Wyschnegradsky - Two Preludes

Two Preludes Op. 2 (1916)

Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979) is typically acknowledged as a microtonal composer who spent most of his creative life in Paris and Germany developing his theories and "ultrachromatic scales." Before his emigration to Paris in 1920, he studied composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and became an avant-garde composer. Wyschnegradsky was clearly a disciple of Scriabin's music. He actually experienced something like an epiphany after hearing Scriabin's works and thereafter became a mystic, abandoned his Wagnerian approach to music, and emulated the "scriabinesque." His early orchestral work "The Journey of Existence" owes much to Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy". Unfortunately, Wyschnegradsky wrote only a few piano pieces including these two preludes during his youth in Russia. He was more interested in pursuing quarter-tone composition and even had Scriabin-like visions that this kind of music would push mankind to the next step in evolution. Composers like Messiaen and Boulez appreciated and performed his microtonal music, but there is virtually no interest in Wyschnegradsky today.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• wyschnegradsky
• vishnegradsky
• feinberg
• scriabin
• stanchinsky
• prokofiev
• rachmaninov

[addeex1]

Вышнегра́дский <3

[77orchidjim]

Don't flame me too badly here... I believe that the rhythmic execution of number II Allegro Irato is incorrect. If I am listening to the opening ( and subsequent ) bars and read the music , the em-PHA-sis should not be on the second syl-LA-ble. I.E. not on the dotted eighth, but rather the downbeat on each 16th note. Just seems wrong. Fantastic peice and brilliant playing. Thanks for posting this and all others!

[PhilPhilUSA]

Great and wonderful music! Thank you!!

[MrFullyawesome]

the 2nd one kicks ass

[iamalittlespy]

Awesome and bold.

[JonathanRabson]

It's too bad that Wyschnegradsky isn't appreciated more today for his musicality and interesting extensions along the lines of Scriabin. Nevertheless, he's very well-known to microtonal aficionados. Probably he isn't better known because he appealed to neither the conservative nor the extreme avant-garde taste. This has always been a problem for composers who are somewhere "in between" the two extremes.

[javiertw89]

Thanks for sharing; I enjoyed this piece very much.

[juanmaMCMLXXXII]

@elisabettapicello de nada :)

[elisabettapicello]

@juanmaMCMLXXXII

Thanks!!! =)

[juanmaMCMLXXXII]

Look for "Wyschnegradsky Twenty- four preludes in Quarter tones". It sounds a bit different ;)

[juanmaMCMLXXXII]

@elisabettapicello With normal piano. It's music tuned normally.