aaron Copland in the 1930s and early '50s.

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