Perhaps the most prominent components of the Mondrian painting mentioned are three sets of four parallel lines, one wide horizontal set running right across the painting and two vertical sets which together occupy more than half its width. The four-element spatial rhythms of these sets pervade this piece.

This piece is sectional, somewhat like a suite; some sections are spare and playful in the manner of De Stijl; others, rich in counterpoint and harmony, are perhaps more like its Art Nouveau precursor whose warm humanity De Stijl continued. Like a suite, this piece includes versions of established musical forms: a 12-bar blues about 3½ minutes in and a concluding ragtime melody.

The composer’s habitual method of pitch-symmetric tetrachordal partitions governs the piece’s harmonic structure.