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This is Vivaldi's Four Seasons, quantified. It's the work of data artist Nicholas Rougeux, who takes pleasure in making audiences see familiar artworks in unusual ways.
His previous projects include Between the Words, which stripped literary classics from Pride and Prejudice to Moby-Dick down to just their punctuation. In Sonnet Signatures, he interpreted Shakespeare's love poems through their most common letters.
For Off the Staff, Rougeux breaks down classical compositions, from Vivaldi to Beethhoven. "I can barely read sheet music," explains Chicago-based Rougeux, 33. "Sheet music is an efficient way to look at music. Scales are condensed to the same five staff bars and denoted higher or lower with clefs. Doing away with that efficiency and showing all notes on the same scale brought each score to life."
The result highlights the signatures of different composers. "For example, Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven reaches a high pitch, which is shown by a spike in the diagram," says Rougeux. This is subtle in the sheet music."
Rougeux plans to sell the prints, and is already working on new scores to illustrate. "I want others to see the difference between these scores, without having to hear a note."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
