Case studies

Case Studies began in 2019 as an ongoing group of piano pieces created from recorded improvisations. Following a method associated with Giacinto Scelsi, I selected passages from spontaneous sessions and transcribed them without changing the musical material. Hummed counter-lines and rhythms tapped with my feet were not written into the score, but remain present in my memory when I perform the pieces. Some studies are unfinished or still too personal to play publicly; the cycle therefore remains open.

The most frequently performed study is Egy ismeretlen szép lány zongorázik - approximately, “an unknown beautiful girl is playing the piano.” I first performed it on the day my former piano teacher, Csáky Katalin, died, before I had learned of her passing. That coincidence gave the work a lasting and mysterious significance. The series explores improvisation, vulnerability and the porous boundary between composition and performance.