Partly an experiment in textural and notational possibilities, Intensifications, for 2 violas and cello, is in three short movements. Over the course of the work we move through a spectrum of pitched to unpitched sounds and back again, pushing the instruments’ sonic possibilities to the edges of audibility and conventional technique. Each movement is governed by processes that treat the material to some kind of evolution, deepening some aspect or other of the music, whether it is a crescendo and conglomeration of repeated gestures or the compression of a broad sweep to a quavering pianissimo tremble.