Ivan Wyschnegradsky - 24 Quarter-Tone Preludes for two pianos Op. 22 (audio + sheet music)

Ivan Wyschnegradsky was born the son of a St. Petersburg banker and musical aficionado. As a student at the University of St. Petersburg, he transferred out of law and philosophy studies to enroll in the music department. He studied with instructor Nikolai Sokolov, who introduced him to the work of Alexander Scriabin. Shortly after, he abandoned the Germanic, post-Romantic idiom familiar to him and followed the example of his Russian forbearer. His earliest acknowledged work, the cantata La journée de l’existence (1916 - 1917, rev. 1927, 1939) betrays the influence of Scriabin influence very strongly, especially in the massive five-octave chord cluster that ends the work. Just prior to the composition of La journée, Wyschnegradsky experienced a flash of what he called “cosmic consciousness,“ leading him onto a lifelong investigation of microtonal resources as a means of making tactile mystical, unseen universal forces. In 1918 he tuned the two pianos in his family home a quarter