Like Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano (1946–48) and the ballet The Seasons (1947), this work explores ideas from Indian philosophy.
Another aspect of composition which Cage used earlier was the use of counterpoint: the third movement uses a canon for a single melodic line, which repeats itself going backward, in a slightly rhythmically altered form, to the beginning.
To compose the quartet, Cage used a new technique which consisted of dealing with fixed sonorities, or chords.
After producing a fixed amount of gamuts, scored for each player in an unchanging way,[3] a succession of them could be used to create a melody with harmonic background.
Because at any particular point a gamut would be selected only for containing the note necessary for the melody, the resulting harmony would serve no purpose and any sense of progression, which was alien to Cage, would be eliminated.