Search - Wyschnegradsky, Mefano :: Etude Sur Les Mouvements Rotatoires Op 45

Early exiled master of Quarter Tone Tunings

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 12/23/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Wyschnegradsky had a pure passion for sound.After escaping the Bolshevik Revolution(being wealthy,this was advisable) he spent the greater part of the Twenties trying to build his quarter tone piano.The first concert of his music didn't occur until 1937 in Paris .Most of us are thoroughly unaware of his music and performances are just at zero with his music. But at first hearing it may strike you as film music,predictable and graphic backgrounds.Curious how Hollywood has gobbled up certain of these musical gesturesThe hammering at a dissonant chord,then a dead stop then again machinelike;Good Karloffian ambience.And his music is dark,violent, brooding, with a grotesque feel for rawness of sound,perhaps the quar tone tuning incites this rawness,but not in an incomplete way. The fantastic performance by the 2e2m Ensemble under Paul Mefano is indeed inspired. The first work here Etude sur les mouvements rotatoires a mere 5 and one half minutes. Pure raw energy is the result with the quarter tone pianos colouring the various wind chord's proceedings, more like standing opposite an abbatoir in full use. One problem with much new tuning music I find is that, that is all it is. In Wyschnegradsky's music we have predictable like gestures, Violent impassioned outbursts when placed in contexts it merely sounds out of tune. We crave, at least I do, the loathsome tempered system. The form doesn't fit the tuning,so much of the what can be nuanced sounds is completly lost in this welater of violence.In contrast however, Dialogue for four pianos we obtain a greater purity of concept, our ears are more focused now that the timbre is one-dimensional,just piano.And the four Etudes, Etudes sur les densites we obtain an even greater hearing focused experience, for the form is curtailed, scaled to miniature. Pianist Martine Joste is well-seasoned in new music, and she is great here with Sylvaine Billier her dual accomplice in tuning transgressiveness. They never shy away from the brutality, and grotesque gesturing this music is capable."

Interesting as a testimony of the exploration of a none too

Discophage | France | 10/12/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Ivan Wyschnegradsky (or Vishnegradsky, as his name is sometimes written in English) is usually a footnote in the Music History Textbooks, as one of the early 20th Century experimenters in quarter-tones and other microtonal tunings, along with fellow composers like Charles Ives (Three Quarter-Tone Pieces), Alois Habà, Juliàn Carillo and Harry Partch.



Wyshnegradsky was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia in 1893 and died in Paris in 1979. Though his father - a banker - was arrested by the Soviets in November 1917, young Ivan was first a fervent supporter of the Revolution, even composing The Red Gospel, op. 8. Well, he must have rapidly changed his mind, and the family emigrated to Paris in 1920.



As early as November 1916, Ivan had experienced something like a mystical crisis and, as Wotan with the Mighty and Secret Plan at the end of Rheingold, he conceived the outlines of his magnum opus, called then "La Journée de Brahma" (The Day, or The Journey of Brahma), later re-dubbed "The Day/Journey of Existence" for reciter, full orchestra and mixed chorus. In November 1918 (a lot happened in November for Wyshnegradsky apparently) he had the two household pianos placed side by side at an angle and tuned at a quarter-tone interval, and began exploring this new sonic universe of quarter-tones. It didn't turn out too well for Wyschnegradsky, though. He spent the Twenties trying to get a special, quarter-tone piano built for himself, and when he finally got it (in 1929) he realized it didn't work so well, so he transcribed all his compositions for two pianos tuned at a microtonal distance from each other. His music started getting some exposure at the end of the Thirties, but the War put an end to all those efforts, in addition to severely weakening the man physically (tuberculosis). He got some renewed attention in the early Fifties (including young Boulez', who played some of his works), but the times were past for micro-tonality and serialism ruled the day. There was a rediscovery of sorts at the end of the Seventies, but too late for the frail composer.



So, how does the music sound? Well, those who've been exposed to microtonal piano will know what to expect, and for the others, be prepared: first and foremost, it sounds out-of-tune.



The reasons why are not entirely clear. Is it because our (my) ears are too accustomed to the semi-tones of the time-hallowed equal-temperament tuning? Possibly, but music from India or the Far East, as strange as it may sometimes seem, doesn't sound "out-of-tune" to me, and my ears are also very comfortable with the music of Crumb, Ligeti, Xenakis. Or is it maybe that Wyschnegradsky hasn't drawn all the implications of microtonal tuning? It is something I remarked listening to selections of his 24 Preludes: shorn of the quarter-tones, the music is largely indebted to Scriabin, with whiffs of Prokofiev and even Schumann and Brahms, which raises the question whether microtonal piano is simply "normal" piano with quarter-tone "embellishing" (or should one say "uglyfying"?). Yet keyboard music from Bach to Brahms, Scriabin and Schoenberg wasn't written independent of the equal-temperament, semi-tone tuning system, but based on it. Other tuning traditions exist throughout the world, but they also produce music that is radically different from the Western tradition.



The various Two-Piano pieces featured here are more uniformly stern and stark in mood - Scriabin revised by Rudhyar and Ruggles, so to speak, but still I find myself constantly trying to shape an idea of how the music would sound without the quarter-tones, as if these were incidental rather than essential to the music. And indeed this is often the impression they give: the music seems as if it would stand on its own as well or even better without them. To me they don't feel organic.



There is a strong streak in Russian singing: the tendency to wail ("O Boje moy") and adding to that the quarter-tone piano is really the last and unwelcome straw. The Two Nietsche Songs are almost laughable in their wailing grandiloquence. The Viola Sonata isn't very convincing either: the viola part doesn't sound particularly micro-tonal, or rather micro-tonality is integral to the instrument's fabric (the instrument's playing technique allows for slides from one tone to the other, and the time-honored stylistic device of portamento naturally produces micro-intervals) and you can't distinguish whether it is notated or a stylistic decision from the performer. It sounds like epigonic Bartok (the solo line of Berg's Violin Concerto also comes to mind) accompanied by an out-of-tune piano: somehow the two instruments don't blend well.



Ultimately, I find, the most convincing piece on this disc is the "Etude sur les mouvements rotatoires" (Study on rotational movements), a kind of Concerto for quarter-tone piano and chamber orchestra, because the strings add a sonic continuum that makes sense of the microtonal writing. It is a stern and imposing piece, quite impressive, sometimes bringing Varèse to mind. The Second of Two "Etudes sur les densités et les volumes" (Studies on Density and Volumes) and some moments in Dithyrambe are also palatable, in that they use clusters or running and pounding scales and arpeggios which produce halos or clouds of sounds that again make more sense of the microintervals. But Cowell did that too and he didn't need quarter-tones, or rather, he produced them naturally through the harmonic resonance of the instrument.



The liner notes contain different contributions, including analyses of some of the compositions by the late French microtonal composer Claude Ballif, which seem comprehensible only to microtonal musicologists or composers.



Still, while I don't find Wyschnegradsky's microtonal piano music very convincing, this disc (originating in two concerts given in 1991 and 1994 by the French Contemporary Music Ensemble 2e2m) remains interesting as a testimony of the exploration of a none too fruitful byway of 20th Century music.

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