This work, which attempts to tackle the grand challenge of "musical time" through a single piano, contains a fundamental question within its very theme. Three Movements for Piano—Measurable Time and Topological Time can be said to be a work unique to Shin-ichi Matsushita, who was also a mathematician and physicist. Regarding "musical time," Matsushita projected two concepts, "measurable" and "topological," into his own work. He conceived this composition by defining measurable time as that in which "a radical sense of life is emphasized," and topological time as that which is "not governed by conventional notions of beat."The first draft was completed in 1957, with revisions made two years later. Further additions were made by the composer in 1960.The premiere was given by Kazuko Yokoi in Osaka in March 1959. Three Movements for Piano is dedicated to Yokoi. At the end of the piece, the letters "Yo-Ko-I" are depicted as notes on the staff, revealing the composer's humor. Regarding the representation of letters as musical notes, Matsushita had in mind "note-name symbolism" (or musical cryptogram), which is similar in concept. "Note-name symbolism," which involves replacing letters such as B, A, C, H with their corresponding note names, is a technique traditionally employed by various composers; Matsushita specifically considered Berg's use of it. Berg converted the spellings of names into note names and sought to musically depict their individual characteristics through rhythm, dynamics, or timbre. Berg often used numbers and alphabets symbolically. In Matsushita's Three Movements for Piano, in contrast to such "note-name symbolism," a technique that could be called "note-shape symbolism" was employed, where the visual shape of the spelling of a person's name is rendered as musical notes.The score was published by Ongaku no Tomo Sha in 1962 (as part of Contemporary music of Japan) and again in 1967.