between composition and transcription: ferruccio busoni and music notation

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Between Composition and Transcription: Ferruccio Busoniand Music Notation

ERINN KNYT

Twentieth-Century Music / Volume 11 / Special Issue 01 / March 2014, pp 37 - 61DOI: 10.1017/S1478572213000145, Published online: 16 May 2014

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1478572213000145

How to cite this article:ERINN KNYT (2014). Between Composition and Transcription: Ferruccio Busoni and MusicNotation . Twentieth-Century Music, 11, pp 37-61 doi:10.1017/S1478572213000145

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Between Composition and Transcription:Ferruccio Busoni and Music Notation

ERINN KNYT

Abstract‘The new art of music is derived from the old signs -- and these now stand for the musical art itself.’1 With thisstatement, Ferruccio Busoni (1866--1924) summarized his main criticism of traditional music notation -- that itwas lifeless and outdated. Based on an analysis of Busoni’s organic method of keyboard notation (1909), anexamination of composition sketches and performance scores, and an investigation of his writings about notationin aesthetic texts -- in particular the Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music (1907) -- this article shows howBusoni’s multifaceted views about notation forged a middle ground between the work as text and the work asperformance in an age enthralled to the idea of Werktreue. In addition, it traces the continuing influence ofBusoni’s ideas about notation on Arnold Schoenberg and other contemporaneous theorists and composers.

‘To the lawgivers, the signs themselves are the most important matter, and they are con-

tinually growing in their estimation; the new art of music is derived from the old signs –

and these now stand for the musical art itself.’ With this statement, Ferruccio Busoni (1866–

1924) summarized his main criticism of traditional music notation – that it was lifeless and

outdated. Notation marks could only imperfectly capture living musical ideas, according to

Busoni. Rejecting the more common vision of notation as a valuable ancillary tool by which

the musical work as a more-or-less fixed object was preserved on paper, Busoni considered

notation to be integral to the creative process, as needing to evolve just as much as any other

stylistic element, and as suggestive rather than definitive.

Busoni’s theories about notation range from the practical to the philosophical and they

extended beyond the mere technique of jotting down music on paper. On the one hand,

he proposed a new ‘organic’ method of notation that corresponded with the development

of new scales and new means of organizing music in his own era. On the other, he wrote

philosophically about the difficulty of transcribing inspired musical ideas on paper. Busoni’s

views had ramifications for the compositional process and challenged notions of the

musical work as a fixed aesthetic object.

Busoni’s ideas about notation are little known, and have not yet been explored com-

prehensively in a single scholarly source. Among the sources that do mention Busoni’s

approach to notation, the majority focus on either his aesthetic ideas, as expressed in the

| 37

<[email protected]>

I am indebted to Julian Johnson and to my anonymous reader for feedback on this article. In addition, I am grateful

to Stephen Hinton and to audience members for comments on a preliminary version of the article presented at the

International Musicological Society Conference in Amsterdam in July 2009.

1 Busoni, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music [1907], transl. Dr Theodore Baker (New York: G. Schirmer, 1911), 16.

http://journals.cambridge.org


Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music (1907), or on his lax attitude toward the notated score in

performance. None take a comprehensive approach, making clear connections between Bu-

soni’s aesthetic thoughts about notation, his practical suggestions, his compositional process

and his performance practice. Antony Beaumont, for instance, comments on Busoni’s aes-

thetic writings about notation, but does not aim to connect the theories to compositional

practice.2 Larry Sitsky provides a brief overview of Busoni’s new notational method, and

also writes about his aesthetic ideas in a separate section of his book about Busoni’s key-

board compositions, but does not attempt to bring the two together.3 Kenneth Hamilton

situates a discussion of Busoni’s free treatment of notation during performance within the

general context of performance practice of the era, yet without connecting the discussion to

the aesthetic writings or theoretical treatise.4

By contrast, the general subject of the role of notation in preserving and transmitting

musical works and of documenting the creative process has generated extensive discourse.5

Numerous scholars, including Roman Ingarden, Nelson Goodman, Lydia Goehr, and Carl

Dahlhaus, have discussed the rise of the Classico-Romantic work concept and its matura-

tion in the early twentieth century. Situating it firmly in the tradition of notated music,

they describe the musical work as a distinct and fixed aesthetic object that is notated on

paper and conceived by a single author.6 Based on the idea that the essence of the aesthetic

object can be grasped more fully through an understanding of the creative process that gave

birth to the masterwork, sketch studies have also proliferated in recent decades, especially in

relation to early twentieth-century music, and these appear alongside more general histories

of the evolution of notation practice.7

2 Antony Beaumont, Busoni the Composer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

3 Larry Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano: The Works, the Writings, and the Recordings, 2nd edn., Pendragon Distinguished

Reprints No. 3 (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009).

4 Kenneth Hamilton, After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2008).

5 Corresponding to this notion of aesthetic autonomy was the theory that the essence or content of a work could be

best grasped through analysis of the recorded symbols (sketches and fair copies) to reveal insight about the composi-

tional procedures used to bring a work into existence, as well as any extra-musical inspirations. Patricia Hall and

Friedemann Sallis, A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2004), 6–7.

6 Carl Dahlhaus, Esthetics of Music, trans. William W. Austin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967); Roman

Ingarden, The Musical Work and the Problem of its Identity, trans. Adam Czerniawski, ed. Jean G. Harrell (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1986); Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the

Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory

of Symbols (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1976).

7 Examples include Walter Werbeck, ‘Strauss’ Compositional Process’, trans. Jurgen Thym, in The Cambridge Com-

panion to Richard Strauss, ed. Charles Youmans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 22–41; Gieselher

Schubert and Friedemann Sallis, ‘Sketches and Sketching’, in A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches, 5–

16; Regina Busch, ‘Transcribing Sketches’, in A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches, 85–101; Patricia

Hall, ‘A Tale of Two Sketchbooks: Reconstructing and Deciphering Alban Berg’s Sketchbooks for Wozzeck ’, in A

Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches, 102–113; James L. Zychowicz, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2005). More general histories of the evolution of notation abound and include Richard

Rastall, The Notation of Western Music: An Introduction. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982); Gardner Read, Source

Book of Proposed Music Notation Reforms, Music Reference Collection (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987).

38 | Knyt Between Composition and Transcription: Ferruccio Busoni and Music Notation



Recent scholarship has revisited the topic of the work concept as scholars have increas-

ingly embraced repertoire on the peripheries of the tradition of notated music. In The

Musical Work: Reality or Invention?, a collection of essays edited by Michael Talbot, for

instance, eleven scholars reevaluate the defining features of the musical work from diverse

vantage points, including that of popular music, jazz, or virtuosic music.8 John Williamson,

one of these authors, points out the relevance of Busoni’s aesthetics and music for current

discourse, claiming that his approach foreshadowed the eventual weakening of the work

concept in the mid to late twentieth century:

Any consideration of the musical artwork that attempts to take full account of

its weakening in the twentieth century eventually has to confront the apparently

marginal case of Ferruccio Busoni. In his writings, which closely follow his com-

positional practice, the nineteenth-century cult of the genius and the figure of the

composer-performer generate a picture of the musical artwork that follows in a

Platonic tradition but with bewildering contradictions that point to the progressive

weakening of the concept in the twentieth century.9

Yet although Williamson touched upon many aspects of Busoni’s work concept including

notation, the brevity of his article precludes a detailed exploration, a gap my own article

seeks to fill.

Busoni’s views about notation, which pushed the limits of the tradition of notated music,

are prescient and enrich current discourse about notation and the gradually weakening

work concept. Using Busoni’s notation method as a starting point, this study shows how

Busoni’s multifaceted views about notation forged a middle ground between the work as

text and the work as performance. It also traces the continued relevance of his ideas about

notation after his death and their influence on a number of other contemporaneous theorists

and composers, including Arnold Schoenberg. To do this, this article examines the numerous

ways Busoni approached notation as an aesthetician, performer, and composer. Its methods

include analysis of Busoni’s treatise about notation, an examination of his sketches and

performance scores, and an investigation of his writings about notation in aesthetic texts,

in particular the Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music. Based on these complementary ap-

proaches, this article not only reveals idiosyncratic aspects of Busoni’s views about notation,

but also their importance as an alternative to the prevalent concept of the ‘work as text’ in

the early twentieth century.

Busoni’s New Method of Organic Keyboard NotationCompleted in 1909 and published by Breitkopf and Hartel in 1910 with the title, Versuch

einer organischen Klavier-Noten-Schrift, praktisch erprobt an Joh. Seb. Bachs Chromatischer

Phantasie in D moll [Attempt at an organic notation for the piano practically tried out on

8 Michael Talbot, ed., The Musical Work: Reality or Invention?, Liverpool Music Symposium (Liverpool: Liverpool

University Press, 2000).

9 John Williamson, ‘The Musical Artwork and Its Materials in the Music and Aesthetics of Busoni’, in Talbot, The

Musical Work, 187.

Knyt Between Composition and Transcription: Ferruccio Busoni and Music Notation | 39



Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor] and reissued in 1920 in volume

seven of the Busoni edition of Bach’s works (Bearbeitungen, Ubertragungen, Studien und

Kompositionen fur das Pianoforte nach Johann Sebastian Bach von Ferruccio Busoni: Vollstan-

dige und vervollkommnete Ausgabe), Busoni’s notation method attempted to equalize all

pitches in the chromatic scale.10 Few scholars have discussed the method in any context.

Notable exceptions include Edwin Monod’s 1910 review article ‘Une nouvelle notation

musicale’ in which Monod defended Busoni’s method against criticism and advocated its

adoption. Larry Sitsky proposed a practical way the method could be used in his article,

‘Ferruccio Busoni’s Attempt at an Organic Notation for the Pianoforte and a Practical Appli-

cation of it.’ He suggested that elements from Busoni’s method, such as the use of black

and white note-heads, could be melded to the traditional clef system.11 Sitsky also briefly

summarized the basic ideas of the system in his book, Busoni and the Piano: The Works,

the Writings, and the Recordings.12 John Robert McKay likewise summarized the method in

his D.M.A. thesis, but offered little in the way of interpretation.13 Major modern historical

surveys of notation practice, such as those by Rastall and Ian D. Bent (et al.) in the New

Grove Dictionary, do not even cursorily mention Busoni’s method.14 Read’s Source Book of

Notational Reform does mention Busoni’s treatise, but offers little commentary.15 The most

direct discussion of the method, a short article by Thomas Seedorf, summarizes it and

briefly delves into aspects of its reception but does not attempt to examine the philosophies

behind the notation method or the larger picture of Busoni’s notational ideas and methods

in relation to practice.16

Despite being limited to the keyboard, and despite the fact that it was never widely

adopted, Busoni’s organic notation method deserves scholarly attention, not least because

of its early date, proposed, as it was, right at the advent of atonality. The method and the

questions Busoni posed about notation’s relationship with musical language, with instru-

mentation, and with the compositional process were insightful and innovative. Moreover,

it became an example for other new notation methods, such as those of Arnold Schoenberg.

As such, it possesses historiographic significance. Finally, it offers further insight into

Busoni’s ideas about notation, ideas that are expressed only abstractly in his main aesthetic

treatises.

10 Schoenberg’s methods will be discussed in detail later in the article.

11 Edwin Monod, ‘Une nouvelle notation musicale’, La Vie musicale 19 (15 July 1910), 353–358 and Larry Sitsky,

‘Ferruccio Busoni’s Attempt at an Organic Notation for the Pianoforte and a Practical Application of it’, The Music

Review 29: 1 (Feb. 1968), 27–33.

12 Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano, 320–26.

13 John Robert McKay, ‘Notational Practices in Selected Piano Works of the Twentieth Century’ (D.M.A. Thesis: Uni-

versity of Rochester, 1977.).

14 Ian D. Bent, et al., ‘Notation’. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, <http://www.

oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/20114> accessed 25 April 2013.

15 Rastall, The Notation of Western Music and Read, Source Book.

16 Thomas Seedorf, ‘Topografia del pianoforte: Concezioni di una nuova notazione pianistica da Busoni a Cornelis

Pot’, Ferruccio Busoni e il pianoforte del Novecento: Convegno Internazionale di Study Centro Studi Musicali Ferruccio

Busoni, Convento degli Agostiniani, Empoli, 12–14 November 1999 (Lucca: Lim, 2001).


http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/20114





Busoni’s suggested notation method was designed to solve two basic problems: the diffi-

culty for the composer of notating pieces written in extended tonal and atonal systems, and

a lack of coordination between visual, tactile, and audible elements for the performer.

He wanted congruence between instrument, language and notation, a congruence he be-

lieved could be as natural and ‘organic’ as the relationship between motive and large-scale

structure:

I believe in the practical utility of this idea, the power of its simplicity and clarity;

however I will gladly and thankfully listen to any well-founded critique that leads

me toward something more perfect. This idea is, after all, merely the perfection of

an old, improved organicism.17

Busoni was principally interested in creating a notation method closely coinciding with

the developing musical languages of his time. Despite his initial choice to transcribe a com-

position by J.S. Bach using the new notation, it was his express intent to devise a system that

would be better suited to the extended tonality or the atonality of his own age, such as was

found in Richard Strauss’s Salome or Schoenberg’s Piano Pieces, Op. 11. This was indeed

quite an advanced proposition at the time, given that most other notation methods equaliz-

ing all twelve tones did not appear until 1920 or later.18 Busoni stated his purpose thus:

As I went through some tumultuous passages in the popular ‘Salome’ and several

atonal piano pieces by the not entirely popular Viennese composer Arnold Schoen-

berg, my repeated experience was that my generally fluid ‘sight reading’ at the

piano slowed down as a result of the accumulation of the accidentals.19 G natural

or G# or G@? F# is notated, however in the preceding quarter note it is cancelled.

Such doubt and guessing at each semiquaver baffles the brain, while the polyphonic

and complicated piece inexorably hurries forward in a fast tempo.

And it is entirely clear to me that our octave today no longer contains seven

intervals, but rather twelve; and that each of the twelve intervals must have its

own place in the notation system.20

Designed for atonal music, Busoni’s new notation method eliminated the need for key

signatures or accidentals as he gave each chromatic tone a specific location on the stave.21

17 Busoni, Versuch einer organischen Klavier-Noten Schrift praktisch erprobt an Joh. Seb. Bachs Chromatischer Phantasie in

D moll (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1910), 8. Translation mine.

18 Josef Matthias Hauer’s rival method appeared in 1920. Arnold Schoenberg’s did not appear until 1924. This is not,

however, to imply that Busoni was the first to consider a new notation method better suited to twentieth-century

compositions. F. Corder, for instance had already proposed a notation method in 1896 with slashes to indicate

accidentals.

19 Busoni might be referring here to Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11, which Schoenberg sent to Busoni in

1909 for critique and suggestions.

20 Busoni, Versuch, 1. Translation mine.

21 By choosing a piece by Bach for the first trial of this system, Busoni showed its roots in, and also its applicability to

earlier music.




Pitches placed on spaces denote natural tones and pitches placed on lines signify chromatic

ones (Example 1).

Busoni was also interested in devising a system that was intimately related to his own

instrument, the piano. He used visual, spatial, and tactile aspects of the piano keyboard as

models for his new system. He specifically hoped to eliminate the awkward visual disjunc-

tion between octaves on the keyboard, all of which look and feel the same, yet are notated

differently, on both lines and spaces (Example 2).

Another hindrance to the note reading I became aware of in our writing arises

from various pictures, which show the various octaves. The reader observes the

well-trusted picture in my investigation.

The low C stands on the fourth of the ledger lines, the small c on the second

space; both following symbols should represent one and the same tone, then comes

a treble c in the third space and finally one still higher on the second ledger line.

However, if we write 10, 20, 50, then we see we always [put] the digit 0 in the

same place. This 0 is comparable to the C in our octaves.22

To rectify the visual, tactile, and aural disjunction, Busoni rearranged the stave to reflect

the organization of the keyboard, with its regularly recurring pattern of sets of two and

three black keys within the octave. Busoni likewise separated a set of two black lines and

three black lines with a wider space to correspond visually to the keyboard. The five lines

in each stave correspond to the five black keys and the seven spaces correspond to the seven

white keys on the piano, a complete set of twelve chromatic pitches encompassing an octave

from C to C (Example 3). Each octave would be scored on a different stave separated by the

octave indicators, SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). On each stave, the placement of the

pitches is identical and encompasses a scale from c-c (Example 4). Extensions of staves

22 Busoni, Versuch, 1. Translation mine.

Example 1 The Chromatic Scale notated according to Busoni’s new notation method on the title page ofhis Versuch einer organischen Klavier-Noten-Schrift Praktisch erprobet an Joh. Seb. Bachs ChromatischerPhantasie in D moll.

Example 2 Illustration from Busoni’s Versuch of the mismatch between the notation of octaves and theirsound and appearance.




could be accomplished through the use of ledger lines or 8ve signs, according to Busoni.23

Another connection between the keyboard and Busoni’s notation method has to do with

colours. In his method, each black key is represented by a black note head on a black line

and each white key is represented by a white note head on a white space. Each white space is

equivalent to one (or two) white keys (the spaces containing two white keys are slightly

wider). In this way, the pianist could connect how the instrument looks and feels with the

printed page (Example 5).24 Thus a chromatic scale (or a twelve-note scale octave as Busoni

called it) could be notated without using accidentals or key signatures (Example 6).

In modifying the visual appearance of note-heads (i.e. by changing the colours), Busoni

also had to take into account the problems this would create for the rhythmic elements,

because there would no longer be a clear way to differentiate between minims and crochets,

for instance. Busoni’s proposal was simply to change the shape of the note head for whole

notes and half notes into rectangles to indicate duration when necessary (Example 7).

Busoni published only one piece using his new notation method – Johann Sebastian

Bach’s Fantasy in D minor (from the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor). This is

a surprising choice given Busoni’s statement that he was trying to devise a method suitable

23 Busoni, Versuch, 7, Translation mine.

24 Although Busoni did not implement his notation method, the ideas expressed in it permeate his notation practice.

The suitability of the notation to the instrument in terms of sight and touch was important in everything that he

notated or edited. Many of his editions and arrangements focus on tactile or visual redistributions of pitches to

make them more suitable to the instrument and to make the ideas more realizable rather than on the rearrangement

of those pitches. For instance, in his transcription of the fourth of Liszt’s Grandes Etudes des Paganini, Busoni’s main

changes merely involved the re-notation of the piece to reflect the distribution of notes between the hands. He

re-staved the lines and re-fingered or re-stemmed pitches to indicate which hand would play the pitches.

Example 3 Busoni’s newly proposed musical stave.

Example 4 Busoni’s multiple stave system.




to the modern twelve-note octave. Perhaps the legal ramifications of trying to reissue a

modern piece notated in a new way ultimately led him to try his method with a more estab-

lished piece – yet one in which chromaticism still played an integral role. Or, perhaps, he

wanted to start by notating a piece he himself was performing.25 Since Busoni does not offer

any explanation, one can only speculate.

In his notated example of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy, Busoni’s idiosyncratic four-stave

system can be observed, as well as the removal of accidentals in favour of the coloured

note-heads and placement of chromatic pitches on lines (as opposed to spaces). The tenor

and bass staves, although not utilised in this excerpt, are used later as the notes progress

downwards in the piece (Example 8).

Busoni’s proposed notation system was never widely accepted and he seems not to have

published any additional pieces using the method.26 Moreover, according to Monod, the

method was criticized for a number of reasons: for challenging a long established and work-

ing notation tradition, for using too many staves to be practical for modern piano music,

Example 5 Diagram from Busoni’s Versuch illustrating black (Schwarze) versus white (Weisse) noteheads.

Example 6 The chromatic scale from C to C notated according to Busoni’s notation method.

Example 7 Busoni’s method of notating half and whole notes.

25 Busoni did not typically perform twentieth-century music in his recitals.

26 Sitsky notes that Busoni also notated J. S. Bach inventions in C major and C minor and Chopin Etudes Op. 10 no. 2,

Op. 10 no. 5, Op. 25 no. 1 and Op. 25 no. 2 using this notation method. The manuscripts are in the Berlin Staats-

bibliothek [Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn Archiv, N. Mus.

Nachl. 245]. Sitsky, Busoni and the Piano, footnote 11, 325. These pieces, however, were not published in this format.




Example 8 J.S. Bach, Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor, notated with Busoni’s new notation method,Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn Archiv, N. Mus.Nachl. 247.




for suppressing differences between flattened and sharpened notes (and thus distorting

views of harmony), and for being suitable only for the piano.27 The latter, in fact, was the

main criticism, according to Monod, and was also what Arnold Schoenberg found objec-

tionable. Indeed, similar criticisms seemed to prevail well into the 1920s, as is evident

from August Halm’s fairly critical assessment of the method in 1921, in which he denigrates

not only the practicality of the method, but also its inappropriateness for use in orchestral

or chamber music scores:28

Even if well thought out, after all it means only a further burden through the learn-

ing of a second notation type, since its unconventionality makes it unnecessary –

Busoni himself would certainly be the last one to allow the piano player to not

also be a musician, which means the pianist would also need to read chamber

music and orchestral music scores: moreover, the piano notation doesn’t allow

the acquisition of a harmonic and theoretical education. Besides, it is truly clear as

printed, but not as written, or it is as awkward to write as the usual notation.29

Monod, nevertheless, found the objections unjustified, except for the limited application to

the piano, and even here he did not preclude the possibility that most aspects proposed by

Busoni could be adapted to other instruments as well – all but the white versus black note

heads. Indeed, he thought Busoni’s notation of the octave similarly in all registers to be a

great improvement over the old system and called for critics to overcome resistance to

change and to accept modern progress.30

AestheticsDespite Monod’s review, objections to the method persisted, and it was eventually forgotten.

Yet that Busoni’s method was deemed impractical by many does not mean that it was

not theoretically innovative for its time, nor that it was or has been insignificant from a

philosophical perspective. Many thoughtful systems have been proposed throughout the

twentieth century, and none have replaced traditional notation in common usage, perhaps

largely because the central canon of performed works remains tied to tonality, and thus to

traditional notation. Moreover, ideas foundational to the method that nevertheless could

apply to any notational system, are forward thinking, challenging notions of Werktreue and

offering an idiosyncratic vision of the creative process.

For Busoni, notation was a tool (albeit an imperfect one) for writing down, preserving,

and communicating music. It was also an integral part of the creative process. Notation,

according to Busoni, could never perfectly capture or portray a composer’s creative ideas

because distortion took place between conception and notation. But the closer the notation

27 Monod, ‘Une nouvelle notation’, 4–5.

28 August Halm, ‘Uber Ferruccio Busoni’s Bach Ausgabe’, Melos 2 (1921), 244. Translation mine.

29 Halm, ‘Uber Ferruccio’, 244. Translation mine.

30 Monod, ‘Une nouvelle notation’, 4–5.




method coincided with the compositional idea or the instrument, the less the distortion,

and the more fully it could represent the essence of the work. Hence a notation method

organically derived from an instrument, however impractical it might seem when consider-

ing large-scale notation usage for multiple instruments, could (theoretically at least) make

it that much easier for a composer to capture and communicate ideas when writing for

keyboard and that much easier for an interpreter to realize the score in performance.

Busoni expressed many of his seminal philosophies about notation, including his dis-

satisfaction with current notation methods in his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music (1907),

published just two years before he wrote his organic keyboard notation method. In the

short, but dense text, Busoni’s ideas about notation are broad-ranging – covering topics as

diverse as a new method for notating microtones, the role of notation during the com-

positional process (philosophically and practically), and how well notation communicated

music to interpreters.

The theme of notation’s limitations is found throughout the text. Busoni believed that

notation was inadequate for capturing and recording a composer’s compositional ideas.31

In forcing fleeting ideas into fixed notation, composers had to impose artificial constraints

on those ideas, thereby inevitably distorting and limiting them through the selection of

metre, genre and key.32 For Busoni then, a notated score was only an imperfect replica of a

work, the original idealistic form of which existed outside of space and time.

Notation, the writing out of compositions, is primarily an ingenious expedient for

catching inspiration, with the purpose of exploiting it later. But notation is to

improvisation as the portrait is to the living model . . . Every notation is, in itself,

the transcription of an abstract idea. The instant the pen seizes it, the idea loses

its original form. The very intention to write down the idea compels a choice of

measure and key. The form and the musical agency, which the composer must

decide upon, still more closely define the way and the limits.33

Although few contemporary composers would probably argue with Busoni about some

of notation’s limitations, Busoni took his distrust to unprecedented levels in an age of Werk-

treue, in which the notated score was often equated with the ‘work itself.’ Seeing notation as

an imperfect symbol for the composer’s living ideas, Busoni claimed the notated score

needed to be recreated in the moment of performance with a degree of liberty that was

unpopular with many at the time. Without identifying specific individuals, Busoni reacted

to those who viewed notation as definitive and authoritative, facetiously calling them

31 Throughout his writings, Busoni differentiates between Ideen, which are non-musical thoughts and Einfallen, which

are translations of Ideen into musical themes, thoughts, phrases, and structures.

32 Busoni considered the idea behind a composition to be a non-musical, abstract thought drawn from human experi-

ence. Because the idea was essentially not related to tones, it had to be translated to accommodate the demands of

music and musical notation. Refer to Erinn Knyt, ‘How I Compose: Ferruccio Busoni’s Views about Invention,

Quotation, and the Compositional Process’. Journal of Musicology 27:2 (Spring 2010) for a richer discussion of

Busoni’s understanding of the ‘idea’ and the composition process.

33 Busoni, Sketch, 34–5.




‘lawgivers’ and claiming that they missed and ‘killed’ the true musical spirit in insisting

on literal interpretations of symbols that imperfectly portrayed musical ideas. It was, ac-

cording to Busoni, up to interpreters to restore the elements lost in translation – especially

by freeing the metre from the rigidity of bar lines. Any notational sign, however, could be

considered rigid and in need of alteration – including pitches, form, dynamics, or pedaling:

But the lawgivers require the interpreter to reproduce the rigidity of the signs; they

consider his reproduction the nearer to perfection, the more closely it clings to

the signs.

What the composer’s inspiration necessarily loses through notation, his inter-

preter should restore by his own. To the lawgivers, the signs themselves are the

most important matter, and they are continually growing in their estimation; the

new art of music is derived from the old signs – and these now stand for the musical

art itself.

If lawgivers had their way, any given composition would always be reproduced

in precisely the same tempo, whensoever, by whomsoever, and under whatsoever

conditions it might be performed.34

Busoni compared music to nature in terms of freedom and colour. One example he used

was that of a sunset. A painting is confined by the space of the canvas when representing

that sunset; music, on the other hand, is like nature itself in its expansiveness and its poten-

tial to ebb and flow in real time.35 A musical composition is like a day with a hazy dawn and

sunset, and time in between – yet each day, like each performance, is slightly different to

the next. In the same way, interpretation needs to follow a basic structure based on the

notation, but to reveal different emotional colours and musical dimensions of the composi-

tion – to re-compose and re-enliven it, if you will, in real time. Although Busoni did not

clearly spell out how far a performer might go in altering the text during this re-creative

interpretive process, he did consider the boundaries between composition and interpreta-

tion to be rather hazy:36

But it is not possible; the buoyant, expansive nature of the divine child [music]

rebels – it demands the opposite. Each day begins differently from the preceding,

yet always with the flush of dawn. Great artists play their own works differently at

each repetition, remodel them on the spur of the moment, accelerate and retard, in

a way which they could not indicate by signs and always according to the given

conditions of that ‘eternal harmony.’ And then the lawgiver chafes, and refers the

creator to his own handwriting. As matters stand today, the lawgiver has the best of

the argument.37


35 Busoni, Sketch, 6.

36 Refer to Knyt, ‘How I Compose’ for further explication.





For Busoni, notation symbols were doubly limited in that they were not only imperfect

representations of a composer’s living ideas, but also of the musical systems, such as scales,

intervals, bars, and rhythms, through which the ideas are conveyed:38

What we now call our tonal system is nothing more than a set of ‘signs’; an in-

genious device to grasp something of that eternal harmony; a meagre pocket-

edition of that encyclopedic work; artificial light instead of the sun. Have you ever

noticed how people gaze open-mouthed at the brilliant illumination of a hall? They

never do so at the million-fold brighter sunshine of noonday.39

Since the musical systems that notation signified were changing so dramatically in the

early twentieth century, notation’s effectiveness was even further diminished, according to

Busoni. He contended that the new systems would also require new notation. Notation

needed to evolve just like any other stylistic element. Thus Busoni suggested a method for

notating microtones by drawing a six-line stave in which the semitones appear on the spaces

and the natural tones on lines. Third tones would be indicated using accidentals:40 ‘A pre-

liminary expedient for notation might be to draw six lines for the stave, using the lines for

the whole tones and the spaces for the semitones . . . then indicating the third-tones by sharps

and flats.’41 Yet Busoni never further developed his thoughts about microtonal notation

into a workable method, as he did in his notation method from 1909/1910, designed to

coincide with equalization of the twelve chromatic tones.

Notation PractisedBusoni’s aesthetic texts show that he was thinking very critically about the role and limita-

tions of notation in relation to composition and interpretation. Suggesting a method of

notation that was integrally related to the musical language of his time and a particular

instrument was one practical way of overcoming some of the limitations described in his

aesthetic text. His suggested method was intended to minimize distortion between abstract

conception and concrete realization during the compositional process. Notation better

suited to new music featuring twelve equal notes would make the translation from idea

into concrete reality easier for the composer. Moreover, the removal of countless acciden-

tals and the closer relation between the feel and look of the instrument would make it easier

for the performer to read and understand the music more quickly.

Yet, since this was not a method that Busoni used himself, it is important to question

whether there was any relationship between Busoni’s theories about notation and his own

musical practice. Did he engage in any additional notational practices aimed at minimizing

38 As odd as it might sound to some, Busoni believed in a primordial inaudible source of music that enlightened com-

posers could divine, in part, and translate into musical compositions.







the limits of notation using more traditional methods? How closely did he follow notation

as a performer?

For the most part, Busoni’s published works rely on traditional music notation. An

exception is the Sonatina Seconda, K. 259 (1912), which does not feature bar lines, metre

signs, or key signatures. This piece was indeed seminal in its abandonment of key signa-

tures, a trait which became commonplace in compositions of later decades.

Although Busoni’s new method of notation based on the layout of the piano keyboard

differs considerably from his notation practice in published scores, both his new notation

method and his notation as practised rely on similar aesthetic ideologies. Both attempted

to lessen the disparity between music as conceived in the mind of the composer and the

piece as recorded on paper. Despite the fact that Busoni recorded finished scores in tradi-

tional notation, he used alternative forms of notation in sketches when trying to capture

his thoughts on paper. Compositional sketches were designed to minimize the ‘distortion’

involved in translating abstract ideas and musical conceptions into tangible musical compo-

sitions, just as his new method had been designed to do as well. Rather than automatically

using traditional notation methods as soon as an idea came to him, Busoni began recording

ideas with suggestive squiggles and shapes, words, or drawings. These gestural images be-

came concrete musical themes and outlines of genres or forms when he began notating

pieces with gradually increasing specificity.

The range of notational means used by Busoni during the compositional process can be

demonstrated through an analysis of the multiple sketches for his Nocturne Symphonique,

an experimental orchestral composition created between September 1912 and July 1913.

The process from initial conception to publication of this piece was indeed somewhat

extended for Busoni and interrupted by trips, including one to Moscow where he met with

Alexander Scriabin, who was currently working on his atonal and chromatic Ninth Piano

Sonata, which also lacked a key signature. The issue of whether this had a profound impact

on Busoni, who found Scriabin’s music fascinating, has yet to be determined.42 Busoni

originally also intended for this piece to be a piano sonatina. He described the ultimate

transformation of genre in metaphorical terms, and this transformation is reflected in the

extensive sketches for the project:

The third sonatina seems to have the character of a butterfly (hoping straight away

for the best) – at any rate it is undergoing a metamorphosis, has for the moment

assumed the form of a caterpillar, is feeding on smuggled half-hours, and crawling

up the trunk of the orchestra tree.43

In the initial sketch, Busoni created a rough outline of much important thematic material

using text, wavy lines, and fragments of traditional musical notation (Example 9). The

42 The two men met on 18 November 1912, but had already encountered each other when Busoni taught in Moscow in

1890, according to Edward Dent, Ferruccio Busoni: A Biography (London: Eulenberg Books, 1974 [1933]), 272.

43 Busoni, letter to Egon Petri, 8 October 1912, in Ferruccio Busoni: Selected Letters, 156. The Nocturne Symphonique

also later provided germinal material (both themes and complete sections) for Busoni’s posthumous Doktor Faust.




Example 9 Busoni, Nocturne Symphonique, Sketches, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz,Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn Archiv, N. Mus. Nachl. 275.




first theme is absent and for the second theme he initially included only rudimentary pitch

combinations interspersed with rests; he also suggested keys and metres. For instance, he

notated the first two pitches of the first theme, C and E@ and a few suggested rhythms that

he developed more fully in later sketches. Sketches for themes three and five are included,

but for theme five Busoni included only text, the meaning of which is open to interpreta-

tion: ‘II and I in einer bewegt [2 and 1 in a single movement].’44 Arpeggiated figures found

in later sketches and the final version are represented in the initial sketch by wavy gestural

lines indicating the shape, contour and ambitus, but not the pitches. Independent textual

suggestions – ‘Imitat. Bass u. Mittel’ (‘Imitation in the bass and middle voices’) – are only

realized/notated in later sketches. Also included in the initial sketch appear to be thoughts

about a multi-movement formal structure, including a lyric second movement (lirico) and

a variation finale (which later turned into a set of fugal variations).

Further sketches feature more traditional notation. A second sketch, featuring themes

one and two, provides more precise notation of the pitches and the addition of a counter

melody for theme two. A third sketch adds interpretive markings and features further re-

orderings of the thematic material. A fourth sketch adds colour, texture, instrumentation

and register, in addition to a more sophisticated treatment of rhythm. It is in this sketch

that Busoni’s orchestral conception of the piece surfaces. A final sketch features a more

detailed score with auxiliary instruments added, and indeed, Busoni’s instrumentation and

treatment of colour is quite striking in this piece.

The variety of etching styles in the earliest sketches suggests that notation was not just

a means of preserving ideas for Busoni, but also of creating or clarifying them. Notating

gestures first allowed Busoni to arrive at more precise musical representations of his ideas,

ideas that he eventually represented with specificity and care in accordance with traditional

notational practice.45

As an interpreter, Busoni likewise considered notation to be important in preserving

pieces, but not as definitively so and certainly not to be taken literally in many cases. As

a pianist, he was notorious for his alterations to the musical text. According to multiple

eyewitness accounts, surviving piano rolls, and the single surviving disc recording in 1922

for Columbia Records, he played with a flexible rubato tempo even while changing pitches,

44 By this Busoni might possibly mean the combination of themes 1 and 2.

45 Although many of Busoni’s contemporaries commonly included some text in their sketches, the gestural symbols

and squiggles were less common. In his sketches for works on Greek subjects, for instance, Stravinsky started out

by notating short discontinuous fragments of musical material that he later pieced together. The fragments were

notated using traditional notation replete with clef signs, note heads, bar lines, metre indicators, and clear rhythmic

values on individual pitches. Although certain passages from the earliest sketches for Apollo are crossed out or added

above staves in the earliest sketches, gestural squiggles are absent. Text was used to describe the ballet scenario and to

date the sketches, while numbers were added to indicate metres. The sketchbook is located in Stravinsky Collection

in the Paul Sacher Stiftung. Several of the pages are reproduced in Maureen A. Carr, Multiple Masks: Neoclassicism in

Stravinsky’s Works on Greek Subjects (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002).




omitting bars, doubling pitches, or changing registers.46 In his own performance scores,

Busoni scratched out and rewrote certain sections or bars of other composers’ works,

thereby offering a glimpse of just how imperfect he considered notation to be at representing

a composer’s ideas. His copy of the Liszt Paganini Etudes, for instance, includes handwritten

notes related to interpretation and technique (i.e. pedaling, affect, etc.), new fingerings, and

visual cues (such as the redistributions of notes between the hands) and the re-notation of

passages (such as placing certain notes on staves rather than ledger lines). Busoni also

crossed out and replaced certain tempo markings and bars, rewriting them directly in the

score or on inserted loose pieces of manuscript paper in corresponding locations on the

page. The second Etude in particular contains numerous revisions, including many rewritten

bars and a new coda, all sketched out on loose sheets of staff paper and inserted into the

score (Example 10). Although such alterations would not have been uncommon in the

nineteenth century, they were deemed inappropriate by the early twentieth.

InfluenceAlthough Busoni’s theories and practice did not always perfectly coincide, considering both

presents a more thorough understanding of his attempts to portray music in its most ideal

state. Busoni realized how difficult it was to use symbols and a concrete notation system to

try to capture abstract sounds and images and attempted to overcome these difficulties in

a number of ways: by theorizing about the limitations of notation, by revising the current

notation system, and by using non-traditional means during the creative process. Busoni

showed how notation could be an integral part of the compositional process. He started

with non-specific diagrams, concepts, and words, to reach toward his final aim, the captur-

ing of an ephemeral glimpse of the essence of music in his compositions. Abstract symbols

helped him translate his thoughts, even as his notation gradually assumed a more concrete

form. Moreover, in viewing notation not as a fixed record of a work, but as part of an

evolutionary process in which both composers and interpreters participated in capturing

and revealing the musical ideas, Busoni’s notational theories were innovative, calling for

a more flexible understanding of the notated score and the need for more authorial and

creative interpretations of the music; thus they can be seen as participating in a gradual

weakening of the work concept. At the same time, by envisioning notation, an element he

considered integral to the compositional idea as organically related to other compositional

elements, such as instrument and language, Busoni was elevating its importance from an

ancillary tool to an integral element of a composition and the compositional process.

46 Busoni also recorded in 1919 for Columbia, but the recordings were never issued at Busoni’s request and were later

destroyed by a warehouse fire. Eyewitness accounts are to be found in the writings of his students and in numerous

concert reviews throughout the world during Busoni’s lifetime. It would be impossible to list a complete account of

sources rich with information about Busoni as interpreter, but a few key sources include: Grigory Kogan, Busoni as

Pianist and H. H. Stuckenschmidt, Ferruccio Busoni: Chronicle of a European, trans. Sandra Morris (London: Caldar

and Boyars, 1967).




Example 10 Liszt-Busoni, Andantino Capriccioso (Zweite Etude nach Paganini’s Cappricien), Busoni’sinsertions, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn Archiv,N. Mus. Nachl. 203.




Busoni was by no means the first to attempt to find a notational style connected to

the new atonal languages. Many early proposals were also deemed impractical and had

very limited use or influence. Hugo Riemann, for instance, had already proposed a form of

chromatic notation as early as 1882. His method called for five-line staves that are more

widely spaced than normal, allowing for three note-head positions in each space.47

Riemann’s system eliminated the need for accidentals, but was difficult to read, and thus

impractical. Other methods, such as Meta Romer-Neubner’s 1902 notation system without

clefs, rests or accidentals, bears little resemblance to traditional notation or to the sounds

they were supposed to represent.48

Busoni’s notation method, although not adopted, did however influence a number of

similar notation systems suggested by later composers and thinkers. Josef Matthias Hauer

(1883–1959), who sometimes used Busoni’s stave format, proposed an alternative form

of twelve-tone notation in 1920 that bears many similarities to Busoni’s. While using

an eight-line stave, black lines nevertheless correspond to chromatic tones and spaces to

natural ones. The grouping of the lines also reflects the keyboard configuration. Octaves

are differentiated by treble, bass and alto clef signs (or 8ve signs), and this, like Busoni’s

method, made accidentals unnecessary. Although Hauer did not publish many works using

this method, he did use it to work out some of his later compositions.49

Schoenberg also knew about Busoni’s method, and used it as a catalyst for his own nota-

tion system for twelve-tone music. Busoni had already thought of ways to eliminate acci-

dentals and to distribute pitch classes evenly onto the musical staves before Schoenberg.

Yet, while Schoenberg sought to escape from the shadow of diatonicism, Busoni’s attempts

to link notation and instrument limited his model to the keyboard and thus lacked more

universal applicability, even while continuing to link the notation to diatonicism. Schoen-

berg proposed several changes to the traditional notation system, some of which have been

generally adopted, including his method of notating Sprechstimme by placing x marks on

note beams. Other suggestions, related to the notation of atonal or twelve-tone music as ex-

pressed in a series of short essays dating from 1923–1931, have attracted more theoretical

(rather than practical) interest.

Many of Schoenberg’s ideas about notation were designed to enhance visual clarity.50

Foreshadowing the graphic notation of the next generation of composers, he suggested

that pictures or symbols should be used, whenever possible, instead of words. In his essay,

‘Pictorial Notation’ from 1923, for instance, he suggested using symbols to depict such

47 Hugo Riemann, ‘Die zwolfstufige Notenschrift, Musikalischen Wochenblatt XIII, 52, 617–19.

48 Meta Romer-Neubner, Quadratnoten: Ein neues vereinfachtes Notensystem ohne schlussel, ohne pausen- und versetzungs-

zeichen mit nur 12 verschiedenen, periodisch wiederkehrenden notenbildern (Kornstadt, Hungary: Wilhelm Himeasch,

1902).

49 Roger Gustafson, ‘Joseph Matthias Hauer’, Tempo 130 (Sept. 1979), 24.

50 The essays include the following: Schoenberg, ‘On Notation’ [26 June 1923], ‘Pictorial Notation’ [10 November

1923], ‘Revolution – Evolution, Notation (Accidentals)’ [18 January 1931], and ‘A New Twelve-Tone Notation’

[November 1924], in Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black

(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975).




effects as pizzicato or col legno.51 In ‘On Notation,’ also from 1923, he advocated abolishing

the natural sign, contending that accidentals should be consistently repeated throughout a

bar (instead of using key signatures). The absence of an accidental would always signify a

natural pitch, thereby ensuring greater readability.52 In ‘A New Twelve-Tone Notation’

(1924), Schoenberg proposed an even more radical notation method that, much like Busoni’s

method, visually equalized all twelve notes of the chromatic scale by abolishing the need

for accidentals of any kind. Based on the notion that adjacent chromatic pitches could share

spaces within a stave of three lines per octave and three pitches per space, he assigned each

pitch a specific location and symbol. This notation method, he hoped, would be more

suitable to twentieth-century music that no longer used the diatonic scale as its main means

of organisation:

The inadequacy of our musical notation has made itself felt and is widely admitted.

Its defects, to formulate them exactly, are as follows: it is a seven-tone notation

based on C major, which treats the remaining five tones as occasional alterations

of the principal tones, and thus all other keys as subordinate keys.53

According to Schoenberg’s new system, notes could be differentiated based on their posi-

tion in the stave (i.e. height in relation to spaces and lines) and by diagonal lines positioned

to the right, left, or centre of the note-head (Example 11). Thus each note is notated

equally, even though C is still afforded a position of prominence as the lowest-line note on

the stave. Clef signs are used to indicate register, and ledger lines or the coupling of staves

extend the staff indefinitely. If staves are coupled, Schoenberg suggests differentiating the

octaves by dotting or breaking the upper lines (Example 12).

Schoenberg’s notational ideas of the 1920s were informed by Busoni’s much neglected

notation method. Schoenberg first received the method in 1910 directly from Busoni,

when the two were regularly corresponding about their main musical endeavours and when

Schoenberg was still relatively unknown as a composer. Paradoxically, Busoni attributes his

own inspiration for writing the method to the receipt of Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces,

Op. 11: ‘N.B. Your pieces have inspired me to the idea of a new ‘‘Piano Notation’’ which – I

believe – is a real ‘‘discovery’’.’54 Busoni sent a copy of his method to Schoenberg, and

Schoenberg acknowledged its receipt: ‘I must thank you kindly for sending me your

‘‘organic piano notation.’’ I shall write in detail about it soon.’55

Unfortunately, further letters between the two do not provide the promised discussion

of the method. Schoenberg’s ‘A New Twelve-Tone Notation’ (1924), however, presents a

belated critique. Schoenberg admired Busoni’s early attempts to create a method of notation

that equalized the musical tones, but he criticized Busoni’s method for its limited usefulness:

51 Schoenberg, ‘Pictorial Notation’, in Style and Idea, 352.

52 Schoenberg, ‘On Notation’, in Style and Idea, 350–351.

53 Schoenberg, ‘A New Twelve-Tone Notation’, in Style and Idea, 354.

54 Busoni, letter of 7 October 1909 to Schoenberg, in Beaumont, Selected Letters, trans. and ed. by Antony Beaumont

(London: Faber and Faber, 1987), 401.

55 Schoenberg, letter of July 3, 1910 to Busoni, in Beaumont, Selected Letters, 405.




Previous attempts, so far as I have come across them, relied on the keyboard as a

model. This idea is of little use, since other instruments do not have black and

white keys, but is justifiable insofar as it accords with our system for naming the

tones.56

In a footnote to this paragraph (specifically linked to the sentence beginning ‘previous

attempts. . .’), Schoenberg made the direct connection between his own method and Busoni’s:

Busoni gives his proposal the title, ‘Attempt at an Organic Piano Notation’ (Versuch

einer organischen Klaviernotenschrift, Leipzig, 1910) and says very aptly, ‘. . . and it

has finally become clear to me that our present-day octave consists no longer of

seven intervals, but of twelve; and that each of these intervals must have its own

place on the staff.’57

The exchanges between Schoenberg and Busoni about notation methods extend beyond

Busoni’s treatise, underlining that the broad topic of notation was of mutual interest. They

discussed how well traditional notation could capture a composer’s thoughts on paper in a

series of exchanges from 1909–1910 about Schoenberg’s Piano Pieces, Op. 11.58 Other let-

ters contain Schoenberg’s thoughts about Busoni’s brief proposal for notating microtonal

music as expressed in his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music (1907).59

Additionally, other notation methods appearing in the following decades bear a striking

similarity to Busoni’s method, suggesting indebtedness to it. ‘Klavarskribo,’ proposed by

Cornelis Pot (1885–1977) in 1931, is still used (however minimally) and also resembles

Example 11 Schoenberg’s Notation System (an octave).

Example 12 Schoenberg’s Notation System (Dotted Staff Lines).

56 Arnold Schoenberg, ‘A New Twelve-Tone Notation’ [November 1924], in Style and Idea, 354–55.

57 Schoenberg, ‘A New Twelve-Tone Notation’, footnote 1, in Style and Idea, 350.

58 See the letters in Beaumont, Selected Letters, 382–409.

59 Schoenberg wrote: ‘Earlier I thought out the following method of notating quarter tones: [using < and > symbols to

indicate a tone reduced by 1/4 or increased by 1/4 tones]. < and > are mathematical symbols. However, I scarcely

think that such attempts at notation will catch on; for I confidently hope that the notation of the future will be –

how can I say: ‘‘wirelesser’’.’ Schoenberg, letter of 24 August 1909 to Busoni, in Beaumont, Selected Letters, 395.




Busoni’s method. Pot, a Dutch musician, music lover, and shipbuilder, studied alternative

forms of notation, Busoni’s included, and developed his own new method based on them.

His text, What is Klavarskribo?, specifically quotes from Busoni’s notation treatise and his

Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music.60 In Pot’s method, which is also closely linked to the

keyboard, staff lines in groups of 2 plus 3 represent black notes (filled with black note

heads), while spaces represent white keys (with white-note heads). Each stave forms an

octave and contains the notes of the chromatic scale. As in Busoni’s method, further registers

can be represented through the repetition of these groupings. Pot’s method, however, differs

from Busoni’s in its more complex system of rhythmic notation and in its vertical placement

of the staves, as if imitating the direction of the keys on the piano (Example 13).61

Concluding ThoughtsBusoni was a maverick. He liked to question the ways in which things were traditionally

done and then offer alternative solutions, even if he didn’t always follow his own sugges-

tions. This extended from the scalar systems, to instruments, to interpretation and to

notation. He wanted to do away with the lawgivers and legalists, with universally accepted

ideals and standards, and he wanted to create procedures and methods that themselves were

constantly in flux in relation to what he was composing; he believed this was the way true

creative art reached perfection:

The creator should take over no traditional law in blind belief, which would make

him view his own creative endeavour, from the outset, as an exception contrasting

within that law. For his individual case he should seek out and formulate a fitting

individual law, which after the first complete realisation, he should annul, that he

himself may not be drawn into repetitions when his next work shall be in progress.

The function of the creative artist consists in making laws, not in following laws

ready made. He who follows such laws, ceases to be a creator. Creative power may

be the more readily recognized the more it shakes itself loose from tradition. But an

intentional avoidance of the rules cannot masquerade as creative power, and still

less engender it.

The true creator strives after perfection only. And through bringing this into

harmony with his own individuality, a new law arises without premeditation.62

60 N.a. What is Klavarskribo? (Holland: The Klavarskribo Institute, n.d. [c. 1947]), 60–61. The text also cites Aug.

Serieyx in Vincent D’Indy’s Course de Composition musicale (1912), Friedrich Weisshappel, Director of the Vienna

Conservertoire (no date or source provided), Arnold Schoenberg (Harmonielehre, 1911), Eagelfield Hull (Modern

Harmony, Its Explanation and Application, c. 1920), Paul Hindemith (Unterweisung im Tonsatz), Max Prick van

Wely (Technical Problems in Modern Pianoforte Music, 1942), Dr E. Kurth (Romantic Harmonics and its Crisis in

Wagner’s ‘Tristan ’), Wolhelm Ostwald (Outline of Natural Philosophy), and J. Achtelik (Der Naturklang als Wurzel

aller Harmonien).

61 See Rastall, The Notation, 254, for a more detailed description of the method.





Notation, he argued should be no different than other musical parameters – it should

be constantly changing in relation to the materials being recorded so that it could lead to

a fuller and more perfect representation of ideal musical art. From squiggles and almost

illegible text, to new methods, and aesthetic writings, Busoni’s sketches also revealed an

interrelatedness between notation and creation. The act of writing helped transcribe his

abstract ideas into concrete musical themes and forms. It helped him create. Yet the end

Example 13 J.S. Bach, Minuet in G from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, excerpt, notatedusing the Klavarskribo notation method, in Vorbeelden Catalogus Piano Deel 1. Catalogue Nr. 24486(Slikkerveer: Holland, Klavarskribo, n.d.), 4.




result of the notation was hardly definitive, because for Busoni, a work could not be re-

duced to paper. A musical work was a living entity born from human thought. It was the

performer’s job to bring the notation back to life, making whatever changes or adjustments

were necessary to free it from the boundedness of traditional features of notation.

Busoni thus attempted to forge a middle ground between the work as text and the work

as performance in an age enthralled to the concept of the Werktreue. For him, notation was

useful but its value resided somewhere on a continuum between the imperfect ‘transcrip-

tion’ of living ideas that would be more fully realized by performers and a means for better

realizing or ‘composing’ those ideas. Perhaps this is indeed a compelling way to view it, yet

one that places Busoni on the boundaries of the notated musical tradition, reflecting an

idiosyncratic view of the musical work in his own time, and foreshadowing ideals that

would only be appreciated in future decades.

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