[Instrumental] [Intro | Black Water. Near-silence. A sub-drone on D rises out of nothing, felt more than heard. Black water lapping far away. One slow oar stroke, a long pause, another, never regular. Far off, one pale high note, a bare fifth with no third: the white figure. So quiet that a breath is loud. Free time, unmetered] [Instrumental | Gates, opening. The rocks as stone doors. Low wordless male choir enters on open fifths and slowly widens outward in contrary motion, like gates swinging apart. Bowed contrabass and cello underneath, one bowed gong swell. The loudest point of the piece, still only mp. Solemn, symmetrical, majestic and cold] [Instrumental | Cypresses, ascending. Thin, high, vertical, motionless. Glass harmonica and bowed crotales add one note at a time, stacking upward into a minor-second cluster over a heavy black drone. Held, never resolved. Tension without movement] [Interlude | The Steps. Sub-bass sinks in three slow steps downward. Upper sounds drop away one by one. The ear follows into the dark and finds nothing. Hollow stone-chamber air. Felt piano, a single low note, long decay] [Break | The Knock. Near-total silence, only faint room tone, for a long time. Then once, a single soft dry wooden knock, alone, never repeated. No answer comes. Silence again] [Interlude | The White Figure. From the silence one pale high note rises, a solo wordless voice without vibrato, the same note heard at the start, now at its closest. Bare fifth, no third, neither major nor minor. Priest or departed soul: no answer. Quiet, ambiguous] [Instrumental | Cypresses, dissolving. The same cluster in mirror: it comes apart from the top down, notes falling away one by one, until only the black drone remains] [Instrumental | Gates, closing. The choir returns on the same open fifths in reverse: voices converge slowly inward from wide fifths to a bare unison, like gates shutting. Bowed gong fades. Final, muted, solemn] [Outro | Where Knowing Ends. The drone thins into air. Black water. One last oar stroke. The pale high note once more, farther than ever, stops without resolving. One distant bell. Silence. Fade to nothing, no final chord] [End]
