It is soft and brief, evocative of the composer's earlier string quartets, and acts as a prelude to the faster and more lively second movement, which begins with running quavers that immediately signal a change in texture and harmonic breadth.
The rest of the orchestra joins the pattern with each repeat, setting in place a layered effect before a solo violin introduces a high, keening cantabile melody over the accumulated rhythmical tissue.
The melody is eventually subsumed beneath contrapuntal filigrees and trills from the rest of the violin section, disappearing almost entirely within the texture, and the movement ends abruptly once the theme has reached its peak and all instruments have been included.
The energetic fourth movement recapitulates and develops material from the end of the second, with brisk chords intersected by short chromatic runs.
The symphony was commissioned by the Würth Foundation, and part of Glass's remit was to treat each of the nineteen string players of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra as a soloist.