This is a moment worth savouring, because discs documenting work by the Polish composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (1919 94) come along only very rarely. Haubenstock-Ramati’s aim, which might also explain his relative obscurity, was to move musicians beyond what he perceived as the comfort zone of conventional notation, and Klangforum Wien offer three separate performances – ‘readings’ might be a more appropriate word – of Konstellationen (1971), a score expressed as a sequence of 25 coloured etchings.

If the pictorial beauty of these images is obvious (take a look by Googling Haubenstock-Ramati’s title), the question of how exactly to interpret his fracturing lines and disembodied note heads as sound is left hanging. Graphic notation refuseniks invariably raise the objection that, no matter who the composer, graphic pieces sound unmistakably of a type (graphic notation being notation that replaces notes, bars and staves with symbols, charts and/or diagrams) – classical performers left to their own devices will, the argument goes, inevitably default to doodling approximations of semi-remembered arpeggios and other stock figurations.

But never have I heard music like this before, which would suggest that Haubenstock-Ramati refined his notation to the point at which symbols score a deeper psychological impact on musicians than perhaps even they realise. Instantly you become aware of an intensity of listening from these alert and sensitive ensembles – winds, strings and accordion – as players tiptoe towards orientating themselves around a structure that has yet to reveal itself. That distinct concentration and energy which derives from musicians feeling, rather than reading, their way forwards is the whole point of graphic notation.

Haubenstock-Ramati’s graphics gradually build a network of association by continually spinning a feeder pool of basic symbols – bold lines, scattering dots, architecturally centring circles – into fresh contexts, mashing up the permutations and altering the perspective between foreground and background. The second version is anchored around Krassimir Sterev’s accordion, with the other instruments shifted spatially into the background; a third version coalesces into a dramatic narrative that begins to feel explicitly composerly.

To set the scene, the disc opens with an early, Webernesque String Trio, and those various takes on Konstellationen are cushioned by an intensely argued performance of Multiple 4 for oboe and horn, and Haubenstock-Ramati’s last work, the radiantly delicate textures of Morendo – double/echo (1991) for bass flute and tape.