An interview with Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1976)

From his home in Paris, Russian-born composer Ivan Wyschnegradsky discusses with Charles Amirkhanian his approach to writing microtonal music, and his desire for a “chromatic revolution“. He describes his invention of the quarter-tone piano that has two harps controlled by three keyboards, enabling performances by a single player, and elaborates on his subsequent evolution as a composer. Wyschnegradsky focuses on “The Day of Existence“, an early work (influenced by Scriabin) that he is revisiting, and his most popular piece, “Also Sprach Zarathustra“. He demonstrates the quarter-tone piano, and details his unconventional approach of dividing pitch space into “non-octavian“ units. Wyschnegradsky also shares some of the logistical difficulties of composing such unique music, and describes his desire to popularize microtonal, or“hyper-chromatic“ music and techniques.