Something has already happened by the time this music starts. The image the title carries — a rain tree still releasing drops after rain has passed — suits the piano piece, which is built almost entirely out of that aftermath: quick gestures flare, crest, and spend most of their life dying away. Rain Tree Sketch II is less about rain than about what keeps falling once rain is over, which is one way of describing memory.

In this recording, the piano behaves like that tree. The struck note is only the start of the real event, which is resonance and decay; flurries of activity matter less for where they go than for the ring they leave behind. Nothing drives toward a climax or a verdict — motion gathers, thins, returns, and finally loosens into a few isolated sounds and then room air, the last drops letting go. What remains is permission to end slowly.