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Home » Eastern Europe » WYSCHNEGRADSKY, IVAN: La journée de l'existence

WYSCHNEGRADSKY, IVAN: La journée de l'existence
A major musical event: the premiere release of an excellent radio recording of the first performance in Paris in 1978 of a 1917 composition by one of the last century's most innovative and neglected composers. Journee was written before his definitive move into radical microtonalism, and uses a large but conventional orchestra, with spoken text (printed in full in the 64pp booklet accompanying the CD). Written immediately after the death of - and influenced by - Scriabin, and while his ideas on quarter, sixth and twelfth tomes were still evolving, this piece straddles the last great works of the C19th and the emerging contours of the new aesthetic world of the C20th. It is fully articulated and through a combination of high skill and spiritual intensity (well listen and see if you could express it another way) seems to rise above simple history, as if to escape the inevitable (aesthetic, social and political) collapse that raged around it. Also included are two1976 radio interviews with Wyschnegradsky (in French) in which he speaks about his musical life, ultra chromaticism, notational problems, the need for new instruments - his experiences building quartertone pianos, a typography of spaces - and other matters mystical and musical. Separate CD and booklet in slipcase.

Code: INAshiiin4
Price: £22.75