The Suit and The Photograph - String Quartet No. 4

The String Quartet No. 4 is based on Yamamoto Perpetuo, a solo violin work, and the basis of Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks. The piece was written in 1994-5 for Camilli Quartet (headed by former Michael Nyman Band member Elisabeth Perry), who first performed it on April 21, 1995, and ultimately dedicated to the memory of Alan Bush, Nyman's composition teacher at the Royal Academy of Music after his death October 31 of that year. The main theme of the sixth movement became the basis for "Virgin on the Roof" in Nyman's score for Carrington, which in turn was based on the String Quartet No. 3 with which Christopher Hampton had created a temp track.

Pwyll ap Siôn notes that the viola and second violin follow a different meter from that of the first violin. Essentially, Yamamoto Perpetuo was the basis only of the first violin's part in the Quartet, while the newly-composed material goes in completely new directions, even to not matching meter.