Space, at Last (Ultrachromatic and Non-Octaviating)!
In this paper, Philippe Leroux evokes his encounter with Ivan Wyschnegradsky and the impact it had on his vision of composition. Here he shows—after briefly describing them—how Wyschnegradsky’s main compositional theories of non-octaviating periodicities and cycles, as well as ultrachromatic scales, differed from the serial, stochastic or sound object principles that were in vogue in Paris in the late 1970s. He discusses the influence these theories have had on his music, and how they played a liberating role by proposing a way to approach work on the pitch material that is free from motivational, aleatoric or harmonic conceptions. Finally, he recalls how he gradually freed himself, even as he acknowledges the significant role these theories played in his conception of the notion of the perceptual continuum.