364 Days

Composer Ernő Zoltán Rubik launched the “364 Days” compositional project and creative game in January 2023. The main idea was all possible three-note combinations that could be formed from twelve tones, allowing repetition of notes within a triad. Thus, there were triads consisting of three identical notes, two identical and one different note, or three different notes. The total number of possible combinations was 364. 

Rubik distributed these 364 triads across the days of 2023, from January 1 to December 30, in a randomly determined order. The result was a sequentially random yet structurally rigorous tonal “giant molecule,” or giant chord-reihe. Participants received their daily material via email: three pitches in letter notation, without specified registers or other parameters. Using these pitches, they were free to compose in any way, modifying, supplementing, or transforming the material as they wished.

Of the pieces written within the framework of the project, Ákos Nagy’s work was completed on December 31, 2023, while others, like some works’ post-production, extended well into 2024.

The January 29, 2025, concert will feature the completed compositions from the project: works by Ákos Nagy, Márton Bujdosó, and György Bartók’s comprehensive musical reflection.

While Márton Bujdosó’s piece The Seven Seasons, for alto recorder and piano (sometimes four hands), transforms the tonal giant molecule into an impressionistic, programmatic dramaturgical arc, Ákos Nagy’s Same or Different?, a piano composition, turns the compositional process itself into a meditative exploration. A shared feature of these two works is that both composers, independently of each other, used notable days of the astronomical year as organizational elements in their compositions.

György Bartók’s composition approaches the project differently, serving as a kind of summary and exploration of the issues raised by the project.

With the friendly support of Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
With the support of the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.