Pour Piano

IMAGE

Score Pour Piano (1971) by Roman Haubenstock-Ramati
Source: Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Musik Grafik – Pre Text Horn, Vienna 1980

Pour Piano (1971) by Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (1919–1994) is a musical graphic that has been identified in the title as a piece for piano.^[1] The notations are arranged horizontally and are held together in the upper left by the curly brace typical of piano notation. The arrangement of the staves is disrupted by triangular image elements that apparently call for sound structures or playing techniques, which complicates the formal-temporal translation of the sheet into music.

Although there is no legend to accompany this graphic, the reader can deduce a concept for realizing the symbols on the basis of his or her experience with graphic notation.^[2] The wiggly line in the middle of the upper triangle is reminiscent of a trill symbol in conventional notation. Individual points can be interpreted as impulse-like individual tones, non legato, or staccato, whose amplitude has been assigned to a volume scale. Accordingly, points with a tail, such as those to the right of the center of the image, indicate a successively stricken chord with sustained tones. Besides these individual graphic elements there are proliferations that can be interpreted as aleatoric noise progressions.^[3] The black image areas are associated with an extremely dense sound, possibly a cluster over the entire keyboard, whereas the white, omitted areas might be pauses.

The abstract form of the drawing can be traced back to the time-bound, musical thought of the composer Haubenstock-Ramati. As an image, this musical graphic enables comprehension of the form at first glance;^[4] it can, however, be read line-wise in succession as musical text.^[5] The ambiguity of this musical graphic requires spontaneous interpretation.

1
 See http://www.mica.at/composerdb/details/Composer/composer20378.asp (menu item »Werke«; accessed August 11, 2010); http://www.ariadne.at (accessed August 11, 2010, Galerie Ariadne, Thomas Netusil Kunsthandel, Fleischmanngasse 1, 1040 Vienna, Austria.  
2
 Some of these symbols were previously—in conventional notation—furnished with ‘concrete’ meaning. Here [this refers to the Konstellationen series] they are maintained, if possible. The meaning of the new symbols that were previously not used is either specified by the composer or left to be decided by the performer (the viewer). The decision is normally made either by means of association (similar to X or Y) or by means of elimination and selection (different than X and Y). Translated from Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, »Musik und die abstrakte Malerei« (1971), in Musik-Grafik—Pre-Texte (Vienna: Ariadne, 1980), 49–51.   
3
 In this context, aleatoric in the sense of coincidental means a musical structure which is only approximately specified by the composer and which the performer is to carry out more as a musical gesture than as a tone sequence. In conventionally noted scores, these kinds of gestures are often noted graphically and furnished with an explanation such as »Unstructured, as quickly as possible.«  
4
 Haubenstock-Ramati, »Musik und die abstrakte Malerei,« 49. Depicting the composition on a sheet of paper facilitates a more time-independent comprehension than does a multipage score or time-bound sound recording. The visual arts, generally regarded as time-independent, and the temporal art of music meet in musical graphics.   
5
 Haubenstock-Ramati, »Musik und die abstrakte Malerei,« 49.   