Portrait to the living model: Four Sketches

Webber, John

About the work

“Notation, the writing out of compositions, is primarily an ingenious expedient for catching an inspiration, with the purpose of exploiting it later. But notation is to improvisation as the portrait to the living model. It is for the interpreter to resolve the rigidity of the signs into the primitive emotion.” Ferruccio Busoni.

Technical notes

The piece has three parts, none of which have a clef in three of the movements, and each of which are witten on a single line clef therefore leaving the choice of pitch range to the players. The second movement, however, has exact pitches notated. It is written in bars with no time signature, and therefore the duration of each bar is also up to the three performers or groups of performers.