3:4:5 was written in August 2004 at the request of Daniel Matej for a concert commemorating the 130th birth anniversaries of both Charles Ives and Arnold Schoenberg. He also suggested the above-named compositions as a point of departure. Accordingly, I subjected the scores of the two works to a music scanning computer program to find, to my great delight, numerous errors in the interpretation. Also all the music was represented as a stream of pulses of equal speed, irrespective of the original tempo. I removed all the silences in the music files, and after setting a maximum time limit for the longest events (0.7 seconds for Ives, 0.2 seconds for Schoenberg) found that the two scores were now both reduced in length to just under three minutes, the stipulated maximum duration. Then I subtracted most of the Schoenberg notes from the Ives score and vice versa. 

These two greatly condensed and also otherwise alienated scores are best played simultaneously by two pianists familiar with the original works, but I am sure that even one daring pianist can take on the challenge. The title refers to Ives’ 3 pages and to the 4 sonata movements contained therein as well as to Schoenberg’s 5 pieces. Also 34 months and 5 days elapsed between the dates on which the two composers died.