Lament is about struggle and failure. It opens with every instrument intoning an F, as loudly as possible in extreme registers, as if trying to make a stand and create a foundation on which to build - but they cannot. Even this simplest of gestures fails with the notes gradually falling by a semitone to E. This becomes a theme throughout the piece. Episodes follow in which the music attempts to build something, but repeatedly fails. Eventually the struggle gives way to a lament for this failure.
