This work was written and then revised during the composer's Ford Foundation Composer-in-Residence Grant in the mid 1960s. David Maves' older brother Larry and thus he lived his entire life with the sounds of a the performance of a violin bouncing off the walls. The work was actually written for a friend at the University of Michigan, Ron Pepper who worked with the piece for a long time, performed it in 1965 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and made many valued (and accepted) recommendations. The premiere of the revised version was by David's brother, Larry Maves, with William Woods at the University of Oregon in February 1970.
The first movement is based upon an idea that is a kind of musical representation of a grand mountain range as seen from a distance. (Memories of many years on U.S. Forest Service Fire Lookouts in Oregon.) There is the musical impression of a soaring jagged line that flows along a huge long horizon. The first movement has an arch form (as used by Bela Bartok) and represents a sonata form in which the first theme returns after the second at the climactic moment. The second, an impassioned musical outpouring of Romantic yearnings and realizations like a very specific story, but without an actual narrative. The ending is a kind of return to life from art, the music returns to the opening idea which fades imperceptibly; The last movement could be considered a joyous explosion of energy and virtuosity realized by both performers culminating in the arch form reprise of the musical idea of the mountainous vista and the rescored coda ending of the first movement is the closing material for the entire work.