1961
Piano Solo
UA: (Ur-Fassung): 15/3/1962, ‘Nuova Consonanza’ Rom, Fréderic Rzewski UA: 1/2/1963, Kopenhagen, Karl-Erik Welin
CD: BVHAAST CD 0901 Konrad Boehmer – The Piano Works Performer(s) : Nicolas Hodges
POTENTIAL (1961) was composed during the first months of 1961, shortly before my matriculation at the secondary school (“Apostel Gymnasium”) in Cologne. The original version was subtitled ‘de-composition’.
A fully determined, serial musical texture was to be combined with textures which were only partially defined (in pitch and/or duration). These structures were supposed to be assembled by the performer himself and to be inserted into the original texture.
As I have not been lucky with the results of this open form I later on elaborated three versions which are fully determined. Thus the performer may now choose between three versions and not within one single piece as previously.
In its aesthetic starting-points, POTENTIAL is very close to the conceptions of the serial Cologne School (whose only pupil I was).
You can download the score here: Potential.zip