Playing time: 23’45

Publisher: the score for 4 pianos was published by L’Oiseau Lyre, Monaco.

First performance: 25 January 1937 at Salle Chopin-Pleyel, Paris, by Monique Haas, Ina Marika, Edward Staempfli and Max Vredenburg, under the composer’s direction.

Playing time: 11′

Publisher: Belaïeff, in 1936

First performances: 25 January 1937 at Salle Chopin-Pleyel, Paris, by Monique Haas, Ina Marika, Edward Staempfli and Max Vredenburg, under the direction of the composer.

Followed by numerous performances in France, including 10 November 1945, at Salle Chopin-Pleyel, Paris, by Yvette Grimaud, Yvonne Loriod, Pierre Boulez and Serge Nigg, as well as in Belgium, Canada, Italy, Holland, Austria, Germany.

The work begins with a short exposition of a very rhythmic theme followed by a brief interlude that leads to a lilting theme. Both themes are written in a 13-note scale (including two leaps by quarter-tones in two different places) with constant modulations. Then comes a brief return to the initial rhythm, followed by a majestic interlude. After that, on the initial rhythm, the lilting theme returns, but this time outside any scale, by intervals of semi- and quarter-tones (3, 5 and 7 fourths, etc.). A progressive dynamic crescendo ends in ff, followed by an ‘Allegro energico’ based on the rhythmic theme. Return of the lilting theme (over sustained chords). A brief ‘Allegro marziale’, and the work ends with a rhythmic theme (in the 13-note scale) with superposition, in the upper register, of chords based on the second theme (lilting), also in the 13-note scale, but in other tones than the rhythmic theme (the relation there is always an augmented fourth) simultaneously the notes of B flat and E, for ex., a kind of quarter-tonal bi-tonality. José Bruyr (Le Guide du Concert, January 1937 – English translation: John Tyler Tuttle)

Playing time: 13’30

Unpublished

First performance: 28 November 1951 in Paris, by Pierre Boulez, Yvette Grimaud, Claude Helffer and Ina Marika, Pierre Chailley conducting.

Playing time: 15′

Publisher: Belaïeff

First performance: 10 November 1945, Salle Chopin-Pleyel, Paris, by Yvette Grimaud, Yvonne Loriod, Pierre Boulez and Serge Nigg, under the composer’s direction; followed by several performances in Germany, France, Italy, Canada…

The score includes a considerable ‘Theoretical Preface ‘ by the composer, with the description of the 27 cycles used.
 

‘I saved the programme from the 10 November 1945 concert in the course of which, in a jam-packed Salle Chopin, were given four first performances by Ivan Wyschnegradsky – this by the devoted attention of a quartet of urchins, each aged barely twenty: Yvonne Loriod, Yvette Grimaud, Pierre Boulez and myself.
‘We had spent long days working under the direction of an author who looked like a prophet, visibly inspired by Heaven, and whose long arms, beating immutable quavers, pointed alternatively at each of us as if to denounce with a vengeful finger his melodic lines quartered between the four pianos.
‘But what joy finding ourselves as if immersed in the magical world of micro-intervals, unreal harmonies, in a fantastical atmosphere, an Ali-Baba’s cavern where diamonds, carbuncles and other precious sound gems glittered.
‘The letdown was hard the day after the concert, when we returned to the ordinary sound world, a bit commonplace and prosaic, of our good old 12-note scale of which the chromatic intervals seemed to us to flirt with gaping holes in which all enchantment had vanished.’ (Serge Nigg – January 1985 for the programme of the 1st March 1985 concert, organized by the Association Ivan Wyschnegradsky in the large hall of the Centre Pompidou, Paris – English translation: John Tyler Tuttle)

Playing time: 12’

Unpublished

First performance: 7 January 1977, at the Maison de la Radio, Paris, by Sylvaine Billier, Martine Joste, Jean-François Heisser and Jean Koerner, conducted by Michel Decoust.

Stravinsky’s rhythms with the jerky accents of The Rite of Spring seem much more distinct in the first part of the work, but they are soon blurred by an expressive melody. Right in the middle of the central part and in the upper register a severe, archaic four-part chorale phrase suddenly appears in the traditional diatonic system. It enters into fascinating conflict with the modern world of quarter-tones: stylistic pluralism, as is found only in very young music. These multiple levels are finally condensed to form packets of massive chords. Gottfried Eberle (liner notes from the double-LP set released by Edition Block/Berlin – English translation: John Tyler Tuttle)

Playing time: 9′

Unpublished

First performance: Autumn 1988 in Graz (Austria), Steirischer Herbst, Christian Aigner, Janna Polyzoides, Isabelle Poncet, Elisabeth Schadler, Karl-Heinz Schuh, and Rita Solymar, pianos, conducted by Georg-Friedrich Haas.

Playing time: 12′

Unpublished

First performance: 8 January 1993, at Salle Pollack, Montreal: Concert ‘Homage to Ivan Wyschnegradsky ‘, with Pierrette Lepage, Paul Helmer, Marc Couroux, François Couture, pianos, and the Ensemble d’Ondes de Montréal, conducted by Bruce Mather.

Unpublished

Unpublished