Homunculus is a short (circa 12 minutes) work for string quartet, which the composer wrote during the Autumn months of 2007 for the Johannes Quartet.

He wanted to compose a piece that would be very compact in formandduration, but still contain many different characters and textures. In other words, a little piece that behaves like a big piece.

He has long been fascinated (and amused) by the arcane spermists’ theory, who held thebeliefthat the sperm was in fact a 'little man' (homunculu...