In Search of New Scales: Prince Edmond de Polignac, Octatonic Explorer

The first publication and exploration of a pathbreaking treatise on what would become a crucial element in the music of Stravinsky and Ravel: the octatonic scale.

In 1879, French amateur composer Edmond de Polignac (1834-1901) painstakingly devised a new way to create melodies and harmonies using a scale that alternated half and whole steps. This scale — known today as octatonic — was animportant element in the music of Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov, and would later figure prominently in the wor...