Offene Landschaft confronts the listener with unrelieved tension. In its constant propunding of musical opposites, it ceaselessly spawns new and virulent sources of conflict. "Kommen und gehen" ("coming and going") of 1981 is an outgrowth of the productive interaction of the Blaservereinigung Berlin (Berlin Wind Association) with the composer. Here Katzer has employed his own individual "modi", a technique which produces sonorities that burst the narrow limits of tightly superimposed chords and makes possible a wide range of nuances. The "Third String Quartet", premiered by the Arditti Quartet in 1988, is full of the jagged and variegated timbres familiar fromAnton Webern's op.5. The piece bears traces of what Katzer has called the "ups and downs of subjective states". And "De musica" ("On music") may be viewed as a biting musical treatise designed to admonish us not to adopt a lofty critical stance in matters dealing with music.
