"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Symphony for 4 Quarter-Tone Pianos - Ivan Wyschnegradsky

Performed by Cyrille Guion, Martine Joste, Li Xie and Guanlan Xu conducted by Léo Margue

I - Tempo giusto: 0:00
II - Scherzando: 7:38
III - Lento: 13:00
IV - Allegro con fuoco: 19:22

Wyschnegradsky's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" was sketched out in November 1918, but the piece was left unfinished in an early stage. He resumed composition between 1929-30. Scored the work for what he later described as a “not very practical” ensemble of quarter-tone piano (6 hands); quarter-tone harmonium (4 hands); quarter-tone clarinet; a “traditional” string ensemble; and percussion.

After failing to secure performances, in summer of 1936 he rewrote the whole piece for 4 pianos, as well as revising the second and fourth movements. It was premiered in Paris in January 25, 1937. The concert was well-received, and earned the praise of Charles Koechlin and Olivier Messiaen, among others. As the title suggests, the work seems to be loosely inspired by Nietzsche's phylosophical masterpiece, but we don't have any notes or explanations left by the composer.

In the arrangement for four pianos, Wyschnegradsky employed an ingenious solution to creating microtones that doesn’t require anything of the composer more radical than engaging an obliging piano tuner. By tuning two of the pianos at concert pitch (originally diapason normal, A = 435 HZ) and the other two a quarter tone higher, microtonal sounds can be easily realised. Within the musical texture, each concert pitch-tuned piano is paired with a differently tuned piano, enabling the microtonality to be clearly audible both melodically and harmonically.

The symphony is superbly written, enriched to quasi-orchestral density of harmonic incident by the interlocking quarter-tone sequences of chords and melodic lines. The work is based on a cyclic set of themes, and its dramatic development is, dare one say, easy to follow, with a well defined sense of direction. No less a figure than Messiaen wrote a marvellous, perceptive appreciation of the concert in which the work was premiered, saying: "Here there are not only melodic contours known and appreciated by the Hindus alone, but also absolutely new harmonic material, which brings us prisms, chord clusters, dense carillons, ethereal garlands." which serves admirably as a summary of Wyschnegradsky's genius in general.

Picture: "Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche" (1906) by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.

Sources: https://bit.ly/3vDvFdV and https://bit.ly/3vEHvV6