Preludio a Cristobal Colón

Columbus Day weekend is here, and to celebrate, a weird tribute to the great explorer from a musical explorer, the Mexican Julián Carrillo (1875-1965).  This is the "Preludio a Cristobal Colón" (1922), his first work to employ the principles of the 13th Sound, his system of dividing the octave into smaller intervals than the 12 half-tones normally found in Western music (hence, the "13th" sound - beyond 12 - get it?).  If you think of the note "C" on the piano, a white key, and the black key beside it, "C-sharp", and then imagine seven more notes between these two (corresponding to quarter, eighth, and sixteenth-tones), you will get an idea how Carrillo's system works.

Despite its apparent complexity, the system actually produced some quite listenable, if strange-sounding, music.  This "Preludio," scored for wordless soprano and 5 instruments, ends up being a rather lugubrious piece with an E-Flat-minorish feel, its mournful quality probably not surprising when you consider the ill effects of European settlements, as begun by Columbus, on Native American populations, of which Carrillo was a descendant.

Carrillo: Preludio a Cristobal Colón
13th Sound Ensemble directed by Angel Reyes
Recorded February 7, 1930
Columbia Masterworks 7357-M, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 20 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 7.47 MB)

This record stayed in the Columbia catalogue for about 20 years, and was frequently cited in reference works of the time as an example of the most experimental music available on records.  David Hall, in his 1948 "Record Book," described the "resulting sounds as...not unlike those one hears from insect life in a field on a hot summer afternoon."

Exactly one other recording existed in the Columbia catalogue of a piece that employed microtones - a movement of a Duo for two violins by Czech composer Alois Hába (1893-1973).  It was to be found as the last item in the Columbia History of Music, Vol. 5, dealing with 20th-century music, which roughly ordered its 16 selections from the most musically conservative to the most far-out.  The Hába piece was placed even after a piece by Varèse!  Two years ago I transferred this entire volume of the Columbia History, which has been newly uploaded here:

Columbia History of Music, Vol. 5
Recorded 1934-37
Columbia Masterworks set M-361, eight 10-inch records
Link (FLAC files, 122.08 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 53.29 MB)