His aptly named ”while nailing at random” (1982) hails from the sound world of the Stockhausen Klavierstücke, but instead of serialist complexity, the piece reduces to an interplay of three elements: a cluster chord hammered in nervous agitation, sequences of pianissimo chords that grow from the cluster chords as after rings, and a brilliant filigree of single notes dotted with recurring motives. The piece’s most striking characteristic is that the cluster chords, as they pound, evolve by shifting one note at a time, a wholly original effect. And the clusters, after rings, and grace notes are linked by so many common pitches that all three gestures seem like they are unfolding of the same material.
