ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to trace Wolff's compositional development chronologically, drawing upon the author's experience of performing the works. The piano music, then, provides a useful tool with which to survey developments within Wolff's compositional technique and style. Wolff composed a number of piano works prior to his involvement with John Cage, which he describes as being influenced by Bartok, but his first acknowledged, and published, piano composition is For Prepared Piano. The notational complexities developed in For Piano I and II are taken to new levels in these two works for prepared piano, and the rhythms of Suite (I), the first work to be published by Edition Peters in the early 1960s, caused considerable problems for the engraver. The piano part consists of a sequence of four-note chords, generated by the reading of a single chord in different combinations of treble and bass clefs.
