The Fourth Scroll is a musical composition based on one of the so-called netherlandish tricks employed by the composers of the Netherlandish School (XV-XVI century). The trick is that a piece of paper with a note text can be read the way it was written, i.e. from left to right, but one can also flip the sheet of paper and read the text against the light like in the mirror image. The very same notes, thus, can be played in the original form as well as in retrograde. Moreover, both of the forms can be performed simultaneously, resulting in a duet.

Six transparent screens will be used in the performance of ‘The Fourth Scroll’. The note text will be read from both sides of each screen. As a result, we will hear 12 note texts entangled in a dense polyphony.

The composition will be performed in exceptional architectural and acoustic conditions. The musicians will perform in a spacious circular corridor. The listener, standing still at one point of the corridor, will hear best those of the instruments played on nearest to him or her, while the instruments played on most far away will be heard the least. Thus, various harmonious effects will be hearable from various points of the circular corridor. As a result, the listener wandering about the passage will be in control of the harmony he or she hears.

‘The Fourth Scroll’ was written by Piotr Bosacki during his four week long project called The Musical Diagrams, spanning from March the 9th to April the 14th, 2012, held at the WRO Atelier: a new workshop and a gallery with a noninstitutional spirit, expanding the program activity of the WRO Art Center. The brunt of the musical language of Piotr Bosacki, the artist working mainly with the visual arts, is the graphical representation of the sound structures. The exhibition of diagrams and scores of The Fourth Scroll, arranged during the composition of the musical work, just as in the artist’s private workshop, was coming into existence alongside the project held at the WRO Atelier.