The story of microtonality might be as old as music itself. In non-Western music traditions, e.g. Indian Carnatic music or Arabic melismas, its use is commonplace. Western concert music, in contrast, is built on fixed pitches no closer together than the semitone and now commonly played with twelve-tone equal temperament, a device that effectively ‘rounded off’ minute tone differences. While still confined to its margins, microtonality is gaining new acceptance in our culture, as witnessed by a steadily growing body of works exploring these timbral possibilites. The Russian Ivan Wyschnegradsky was a true pioneer in this respect, writing piano…
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