The priceless Meyer Kupferman never let an idea skate by, and the many-colored density of his writing allowed for even the briefest of pieces to have that certain je ne sais qupferman. Among his many piano pieces lie the Five Little Zeppelins, turbulent sketches of constellations that all display his "gestalt" writing quite well. While all of them are worth investigating, only the last, "Cygnus", is a leaf, and in my scan you can see the out-of-control ending to its predecessor, "Draco".
For those unfamiliar with limited aleatoric writing, the box in the right hand is a cell of music to be repeated for as long as the squiggly line persists, and it isn't meant to line up with anything. The left hand is given single pitches to be held a piacere, at least as long as the performer feels is right for the solid lines trailing after them. Both the sustaining and soft pedals are held down through the whole piece, and though the melody climaxes near the end of the third line the dynamic never breaches piano, eventually receding and ritarding to the quadruple piano finish, the right hand winding down to almost nothing. It's a very "Neptune"-from-The Planets ending, the most graceful of a quintet of sturms und drangs, and I was sad to find there's no recording of the set. Well, dagnabbit, I'll just have to go and do it myself.
~PNK
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