solo piano
17 minutes, 15 seconds
2001

My first composition to employ a spatial approach to rhythmic notation—a technique that would return in a four-hand piano piece (2004), an organ piece (2006), a short guitar piece from (2007), and finally blast through to become a major tool in my compositional arsenal with the untitled composition for 3 flutes, violin, piano, percussion, and string quartet (2007)—this piece celebrates the act of drawing sustained sounds out of the piano. The title reflects the fact that it was mostly composed at night, and might be most successfully performed at night as well. Almost entirely soft throughout, in a tragic misstep—which I would never make today—a single loud chord crashes through approximately two-thirds of the way through. (At this point, a sympathetic performance would ignore that particular dynamic indication—or, better, simply not play the chord at all.) The soft, broad, semi-repetitive ending, embracing a small number of discrete gestures—a single note, a dyad, a “paw print”—hinted at, for me, an unexpected kind of musical freedom.