: Wreniillen,
IVAN VYSHNEGRADSKI
Manual of
QUARTERTONE
HARMONY
‘Translated from the French,
by Ivor Darreg
Table of Contents
‘Translater's Introduction « . ae
Compariscn of Quartertone Alteration Signe «+k
Author's Preface eee ee ce ee lS
PRELTUTKY woTES’.”.".”, 6
The Now Intervais : | | | :
Circles of Quartertone Intervals’...
PIES? PAT see
Altered crnanonts . :
Grnanented or Compound Ornaments...
Chrosatic Passing-Niot A
Chords Altered ty Quartertona
Modulations into the Hew Keys.
SHOW PAT esse ee ee ce
Nartifictai" Quartertone Scales
The Tetrashord Principia. se. ss
The Unrestricted Use of Quartartoies |!!! 28
Clusters and Complex Chords ee se es. 29-30
Polytonality and Bi-atonality . .)
APPENDIX: Acoustic Justitseations
for the System of Quartertones «6... 32
Harmonie Series Table sey te
ADDENDA Br TRaWSLATOR 2-0 DDS
Biographical Data... 2.111)
Concerning Harmonics’...
Nosenclatire and Related listers | | |
‘The Couper Quartertons Flat-Signe .
Nanos for the Intervals... 2 ss 3T
Musical Orthography vie-L-i12 Quartertonis’ 38DR Wehnogradsid « Quartertone Harmony
= —______"iihmeeraded _e_Quartortone Harmony.
Translator’s Introduction
The Listene='s ear—and that means yours !—te capable of far finer
distinctions than conventional musie ever asks it to nake: tn other senda,
‘our hearing capacities and perforsing capabilities are seriously union
ubilized by the decidental musicel syste:
Many forwart-Looking composers, theorists, and instrunontnakers have
sealized this—soso as far back as Ancient Grosee before Aristotle's tias,
and the annals of history and athnomusicology ara full of accounts of the
pee of smaller intervals than the "senitona” of 12-tone equal teupeséconte
The Greek loxtcon tolls us that the term Nenharmonie” originally peane. in
keaping" “eustablo! "£itting" "neet"—so that genus ot system thus Isto) led
would have been, at least for sono ties, the more estoonsd syston, on ane
array of musical sounds for the connoisseur, or for the diserininsting elite,
And in at least sone of its forms, the enharmonic genus had intervals areuna
‘2 quirtertone in size,
Hore and there around the world, from ancient tines 121 the present day,
Snell intervals of this sort have boon proservad and cultivated oo there ss
nothing new about quartertones, ant nothing unnatural abaut sone peorte dee
siring thea, dreaxing about then, or actually trying then on for bisee iat
vwas new, about a century ago, was the masa-production of inetrunonts athe
pianos and organs incapable of playing thon, and the codifying of 4 conivonal
‘welve-tone oysten in the mass-produced materials of music inetruccion,
We have to resopber that, in Beethoven's or Schusann's time, the reaour=
gee of 12tono tenperanant and of the piano are largely unexplored. Later,
‘he key-ayaten was exploited to the init; then cane the breakdowns af tonality,
in which such nanos as Schinberg and Dobutey figure. Even so, thore neve seine
for places yet to go in the 1890s or tho turn of the century,
By the 19203, sone people bugan to sense, whether consciously o gubcon=
gelously, the apptoaching exhaustion of the twelve genttones' resources. Se
sporadic exporinertation with quartertons pianos began, here ail there. cand
Yan Wyshnegradoki, newly sottlod in Paris, was one of’ these experioesvors,
Unfortunately, the "aodern"—sadarn in 1920, anyway—piand was the worst
Possible instrunent on which to try out quartortene music! Ito timbre had
evolved—this was largely unanares, without such consetous direction