Julián Carrillo's 16th tone

The 96-tone tuning system of Mexican composer Julián Carrillo takes centre stage at this MicroFest concert. Carrillo was hailed ‘the grand old man’ of Mexican music. ‘He has shattered and then remade our chromatic scale,  and we might be tempted to call him the atom-splitter of music, except that the name gives no idea of the rich emotional world he has opened’, wrote The Times upon his death. Carrillo had special pianos built to bring his compositions to life. The Huygens-Fokker Foundation owns one of these rare pianos, and in this concert you will experience first-hand that Carrillo’s system is still alive.

The unique sonorities of the Carrillo piano come to life in a kaleidoscope of combinations. Juhani Nuorvala wrote a soothing solo. Felipe Waller wrote a post-minimalist composition for the Carrillo piano together with the Fokker organ, resulting in a disruptive clash between two eccentric tone systems. And harpist Ernestine Stoop had a 96-tone harp built to enable her to perform Carrillo’s work.