The utterance "I thirst" is the fifth of the traditional seven last words of Christ from the cross, cries of dereliction and comfort which are annually meditated upon at Passiontide. Out of this context I have made a short slow movement, a ritual of solo melody, homophony and biting figuration whose dessication is in due course quenched by waves of string harmonics. The form is completed when the subduing power of melody balances out the previous instability, a point reached during the final recessive viola gestures.
