Present

A musical score is a strange object. It contains instructions for music that doesn’t yet exist. The notes are silent. The dynamics are silent. The entire architecture of what will be heard sits encoded in marks on paper, waiting. When someone reads the score and plays it, the music becomes real — but the score was always only potential. The composer may be dead. The score doesn’t care. The instructions remain legible, and when a musician brings attention to them, the music happens again.