'Focus Pull' was composed as a companion piece for Haydn's string quartet Op. 33 No 1 in B minor (one of the six 'Russian' quartets). The relationship between the two pieces relies heavily on three bars taken from the first violin melody in the 3rd movement, which is used as a kind of tone row for the entire piece. Apart from sharing the same DNA, however, the piece is rather like the exuberant distant relative and, although the quartet strives hard to pull focus and reveal its identity, an erratic display makes the family resemblance hard to perceive.

​Performed by Ensemble 360 during the Music in the Round: Russia in the Round festival at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield May 2017.

Commissioned by Music in the Round.