A Midcentury Composer’s Rainbow Wheels Representing Music Through Color

I'd somehow never heard of this guy. The piece of his they link to doesn't contain any microtonality (at least not the parts I listened to) and sounds _very_ much like mid-period Scriabin. I was a little disappointed at first, but then dug a bit more and found a couple of the microtonal piano pieces:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCvSkmIMRMY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOat_xsGUOw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EGriPbFmKE

These were more interesting, and had some good moments. You can kind of see what he's getting at with the color wheels (particularly with #5 from his Twenty-four Preludes in Quarter-tones - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCvSkmIMRMY). But ultimately I'm not sure how illuminating those wheels are from an analytical perspective.

Also, the article's contention that "standard pianos cannot play this kind of music," is incorrect. There are lots of microtonal works for piano, it's just necessary to properly tune one to perform them.

On a somewhat tangential note, there seems to be a lot of synesthesia (specifically Chromesthesia) among 20th century composers. This guy, and Scriabin, and Olivier Messiaen, Amy Beach, Leonard Bernstein, György Ligeti, Michael Torke. (And going further back, Liszt and Sibelius). I don't know what the incidence is in the general population, but I wonder what the connection is, if there is any connection.

Here's one of the quarter-tone preludes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9WPfkXQa_Y

The idea that this music was going to take mankind to the next level of spiritual evolution is... quite odd.

There is a discussion about Scriabin's color system over here with some links: http://mt.artofmemory.com/forums/alexander-scriabin-and-arti...