Piano Album: Short Pieces, 1962-1984
Dick Higgins
"...A beautifully produced collection of graphic, verbal and notated scores..." R.I.P. Hayman, Ear (1981)
"With relevance to both music and literature, Piano Album's iconoclastic scores belongs in both belles lettres and music libraries..." American Library Association Booklist. 32 pages, 81/2" by 11", color, illus.
Piano Sonata No. 2 (Graphis 192)
Dick Higgins
This musical work uses four overlays in different colors, each of which is placed over a different sheet of existing piano music. On the overlays are arrows directing eye and hand, separately or together, thus collaging the music that is read through them. 4 page folder, containing 4 silkscreened vinyl sheets in color, 9" by 12", 1982
Sonata for Prepared Piano
Dick Higgins
Four movements make up this thirteen-minute work, each using a very different method of interpreting similar photographic materials, a set of four photomontages that employ natural imagery (tree roots, rocks, branches and a human back). 8 pages, black and dark green, 11" by 14", 1983
Song for any voice(s) and instruments(s) (Graphis 192b)
Dick Higgins
This is music or sound poetry based on words by the Latin poet P. Optatianus Porphyrius (fl. 325 AD). The words are cropped in the design to form the graphic images used for the arrows in Piano Sonata No. 2 (see above), to which this is a companion work. It may be interpreted by solo voice, group of voices or chorus, accompanied by any instrumental combination, according to the system which goes with the notation and controls it. 4 page folder, 81/2" by 11", containing graphic notation, 1983
Ten Ways of Looking at a Bird
Dick Higgins
This composition for violin and harpsichord uses photographs of a male nude as graphic materials underlying staves, all interpreted within the limits of a series of sets of up-to-six pitches (a gamut) for each of its ten movements. 16 pages, black and blue, 81/2" by 11", illus., 1981
Twenty Six Mountains
Dick Higgins
Born at Cambridge, England, March 15, 1938, Higgins composes art, music, poetry, essays, etc. "Higgins is one of the best and most original interpreters of language writing today..." American Library Association Booklist, 5/15/77. "Dick Higgins could reasonably be called a Renaissance Man..." Alexandra Anderson, Village Voice, 3/12/79.
Variations on a Natural Theme, for Orchestra
Dick Higgins
This graphic work for typical medium-sized orchestra is intended to be performed directly from the graphic notation. The orchestra parts are superimposed over a set of twenty eight visual images made from a set of photographs of a female nude, interpreted according to Higgin's very specific instructions.
"The spirit of Fluxus is alive, and, while no longer shocking, it is provocative." Dean Suzuki, Lost Music Network. 32 pages, black and brown, 11" by 14"
