Also, the outer four movements feature rhythmic sforzandos that cyclically tie them together in terms of climactic areas.

3, and as with that work, it has been suggested that Bartók was influenced in his writing by Alban Berg's Lyric Suite (1926) which he had heard in 1927.

In the third movement, Bartók sometimes indicates held notes to be played without vibrato, and in various places he asks for glissandi (sliding from one note to another) and so-called Bartók or snap pizzicati, (a pizzicato where the string rebounds against the instrument's fingerboard).

Bartók’s musical vocabulary, as demonstrated in his string quartets particularly, departs from traditional use of major and minor keys, focusing more on the chromatic scale and attempting to utilize each note equally.

Regardless, Bartók doesn’t follow any form of serialism, instead dividing the chromatic scale into symmetrical units, with tonal centers being based on “axes of symmetry”.

His use of these subset scales allowed him to incorporate a wide range of folk music in an expanded harmonic system.

Indeed, his original studies and settings of many examples gleaned from his extensive explorations of the Hungarian countryside and Eastern and Central Europe served as a major influence upon his expanded musical vocabulary.

The third movement includes a great example of Bartók's night music style.

It completely departs from the first two movements in that it is more consonant, widely using diatonic and many folk-like elements.