20 minutes
2004

A play of contrasts—with moments of stillness juxtaposed against passages of movement; subtle variations in sonic combination, orderings, durations—this work continued and focused various explorations that took place in the “Composition” from Collection, 2003. Martin Bresnick—with whom I was studying while composing this work—described the moment towards the end of the piece when delicate sparkles descend from the glockenspiel and upper ranges of the piano as “snow falling off the roof,” and characterized this as an effective example of something totally unexpected happening in a piece of music. I have always treasured his poetic description of that passage in particular, and his open-minded and open-hearted appreciation for my austere and not-so-accessible music. The ending employs the semi-repetitive strategy that I first explored in Nocturne (2001).