Although he was trained as a trombonist, Daniel Asia didn't attempt a brass quintet until well into his career, and then mainly because he was already acquainted with members of the American Brass Quintet, for which the work was commissioned by the Fromm Foundation of Harvard University. It is dedicated to the memory of the composer's father.

Each of the three movements has its own particular shape and atmosphere, according to Asia. The first, Moderato, is a fairly light set of variations plus contrasting material. According to Asia, "Starting as a single disjunct line, hocketing between the various instruments, the (thematic) figure gradually expands through different registral areas and in various densities of instrumental combination." For contrast, Asia adds an increasingly insistent fanfare figure, and a dance-like figure in compound meters (combinations of twos and threes) designed to evoke Renaissance music, a remembrance of the music of the Gabrielis, which Asia played as a young trombonist. The movement ends with a forceful restatement of the main theme, played as a chorale.

The Adagio, which Asia described as the heart of the work, is elegiac and mournful. "The music is grounded in a reiterated note, like a bell tolling," Asia explained. "Around this, the primary introductory material is stated, a series of falling minor sixths. Melodies follow, whose emotional and physical range is quite limited, as the music hovers amid a redolent stasis. A catharsis does occur, with a climax back on the initial falling-sequence figure, followed by a somewhat more painful stab of quarter-note clusters, another bell tolling, but this time it is as if the high harmonics and strike-tone of a bell are amplified far beyond that of the main note itself." A more insistent version of the opening material leads to the movement's final climax, which is followed by a tranquil coda, dominated by the bell-tolling figure and falling minor sixths.

The finale, marked "Fast and lively," is propelled by sixteenth notes. In the background lurks a repeated seven-note and seven sixteenth-note scalar figure. Once this is all established, the movement consists of a series of what Asia called "reflections" on the basic material, through different "conversational" sub-groupings of the instruments.

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