I have recently gotten into microtonal music, much to my neighbours dismay I'm sure. Currently the musician who's peaking my interests is a pianist named Michael Harrison, his work is absolutely breathtaking ?
Here's a track written on his "harmonic piano", it's quite the interesting instrument. Taken from Wikipedia:
In 1986, he designed and created the “harmonic piano,” an extensively modified seven-foot grand piano with the ability to alternate between two different tunings to play 24 notes per octave on a conventional keyboard.
=
The piece that really gets me though is from his album Revelation, which is all written on a piano that is tuned in pure intonation, the harmonies create these oscillations that beat against each other and something about it just soothes me ? Absolutely jaw dropping stuff ?
=
"Michael Harrison's "Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation" is probably the most brilliant and original extended composition for solo piano since the early works of Frederic Rzewski three decades ago."
Tim Page, Spoleto Overview Critic
“Mr. Harrison strips away centuries of well-tempered convention to reveal naked notes, which he stacks up in clear chords or swirling clouds.”
--Anne Midgette, The New York Times
Classical's Best and Brightest Recordings of 2007
“An American maverick.”
–Philip Glass
