Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music

This book introduces polytempic polymicrotonality as a new musical aesthetic. It proposes music with more than one microtonal tuning system and discusses examples from the literature to give an historic framework showing that this tendency has been present throughout human musical history. Polytempo is a tool for which polymicrotonal structures can function in relief from its background, and it acts as a frame, or ground structure, that is multidimensional, akin to the advancement of perspective in Renaissance art. The book has historic significance as it is the only book of its category, or genre, in music that features polymicrotonality in music composition or production. It displays examples of music literature for musical precedence in this area, focusing on Charles Ives’s Universe Symphony, unfinished since 1925.

1. Introduction 2. Pitch: Historical Information Leading to the Possibility of Polymicrotonality: Representative Figures and Works 3. Rhythm: Representative Twentieth-Century Polytempic Works 4. Pitch + Rhythm: Literature and Compositions Suggesting Relationships Between Microtonal Pitch and Rhythm, In Terms of Tempo, Leading to the Union of Polymicrotonality and Polytempo: Henry Cowell, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, and Ben Johnston 5. The Progenitor: Charles Ives's Universe Symphony and Its Legacy: Polytempic PolymicrotonalArt Music 6. Conclusion

Peter Alexander Thoegersen was born in Los Angeles, USA, in 1967. He earned his doctorate in music composition from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2012. Thoegersen has had his works premiered in Europe, Australia, and the United States. His CD Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality was released by New World Records in 2019, Facebook: What’s On Your Mind? was released on Flea Records in the April of 2021, and Alien Music released on Magic&Unique Records in March 2022.