D. Muedinov

Micro-chromatic music in the history of wind instruments performing art

The article is devoted to the historical stages of micro-chromatic music formation and development in wind instruments performing art. The researcher reveals the origins of microtonal music in the proficiency of ancient Greek auletes and characterizes technological peculiarities of micro-intervals aulos playing. The priority role of ancient Greek auletes in creating enharmonic as a more sophisticated, compared with diatonic and chromatic, kind of melos in classical music is noted. The author establishes the complexity of intoning and auditory perception; this complexity was the cause of micro-tonal music small popularity among the performers and the audience of Antiquity. The article displays that micro-chromatic music remained accessible only to a narrow circle of professional musicians and selected connoisseurs from highly educated audience. Based on the analysis of treatises by N. Vicentino, M. Mersenne, J. J. Quantz, didactic supplies and schools by J. Hotteterre, F. G. A. Dauverne and T. J. Harper the researcher ascertains the basic directions of micro-chromatic music subsequent development in the XVI–XVIIth centuries. Much prominence is given to the technological features of micro-intervals playing flute and trumpet in the European performing art of the XVIII–XIXth centuries.

Key words

micro-chromatic music, enharmonic, ancient Greek aulets, wind instruments performing art, F. G. A. Dauverne, T. J. Harper.

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