Etude Sur Les Mouvements Rotatoires, etc.

Although the 'Etude sur les Mouvements Rotatoires' gets top billing, the main meat of this disc, and most of its appeal, lies in the '24 Preludes' that follow it, or, in full, the '24 Preludes in 13-tone diatonicised chromaticism in quarter-tone system for two pianos', op. 22, initially published in 1934 then subsequently revised over the course of the '60s. Ivan Wyschnegradsky, their composer, had been born in Russia, but spent most of his adult life in Paris. In the wake of a quasi-mystical epiphany in his youth, he felt compelled to compose microtonal, or what he sometimes referred to as "ultrachromatic" music.

In practice, this most often meant composing pieces on a specially-designed piano he'd had made with two keyboards tuned a quarter-tone apart: for performances, in the absence of such a unique instrument, two differently-tuned pianos and two pianists would typically be called for. The theory behind the compositions is outlined in what is, for me, incomprehensible technical detail in the booklet notes. On hearing or seeing the preludes being played however, even an ignorant listener like me can get the general idea.

The effect is disconcertingly like one might imagine Scriabin's Preludes might sound like if played by Les Dawson. I find it fascinating, intermittently ridiculous and occasionally beautiful. The full set of Preludes is a bit of a rich meal for a single sitting, so when I listen it's usually to a subset of them. It must be remarkably difficult music to play well, given the degree of synchronisation needed between the two players: Sylvaine Billier and Martine Joste do the honours here in fine style.

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All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...

Complete String Quartets

While the string quartets of Nikolai Yakovievich Myaskovsky (1881-1950) were all published in the Soviet era, a few of them had pre-revolutionary origins. Two quartets he wrote in 1911 and '09 while a conservatory student re-surfaced some twenty years later designated as Quartets Nos. 3 and 4. An even earlier "schoolboy" piece was later re-worked more radically as Quartet No. 10, premiered in 1945. Myaskovsky partook of an ample share of the turmoil and tragedy of his times: he was wounded and shell-shocked after service on the front line in World War I, and his father, who had been a high-ranking military engineer, was brutally murdered by a revolutionary mob. Despite that, his music, even at its most sombre, hasn't the black bile or biting sarcasm of Shostakovich's, or of his friend Prokofiev's. Of the works collected here, in excellent early '80s performances by the Taneyev Quartet, only Quartet No. 1 has any significantly metallic tang of early S...

Ein Schattenspiel, etc.

Georg Friedrich Haas is a contemporary Austrian composer of "art music". "Haas's style recalls that of György Ligeti in its use of micropolyphony, microintervals and the exploitation of the overtone series; he is often characterized as a leading exponent of spectral music" says wikipedia. Only a relative few of his many compositions have been issued on CD - many more of them can be found on YouTube. On this 2020 disc are three of his works in which standard classical instrumentation is augmented and altered by "live electronics". Two are string quartets and one is for solo piano. Is a string quartet still really a quartet if there are meanwhile some other people with laptops busily twizzling the sound? There is a live performance video of the 'String Quartet No. 7', the first work on the disc, where the JACK Quartet are supplemented by a trio of sound boffins to realise the composition. Whether it's properly a quartet or a septet is neithe...

This is a Recording

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