Notations was dedicated to Serge Nigg, an individual Boulez came to know well through his work with Messiaen and Leibowitz. The work explores many of the different aspects of musical composition and thought, from the mixture of tempo extremes in the first movement to the toccata in number 6 and groups of ostinato spread throughout. It was the first of Boulez's works to be published.

The work for piano is created by twelve miniatures, or movements, for piano, leaving the entire duration of the work at around ten to eleven minutes. Over this period of time, the listener can observe many of the musical issues and ideas which would come to define Boulez' style, such as alternations between simplistic ideas and extremely thick sonorities, abrupt gestures, and a mixture of different traditional ideas used in new ways, such as the ostinato.

Boulez himself must have thought the music in Notations for piano was substantial, even in its small scale. Movements five and nine were later used as interludes in the first Improvisation sur Mallarme. Still later, Boulez took the entire work and reworked both the music itself and the orchestration to create Notations for large orchestra. The music in the orchestra version is much lengthier and more intricate, yet still retains the seeds taken from the piano version.

Since each of the movements is extremely short (the longest lasts two and a half minutes, most are under one minute), the musical material is not given much opportunity to develop. Instead, the ideas present themselves as entities, each unique to its own musical thought and independent of the music surrounding it. However, the piece is able to retain itself as a complete work through the connective tissue provided through the percussive use of the piano, the twelve-tone series which is used for much of the pitch material, and the variations in extremes of musical thought.

In works such as Notations and those from his earlier career, it is easy to see why Boulez' music has become some of the most intricate and studied of the twentieth century. His capture of the musical language of the twentieth century is astounding, to say the least, and his ability as a composer, as well as conductor, has led to his earning the respect of serious musicians around the world.

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