He later wrote in score program notes, "It had a commanding awkward size, a somewhat veiled slightly melancholic tone quality, and it seemed always in the middle of things, a good vantage point for a composer (which I already wanted to be)."
He recalled, "When it was clear I would never have large hands I insisted on switching [to viola] anyway and my first summer as a violist was spent in an informal chamber music group playing Haydn quartets.
That summer in Princeton New Jersey I remember as my happiest, the company of my friend John Sessions in the quartet, the wonderful music we were exploring, and the rich possibilities of the instrument I had always wanted to play."
Reviewing the world premiere, James R. Oestreich of The New York Times wrote:The quick movements, especially the dynamic second and the skittish fourth, are taut and gripping.
The finale appealingly stands Stravinsky on his head, as a brittle, polished Neo-Classical manner becomes increasingly overrun by rough rhythmic interjections until in the end the primitivist of Sacre du Printemps emerges.