Composed for a concert program featuring Schubert's Octet, and a performance without a conductor, this project is an attempt at exposing the underlying energy of a short passage from Schubert's Octet (by energy, I'm referring to the tension and release generated from transactions of sonic information, rather than the surface energy). Using a structure that echoes theme and variations form, the piece opens with the first five measures from Schubert's Octet, and is followed by a series of repetitions which progressively transform the instrumental sound color of the passage. In the process, the surface of Schubert's music is gradually peeled away, inviting the audience to descend through a moment suspended in time, until finally reaching the fluid inhales and exhales of raw color at its core. The instruments that make up the ensemble, as we understand them in the style of Schubert, will also slowly morph into some other resonating body. Unlike its geological correlate, the musical process used in this piece isn't an acoustic truth, but is rather a figment of interpretation; something more translucent than transparent.