Evento

Other Minds Festival 24: Concert 1

Single-minded and visionary composers are so often the ones most easily ignored by the changing currents of music taste. Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979) led a life characterized by exile and cultural exclusion; he was never part of any school, and the individuality of his work reflects his personal and lifelong determination to honor his deeply idiosyncratic muse. He was a founding father of microtonal composition and theory, yet he was at heart an expressionist, a spiritual descendant of Scriabin. Throughout his long life he sought audiences for his music but never compromised his artistic principles to gain the public ear. A mystical belief in the value of his work sustained him through these decades of neglect, affording his music surety and conviction.

The Arditti String Quartet of London, champions of Wyschnegradskys work, will perform his microtonal pieces for strings. While string music comprises a smaller portion of Wyschnegradskys catalogue than his better-known works for microtonal pianos, the Arditti Quartet makes a compelling case for Wyschnegradskys quartets, exploiting the expressive capabilities inherent to strings. The expanded scalar and harmonic palette, and wider variety of timbres lead the way to reforming a repertoire long confined to 12 equal-tempered tones.