Born in St Petersburg on 16 May 1893, died in Paris on 29 September 1979; Ivan Wyschnegradsky was a Russian-French composer. He studied composition with Nikolai Sokolov at the St Petersburg Conservatory and went to Paris in 1920, where he lived until his death. His work revolves around quarter-tone music: he had pianos built in quarter-tone tuning, wrote for two, three and four grand pianos tuned against each other and developed theoretical writings on ultrachromaticism, among them the treatise La loi de la pansonorite. His works include Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra, string quartets and studies on various microintervals. In the Cybele catalogue his Etude sur le Carre Magique Sonore op. 40 is heard on Piano Works around Russian Futurism (Vol. 1, 2009), recorded by Thomas Günther.
Ivan Wyschnegradsky
Composer
