Lutosławski, String Quartet

You wrote that you "must have a score so that each one knows what the other one is doing and at what points events coincide". The point is that one of the basic techniques used in my piece is that, in many sections of the form, each particular player is supposed not to know what the others are doing, or, at least, to perform his part as if he were to hear nothing except that which he is playing himself. […] If each performer strictly follows the instructions in the parts, nothing could happen that has not been foreseen by the composer. […] The lack of a score is partly compensated by a whole system of signals in the parts […]”.

Witold Lutosławski, appendix to the study score of String Quartet (1964)