La légende d'Eer

Iannis Xenakis - La légende d'Eer

CD released 2003

La légende d'Eer (diatope) 8-channel electronic tape

Played by Electronic Studio Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln

From the back cover:

Minimalist and wild, incisive and graphic, La légende d'Eer unfolds to the rhythm of the crackling of merging timbres in ductile electronic sound. Associated with a lighting device calling for one thousand six hundred and eighty flashes and four lasers, their beams reflected by four hundred mirrors, La légende d'Eer, ('Diatope') is an aural and visual experience - an epic score, a gesture of light and sound, in which the listener is invited to immerse himself in the 'corps sonore', as the composer suggests: 'I was thinking of someone in the middle of an Ocean. The elements are all around him, sometimes raging, sometimes calm.'

From a rough Google Translate translation of the liner notes:

Composed in 1977, The Legend of Eer is one of the longest electroacoustic scores of Iannis Xenakis.
To date, the composer wrote fourteen works of this kind, many of which have been designed in relation to the site of their release. For some, like Persepolis or Mycenae Alpha, this is a historic site open which was invested; for others, such as The Legend of Eer, Iannis Xenakis also imagine the place as a framework has broadcast. Imagine the place - in this case to the square in front of the Beaubourg Centre Georges Pompidou - and the band and light device that are associated with it Diatope meet the terms of a variety of polytope, a term that the composer used to denominate its musical and light installations. The Diatope Beaubourg represents a culmination in the series polytopes. In the inside of a shell whose plans were traces the composer, one thousand six hundred and eighty flashes are willing and four hundred mirrors variously reflect the rays of four lasers, and eleven speakers. In this show, the music and the lights are independent. The bright interventions and the course crees by displacements of lights are automated programs, but the meetings that occur with music - fixed, too, in its development - are fortuitous and each has different diffusion.

From notes by Richard Toop:

La Légende d'Eer [1977] marks a further stage in the alliance of music and architecture. In an interview to be found at the very end of Olivier Revault d'Allonnes' 1975 book on Les Polytopes, Xenakis is asked where he would like to locate his next 'spectacle', and he replies: "In the heavens and on the earth. Perhaps at Bonn or Paris (in the Beaubourg square). Remember the Myth of Er the Pamphylian (Plato's Republic, Book 10) and his column of light. As well as Poimandres (Hermes Trismegistus' Hermetics, Book 1), and the 'illuminations', the revelations of the Byzantine ascetics up to Gregory Palamas. As well as those of the Chinese and Japanese buddhists (Zen)."

In practice, it was the 'Beaubourg vision' that came good: Xenakis was asked to create a new 'polytope' on the square outside the Pompidou Centre, to celebrate the opening of the latter in 1978 (in the event, the premiere had to be delayed for several months). Though the resulting Diatope picked up some architectural threads from the Philips Pavilion of two decades before, there was at least one significant difference: here, for the first time, Xenakis was creating a space and the music for it, hand in hand, and seeking an architectural form (based on hyperbolic paraboloids) equally amenable to the reflexion of light and sound.

The title, The Legend of Eer, comes from the final pages of Plato's The Republic. Since so much of Xenakis' musical thinking has links back to his wartime experiences - to the mass movements of people and machines in the darkness, and to the extraordinary play of searchlights over cities under bombardment - it's hard to overlook Nouritza Matossian's parallel between the fate of Er, whose body returns to life after ten days, and that of Xenakis, who was initially assumed to be unsaveable after sustaining severe facial wounds. However, Xenakis insists he was "not inspired by the legend" and though he appended parts of Plato's text to his notes for the first performance (significantly omitting the passage on the Harmony of the Spheres!), he gave equal emphasis to other texts: Pascal contemplating Infinity in his Pensées, Hermes Trismegistus, and Jean-Paul Richter, as well as a recent [1976] Scientific American article by Robert P. Kirschner on supernovas.

Tracklisting:

1.  La legende d'Eer  {45:24}

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Various Artists-ORCHESTRAL SPACE (1978)

From the back cover notes (enclosed):

Gyorgy Ligeti-Atmospheres:
"My most basic aim as a composer is the revivification of the sonorous aspect of musical form.Those factors of contemporary composition which do not manifest themselves directly as acoustical experience seem to me of only secondary importance. However, this emphatically does not mean that I intend to limit myself to the invention of new tone colors or other sound phenomena.It is much more important to me to discover new musical forms and a new manner of expression...Tone color, usually a vehicle of musical form, is liberated from form to become an independent entity."
Each instrument in the 87-member orchestra is considered independently and produces an individual sound line.The various tones and strands of sound, melting and repelling, are mixed together and transformed into a shifting expanse from which, not elements, but their momentary combinations emerge. The music reverberates in seeming chaos,its substance lithe and intense.

Toshi Ichiyanagi-Life Music:
The original version of this piece was composed on magnetic tape in 1964.In the version recorded here, the taped segments are played through large speakers situated behind the orchestra, which performs and interacts with the taped sounds. The "live" performers are picked up with contact microphones attached to their instruments. This is amplified and electronically processed for a modified quality.The result is music consisting of several elements-The unmodified "Live" orchestra, that sound mixed with its own processed sound and any combination of the two played with the taped material. This results in many possible combinations intermixed in continually varying ways.Accompanied by coordinated,shifting light effects on stage,the effect is a striking one.The "chance" element in the music is expressed through the use of silences as well as the fluid give-and-take juxtapositions of live,recorded, and live/processed sounds.

Toru Takemitsu-Arc For Piano and Orchestra:
As organizer of "Orchestral Space I" Toru Takemitsu's reputation as one of the most innovative contemporary composers is secure.
This performance of Arc uses the original score-an augmented version also exists.The piece features various instrumental combinations which are both separate musical entities and portions of a greater whole which interact with one another.The piano is situated center-stage with, initially, strings and horns gathered around it.The other instruments are divided into four groups surrounding this central nucleus.These groups go their separate ways in terms of tempo etc, yet criss-cross and intermingle ("Like fish in an aquarium" as the original Japanese notes put it) so that the whole work is more than the sum of its parts. Yet those parts retain their independence as musical "events".

Iannis Xenakis-Strategie:
Strategie is a unique work in which the composer employs a method which he calls "strategie musicale". He applies the mathematical "theory of games" to music in order to demonstrate a logical principle of behaviour.
Two 44-member orchestras are seated, one at the left and the other at the right of the stage.Each conductor chooses one (or two) at a time of the seven sound structures given by the composer (including one of silence). The seven basic sound structures or "strategies" can be characterized as follows: 0-silence, 1-wind instruments, 2-percussion, 3-striking the bodies of the string instruments, 4-pointillistic string sound, 5-string glissandi, and 6-harmonics (winds and strings) with organ points.
Each conductor signals his strategy with his hand, to his orchestra. A large score-board is set at the end of the stage.Each possible combination has already been assigned points based on the composer's calculations.So the points acquired by a conductor can be shown at once on the scoreboard by a scorekeeper. Thus two musical teams compete in a game of musical tactics.The audience hears music born of the unpredictable combinations of the strategies.
Strategie was composed in 1962 and was first performed at the Venice Festival in 1963 under the direction of B.Maderna and K.Simonovic (Maderna won the game). At "Orchestral Space I" Japanese conductors Seiji Ozawa and Hiroshi Wakasugi competed with the victory going to Wakasugi."However", Xenakis says, "a defeated conductor should never be thought inferior to a winning conductor.The latter won the contest only because he was better at following the rules of the game as determined by the composer."
-Based upon notes by Kuniharu Akiyama

Orchestral Space:

Side One:

a1-Gyorgi Ligeti- Atmospheres (1962) 8:11

a2-Toshi Ichiyanagi- Life Music,for Various Modulators,Magnetic Tape and Orchestra (1966) 16:57

Side Two:

b1-Toru Takemitsu- Arc,for Piano and Orchestra (15:00)
(Yuji Takahashi-Piano)

b2-Iannis Xenakis- Strategie (1962) 13:24

Seiji Ozawa conducting, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra
Hiroshi Wakasugi, 2nd conductor on "Strategie".






















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Please Note: This record has a slight warp at the edge which results in some noise for the first minute or so of each side.It is most noticeable in side B.

Iannis Xenakis=TERRETEKTORH/NOMOS GAMMA (ca1972 Erato STU 70529)

Today is the 11th anniversary of the passing of Iannis Xenakis at 78 years 8 months.
He was born May 29 1922.

Cover notes in French-These notes are from an external source.

After the initial impact of his first orchestral scores (Metastaseis and Pithoprakta), which turned the modern music world on its ear in the mid-1950s, Iannis Xenakis turned to other concerns. He worked on developing a theoretical basis for his mathematical approach to composition, worked in the electroacoustic studio at Radio-France, and wrote some chamber and stage works. In 1966, however, his attention was drawn back to the orchestra and he penned a second set of pretty remarkable scores. Terretektorh, the first of these, was commissioned for the new contemporary music festival in Royan, a picturesque French town on the Atlantic just north of Bordeaux. Those were heady days, when festival organizers were not shy of allowing a composer like Xenakis take the orchestra and scatter all the players around and throughout the audience. In his words, he wanted to create a "Sonotron: an accelerator of sonorous particles." Indeed, the opening three minutes of the piece centers on a single note, passing it around the musicians to create a swirling effect that is impossible to achieve electronically (unless you have 88 channels of sound, perhaps!). Terretektorh shows more concern for harmonic organization than the earlier, iconoclastic Pithoprakta, with its scatterings of knocking sounds and massed effects. Still, the concentration is decidedly on texture and movement, with narrow lines being bundled with a number of others in the same register to create a rawer sonic intensity that still has some basis in melody. Xenakis concentrates on the high and low registers, as did Varèse before him, and adds some unusual sound effects into the mix as well. Each player of the orchestra, in addition to his or her own instrument, is required at various times to play from an arsenal of percussion instruments, including woodblocks, whips, maracas, and siren-whistles. These sounds are spread around the orchestra, creating "flames" of sound (sirens), or "clouds" of noise-like textures. For perhaps the first time, members of the audience could hear the orchestra from the "inside;" it may not always have been comfortable (imagine being seated directly in front of a trombone!), but it certainly would have been exhilarating!
Nomos Gamma is a large, ambitious work for orchestra that follows on from Terretektorh (1966), both of them commissioned for the newly established Royan Festival. Both pieces distribute the members of the orchestra throughout the audience, inviting the listener right inside the ensemble. Nomos Gamma also follows on from Nomos Alpha, for solo cello, again from 1966, in the composer's application of certain new mathematical principles to the compositional process. After spending several years implementing probabilities into his formal procedures, Xenakis turned to deterministic, combinatorial tools. In essence, sequences of different combinations of a range of musical elements or parameters are combined to form the compositional design. Nomos Alpha was the first result of this new approach to musical architecture, and Nomos Gamma was the next (there are sketches for a Nomos Beta, but the piece never saw the light beyond the composer's papers). As a follow-up to Terretektorh, which had caused such a sensation at its 1966 premiere in Royan, Nomos Gamma is both more careful in its construction and more audacious in expression. Whereas the earlier piece focused almost entirely on texture and the effect of sonic motion, the later piece includes straightforwardly melodic elements and a more block-like construction. The effect of hearing a three-part, microtonal melodic texture from within the middle of the instruments is still, of course, an entirely different, and much more visceral, experience than hearing it from afar. Xenakis makes great use, too, of teemingly dense string textures, which many layers of different kinds of sonorities occurring simultaneously. These are intercut with other, more compressed textures, with all the strings playing glassy, sustained harmonics, for example. The brass and woodwinds are, perhaps for the first time in his output, treated as equal to the strings, with dense clusters battling against plaintive melodic passages. Each of the five main sections of the piece is dominated by one of the orchestral instrumental groups: I. woodwinds; II. brass; III. woodwinds; IV. strings; V. percussion. The final section would be positively dizzying to hear in concert. The eight percussionists, placed around the perimeter of the orchestral-audience space, pass drum rolls around, one to another, at an incredible clip. Where Terretektorh wound the musical energy up at the beginning by passing a sustained unison pitch around the orchestra, Nomos Gamma cranks itself up at the end, spinning off like a crazed top, ending with a final outburst by all of the percussionists together. The experience must have been inspiring; Xenakis would try it again the following year in Persephassa, for six percussionists, also directed to encircle the audience (and wind them up!).
~ James Harley, Rovi























Iannis Xenakis-TERRETEKTORH/NOMOS GAMMA

Side One-

1- Terretektorh (1965-66) for 88 musicians scattered throughout the audience playing 4 percussion instruments in addition to their own.

Recorded Live 24 January 1968, Drancy.

Side Two:

2- Nomos Gamma (1967-68) for 98 musicians scattered throughout the audience.

Recorded Live at the Festival De Royan, April 1969

file repaired

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Open Percussion

Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - Open Percussion

released in 2002

Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - percussion and voice

Unlike other instruments, it is impossible to say that percussion is a specific instrument. Indeed one may argue that percussion is not even a group of instruments but numerous different groups. In total, percussion instruments range over the primary acoustic categories of sounds: stone, wood, metal and skin. The variations in size and shape, expression and sound are enormous and surely unique in acoustical music - from cymbals the size of an ear and objects of stone and wood to gigantic drums and gongs as well as tempered instruments such as vibraphone, marimba and glockenspiel.

This enormous arsenal of sonic possibilities has long fascinated composers; all the more so since the early works of Edgar Varese, Henry Cowell and John Cage. Besides the extended range of sonorities, what is new in composing for percussion lies in the possibility of distilling the pulse and rhythmical aspects of the music. Rhythm is in many respects just as complex a phenomenon as melody and harmony. In the pieces by Iannis Xenakis and Rolf Wallin on this disc it is the development of the rhythm and the sonorities that expand or bring the music to life. The rhythmical processes create tensions, relaxations, even pulses or chaotic surfaces. While in the pieces by Franco Donatoni and Ase Hedstrom there are also harmonic and melodic processes at work, here too the rhythmical progress is essential as a structural and expressive element of the musical tempus. With Cage one is more conscious of cyclical, repetitive rhythms. The works on this disc thus give us an understanding of the fascinating variety of writing for percussion. At the same time it is a programme which places great demands on its performer, demands for rhythmic and sonic precision in order to take us from the chaotically pulsating to the softly moving; from the extrovertly explosive in Xenakis and Wallin to the introvert and theatrical in Cage. (Henrik Hellstenius)Tracklisting:

1. Rebonds: I {7:19}
composed by Iannis Xenakis for percussion solo (1987-89)

2. Rebonds: II {6:59}
composed by Iannis Xenakis for percussion solo (1987-89)

3. Open I {5:12}
improvisation by Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen

4. Flow {7:44}
composed by Ase Hedstrom for marimba (1990)

5. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs {3:05}
composed by John Cage for voice and piano (1942)

6. Omar: I {5:42}
composed by Franco Donatoni for solo vibraphone (1985)

7. Omar: II {8:55}
composed by Franco Donatoni for solo vibraphone (1985)

8. Open II {2:52}
improvisation by Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen

9. A Flower {3:47}
composed by John Cage for voice and piano (1950)

10. Stonewave Part 1 {8:40}
composed by Rolf Wallin, version for solo percussion (1990)

11. Stonewave Part 2 {4:54}
composed by Rolf Wallin, version for solo percussion (1990)

12. Open III {3:56}
improvisation by Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen

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Persepolis + Remixes Edition 1

Iannis Xenakis - Persepolis + Remixes Edition 1

I found this one somewhere on the web some time ago. This is a 2-CD release with a recording of "Persepolis" on the first disc and the second disk contains remixes (or interpretations) by some of the biggest names in contemporary experimental sound art.

Also found on the web are the information and background of "Persepolis":

In 1971, former Iranian dictator Muhammad Reza Shah hosted a lavish and highly choreographed event amidst the ruins of the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis in order to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of Iran's founding by Cyrus The Great. This commemoration of modern Iran's beginnings was part of the Shah's own struggle with the country's increasingly politicized Shi'ite Muslim clerics, led by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, to secularize Iran. Declaring himself to be heir to Cyrus' legacy, the Shah presided over a cast of 6,200 vintage Persian costume-wearing vassals in an outlandish ceremony affirming the Shah's own interpretation of Iranian history, one which paid little deference to Islam.

The third annual Shiraz arts festival was held that same year at Persepolis. In keeping with the 2500th national anniversary celebrations, the Shah commissioned Greek composer and computer music pioneer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) to write a piece of music exalting ancient Persia's aristocratic pre-Islamic religious culture. Selecting Xenakis to author such a work could not have been more symbolically appropriate. A central figure in the development of computer composition, this half-blind former architect, WWII resistance fighter and associate of Le Corbusier evolved a new approach to music, most notably one that employed mathematical probability functions as a compositional methodology.

Titled Persepolis, in honor of the location in which it was to be performed, Xenakis composed a fifty-six minute, eight-track tape piece of musique concrète for the occasion. A noisy, apocalyptic-sounding work distinguished by rising waves of intensity, Persepolis' debut must have been quite an experience for those lucky enough to be in attendance. Persepolis takes on an even greater significance when listened to as a musical work whose purpose was to serve a failed secularist ideology overtaken less than a decade later by a fundamentalist Islamic revolution.

Tracklisting:

Disc 1

1. Persepolis GRM Mix {60:43}

Disc 2

1. Persepolis (remix by Otomo Yoshihide) {9:21}

2. Persepolis (remix titled Per Se by Ryoji Ikeda) {8:36}

3. Persepolis (remix titled Doing By Not Doing by Zbigniew Karkowski) {15:13}

4. Persepolis (remix by Antimatter) {10:00}

5. Persepolis (remix titled Glitche by Construction Kit) {5:00}

6. Persepolis (remix titled Untitled 113 for Iannis Xenakis by Francisco Lopez) {10:05}

7. Persepolis (remix titled Whorl by Laminar) {7:06}

8. Persepolis (remix by Merzbow) {7:01}

9. Persepolis (remix by Ulf Langheinrich) {7:34}

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Psappha

Shiniti Ueno - Psappha: 20th Century Solo Percussion Masterpieces Vol. 1

Shiniti Ueno, a multi-percussionist and founder and leader of Phonix Reflexion, started studying marimba and piano at the age of three. He was a percussionist for the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and then was principal percussionist and timpanist for the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. . . . As a solo performer, he has given many Japanese and world premieres of contemporary composers. Currently living in Tokyo, Ueno is on the faculty of Kunitachi College of Music.

About the music:

Pieces for Timpani composed by Elliott Carter

These are part of the eight pieces for Timpani composed between 1950 and 1966. They are significant in that they changed the very concept of Timpani sound by adding sounds of rim shots, explosions, and death sounds. It is not too much to say that many of the timpani techniques used in contemporary music first appeared in these pieces. Carter's unique approach to rhythmic aspect of music can be seen in his mathematical representations of tempo and rhythm in his music. Each of the pieces is dedicated to a renouned American timpanist: "Recitative" is dedicated to Morris Lang; "March" to Saul Goodman; "Moto Perpetuo" and "Improvisation" to Paul Price. (Shiniti Ueno)

Zyklus composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen

This piece was first performed in Darmstadt in 1959 by Christoph Caskel. The title means "circle," and the music, which consists of 16 pages, does not proceed in the traditional fashion of from beginning to end, but allows the performer to start from any page and proceed in any direction. Each page gives directions of how to perform the piece by way of figures and signs, and the piece is played once through in accordance with the directions given, beginning at the performer's chosen location and ending with the first note that was played at the beginning. This freedom of the performer, however, is limited within the composer's calculated order. The performer nonetheless is allowed to try various combinations and choices, making the performance his or her own. This kind of music is a challenge to the performer's musical sensitivity and his or her ability to bring out the best in the music, which can be very rewarding if successful. I first heard the performance of this piece when I was still in high school. It was performed by Gualda at Ueno Bunka-Kaikan in Tokyo. During my studies abroad, I was also very fortunate to have had a chance to study with Gualda and Caskel, and this experience has remained invaluable to me. (Shiniti Ueno)

Optical Time for Timpani Solo composed by Isao Matsushita

I composed "Optical Time" in 1987, commissioned by Mr. Ueno, who premiered it in his recital in the same year, and it has since been performed on various occasions. The central concept is to create spaceoptical time by using only 5 timpanis rather than creating musical space using various instruments. At the beginning of the piece, the musical line starts from far away, and individual sounds gradually mass together, and radiate into the wider space. This "Optical Time" also features pedaling which controls timpani tones and creates a spectacular display of spaceoptical time. (Isao Matsushita)

Ground for Solo Percussion composed by Norio Fukushi

Commissioned by Sumire Yoshihara, I composed "Ground" in 1976. Performed at international musical competitions in Geneva and Munich in the 90s, "Ground" has since been boldly played at college graduations. It requires high technical skill in that multiple instruments must be played simultaneously. For this reason, for the first ten years, no one except for Ms. Yoshihara included this piece in her or his repertoire. Aside from Ms. Yoshihara, Mr. Shiniti Ueno is the only exception that I know of thus far. I admire wholeheartedly his power to challenge the frontier of percussive art from different angles, and am very excited with this new recording. Its structure consists of five parts: wood, metal, leather, metal, and wood. The background of the whole is sustained by the combination of the static rhythm and the delicate organic rhythms that repeatedly increase and decrease. (Norio Fukushi)

Psappha composed by Iannis Xenakis

"Psappha" is an archaic form of Sappho, the ancient Greek woman poet. Her poems are characterized by their "Sapphic" rhythm, which gives this piece its rhythmic inspiration. "Psappha" was first performed by my teacher Silvio Gualda in London, while I was studying in france. Inspired by all of the invaluable advice I recieved from both Professor Gualda and composer Mr. Xenakis this has become a memorable repertoire. (Shiniti Ueno)

Tracklisting:

1. Pieces for Timpani: Recitative {3:17}

2. Pieces for Timpani: March {2:54}

3. Pieces for Timpani: Moto Perpetuo {2:08}

4. Pieces for Timpani: Improvisation {2:45}

5. Zyklus {16:04}

6. Optical Time for Timpani Solo {15:22}

7. Ground for Solo Percussion {15:33}

8. Psappha {13:11}

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New Music for Chamber Orchestra

various artists compilation - New Music for Chamber Orchestra

SOME WORDS ABOUT WORDS ABOUT MUSIC by Carman Moore

The attempt of words and symbols to explain the subject of music represents so pure a history of failure that it might be regarded as itself a thing of perfection. The implications of the "sighing" Mozartean score, for example, with such an adjective as "female" thrown in has the makings of poetry but leads us away from the intellectual rigor - no matter how involuntary - represented by Mozart's music. And the term "chamber orchestra" may send the mind galloping off into the four winds. We may know that the "chamber" in question asks that you date and place it - a palace lounge in 1810? a South Rampart Street brothel in 1910? a New York City recording studio in 1970? Must an "orchestra" employ strings?

Even the score must be viewed as a program note, endeavoring to make the sonic journey seem more business-like and less physically hazardous than it really is. Nonetheless, while word and symbol may be imposters, they may also serve music with honor. For they function as that body of expectations over against which the truth of sound as organism performs its magic. The composer has profound need of these expectations, for taking the ear - even his own - by surprise (by storm) lies at the heart of his craft.

Iannis Xenakis - the architect, the mathematician as composer, to many listeners the man representative of all that is inscrutable in modern music (if you can't read his score, how can you presume to respond to his music?) - represents a prime example of the contemporary symbol-vs.-music tension. His very name at the head of a program note may cause the experienced reader-listener to expect a visually beautiful chunk of score and mathematical jargon. Yet the name when thought of relative to most of his works will probably call up memories of vast sonic textures and unforgettable psychic experiences. In his Achorripsis (1957) the Xenakis characteristic of overtly dramatic sound coupled with elegant formal proportions is already central to his style. Almost analogous to this fact, who can avoid noticing how the relatively civilized dryness of the pitched-instrument counterpoint is clubbed again and again into submission by big, primitive smacks from the bass drum? Xenakis's music seems to refuse the term "chamber," and rather transports the ear outdoors onto a rugged landscape. Yet in its juxtapositions of woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings as agglomerate color families Achorripsis slyly reminds us of its debt to the Baroque concerto grosso.

Through Aldo Clementi's little "Triplum" (1961) and the even tinier Three Pieces (1910) for chamber orchestra of Arnold Schoenberg the point of broad expressive power within short time span is made and seems to deepen the mystery of how music works. "Triplum" presents fragile colors which is slipping away from each other seem to touch hands. Mobile pitch lines and densities seem to pause for re-coloring from time to time and then rush or slide away. It's all over in four minutes.

Ruggedly dramatic in another sense if Bo Nilsson's Szene III (1961). As if it has given way to total savagery after early attempts to conform to what a mad era insists is civilized, the closing measures of the work become a stretch of unrestrained tumult led into by a shattering crescendo on the tam-tam. Mr. Nilsson on side B shows another aspect of his expressive range through the elegant little Frequenzen (1956). With traditional Western percussion augmented to include jazz drum set, guitar, vibraphone, and xylophone the eruption promised by this heavily-batteried instrumentation never really occurs. Tightly organized of duration, pitch, and the like, it interestingly enough indicates dynamics by number 1-10 (pppp to ffff). Conductor Francis Travis expresses the basically low profile, and the beauty of this performance seems to prove it a sensitive work and performance.

Schoenberg's amazing "Three Pieces" recorded here for the first time (Darmstadt Festival, 1961), is little over 2 1/2 minutes and 28 measures long, but its powers to transport the listener are extensive indeed. Pieces I and II are sections completed by the composer, and Piece III is unfinished. Composed after the "Chamber Symphony" (1906), the "Gurrelieder" (1901: orchestrated 1911), and the "Five Orchestral Pieces" (1909), this work, relatively so slight of means, was obviously undertaken as a study in terse statement and perhaps as a shadow piece to the "Five Pieces." In the next decade or so Schoenberg was to ardently begin and then abandon many works, so it is not so strange perhaps that "Three Pieces" should end suddenly in mid phrase. What is both strange and remarkable is the fact that the third piece, from measure 5 to the end, sounds so like a work that was to be published and performed three years later - Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." And for anyone seeking a precedent for Anton Webern's still, aphoristic style of composition there is the second piece - eight measures and three fermatas long.

Wlodzimierz Kotonski's Canto (1961) for chamber orchestra indicates a dynamic marking for every note, with a range from ppp to fff. From rhythms, almost all of which are long-held notes, the composer evokes, nonetheless, a true sense of momentum. Careful coloration and sensitive pitch choices make of the work a strange kind of high adventure.

As if to combine all of the impulses to formal precision presented in the above-mentioned works, Yuji Takahashi's brutally-difficult Six Stoicheia (1969) for four violins is totally written out and specific about pitch, for example, to the point of indicating "+=1/4 tone sharp" and "*=3/4 tone sharp." But it is the composer's creative imagination and the uncompromising brilliance of Paul Zukofsky (heard here on all four parts) which reveal this tight-looking score to be in reality a full-blooded sonic experience - an experience not at all out of place on a chamber orchestra recording.

These have been words and post-expectations of value to me. Perhaps they will function as an analogy to what each listener might bring to his own first and repeated relationships with these seven extraordinary compositions. It is to be done shamelessly. Just as nature has its still-life, it appears that music will always have its verbiage and symbols - as the last outposts of the outer world before the leap into the dimension of all sound and all form is made.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Iannis Xenakis - Achoripsis {5:39}
Performed by Hamburger Kammersolisten, Conducted by Francis Travis

2. Aldo Clementi - Triplum {3:57}
Performed by Severino Gazzelloni - flute, Lothar Faber - oboe and Guy Deplus - clarinet

3. Bo Nilsson - Szene III {5:36}
Performed by Internationalen Kranichsteiner Kammer-Ensembles, Conducted by Bruno Maderna

4. Arnold Schoenberg - Drei Kleine Stucke {2:42}
Performed by Internationalen Kranichsteiner Kammer-Ensembles, Conducted by Bruno Maderna

Side 2

1. Wlodzimierz Kotonski - Canto {5:07}
Performed by Internationalen Kranichsteiner Kammer-Ensembles, Conducted by Bruno Maderna

2. Yuji Takahashi - Six Stoicheia {6:22}
Performed by Paul Zukofsky - violin (recorded on four separate tracks)

3. Bo Nilsson - Frequenzen {4:01}
Performed by Hamburger Kammersolisten, Conducted by Francis Travis

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Four Compositions by the Contemporary Greek Innovator

Iannis Xenakis - Four Compositions by the Contemporary Greek Innovator

Atrees (Hommage a Pascal) for 10 instruments

Performed by Paris Instrumental Ensemble for Contemporary Music, Konstantin Simonovich, conductor

Atrees (Hommage a Pascal) received its first performance in Paris, in 1962. Under the direction of Konstantin Simonovitch who leads the performance heard on this recording. Written for ten instruments, Atrees is in five parts and utilizes the stochastic program of ST/10, an earlier work of Xenakis.
The composition of both pieces required use of the IBM 7090. This particular equipment - developed for the electronic computation of calculus - enabled the composer to establish the timings essential to his musical idea. It also served to advance his thesis and goal of creating ". . . a form of composition which is not the object in itself, but an idea in itself, that is to say, the beginnings of a family of compositions."

Morisma-Amorisma

Performed by Georges Pludermacher - piano; Jean-Claude Bernede - violin; Paul Boufil - cello; Jacques Cazauran - double bass; Konstantin Simonovich, conductor

Again using the program of ST/10, Xenakis composed Morisma-Amorisma for the instrumental combination of piano, violin, cello and double bass. It was first performed in Athens, 1962, under the direction of Lukas Foss. The title is derived from "Moros": meaning fate of death. Morisma refers to that which occurs as an act of fate and Amorisma (with the private a added), signifies that which happens without the interference of fate. "Today," according to Xenakis, "the theory of probabilities refines and clarifies the ancient idea of fate, destiny, choice, causality and determinism."

ST/4

Performed by The Bernede String Quartet (Jean-Claude Bernede & Jacques Prat - violins; Bruno Pasquier - viola; Paul Boufil - cello

ST/4, for string quartet, was also programmed in the manner of ST/10. The complete title, ST/4-1.080262, signifies: ST for stochastic (music), 4-1 for the fact that it is Xenakis' first work for four instruments, and 080262 for the eighth of February, 1962, the date on which calculations were completed on the IBM 7090. As in the case of Nomos Alpha, listeners will note that Xenakis has written for strings in the style which he first introduced in 1954 for Metastasis; primarily featured are such treatments as glissandi with the bow, or in pizzicati, or in col legno, tapping on the back of the instrument. ST/4 was premiered in 1962, by the Bernede String Quartet, in Paris.

Nomos Alpha

Performed by Pierre Penassou - cello

Nomos Alpha is Xenakis' second composition for solo instrument, being preceded by the earlier Herma for solo piano. Radio Bremen commissioned the work for cellist Siegfried Palm, who gave its first performance in 1966. According to the composer, "Nomos" signifies "rules, laws" but also in music, "special, particular melody" and sometimes "mode." Nomos Alpha was written "to render 'hommage' to the lasting work of Aristoxenus of Tarentum (fourth century B.C., student of Aristotle), musician, philosopher and mathematician-founder of the theory of music; to Evariste Galois, mathematician-founder of the theory of groups; and to Felix Klein, his distinguished successor." (Harry Neville)


Note: The first 4 and a half minutes of "Nomos Alpha" has rough crackle that I was unable to get rid of. If I ever find another copy in better shape, I'll re-rip that track.

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Atrees (Hommage a Pascal): 1st Part {4:29}

2. Atrees (Hommage a Pascal): 3rd Part {5:54}

3. Atrees (Hommage a Pascal): 5th Part {2:21}

4. Atrees (Hommage a Pascal): 2nd Part {1:37}

5. Atrees (Hommage a Pascal): 4th Part {2:54}

6. Morisma-Amorisma {11:38}

Side Two

1. ST/4 {12:56}

2. Nomos Alpha {17:34}

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Iannis Xenakis/Krzysztof Penderecki split release LP

Iannis Xenakis/Krzysztof Penderecki - split release LP

performed by Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Lukas Foss - conductor; Paul Zukofsky - violin on "Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra"

Recorded at Kleinhans Music Hall, March 1968, during the 2nd Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today.

"Akrata" was compoed [by Xenakis] in 1964-65 in response to a commission from the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation. It is scored for sixteen wind instruments: piccolo, oboe, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet in B flat, contrabass clarinet in B flat, bassoon, 2 contrabassoons, 2 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 tenor trombones, and tuba. The title is the neuter plural of the Greek word for "pure", and the composer explains that the work is of an extra-temporal architecture based on the theory of groups of transformations. It makes use of the theory of Sieves, which annexes the congruences modulo Z and which is the result of an axiomatic theory of the universal structure of music. It also uses complex (or imaginary) numbers.

"Pithoprakta", dedicated to Hermann Scherchen, was composed in 1955-56 and is scored for an orchestra of 50 instruments - two tenor trombones, xylophone, wood block, twelve first violins, twelve second violins, eight violas, eight cellos, and six basses - each of which has its own individual part. The title means "actions by probabilities", and the musical material is organized by various laws of large numbers (Laplace-Gauss, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Poisson, Pearson, Fisher). Like all Xenakis's music - which embraces a wide variety of forms and media - it was composed on graph paper and then transcribed into conventional notation. Confrontations of continuity and discontinuity are sought: along with sustained sounds and individually calculated glissandi, there is frequent use of pizzicato and col legno tapping of the bow, and in places (especially at the beginning) the string players are directed to strike the bodies of their instruments with the hand.

...

The two works recorded here demonstrate something of Penderecki's broad expressive range and are especially valuable in showing that the stark drama of the "St. Luke Passion" and the "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" is far from being the only string to his bow. This is, naturally, more strikingly true of the 1967 "Capriccio" for violin and orchestra, which is everything that one would expect a modern synthesis of capriccio and concerto ideas to be - brilliant both in emotional character and in technical demands. The work was first performed at the 1967 Donaueschingen Festival. It is scored for solo violin, 4 flutes (two doubling piccolos), 4 oboes (one doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (doubling soprano and alto saxophones and E-flat clarinet), baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, electric bass guitar, harmonium, piano, harp, a large percussion battery, and strings.

As its title suggests, the 1966 "De natura sonoris" (a sort of treatise "On the Nature of Sound") is slightly less exuberant in mood - but only slightly. It too includes an almost skittish section over a jazzy pizzicato bass solo, and it makes frequent use of Penderecki's favorite technique: the free combination of prescribed phrases, repeated by the instrumental groups with cumulative effect and gradually spreading through the orchestra. The scoring is for piccolo, 4 flutes (two doubling piccolos), 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 alto saxophones, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, piano, harmonium, flexatone, percussion, and strings. (Bernard Jacobson from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Iannis Xenakis - Akrata {10:33}

2. Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta {9:06}

Side Two

1. Krzysztof Penderecki - Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra {10:05}

2. Krzysztof Penderecki - De natura sonoris {7:19}

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Medea/Syrmos/Polytope

Iannis Xenakis - Medea/Syrmos/Polytope

released on LP


Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble of Radio O.R.T.F.
Marius Constant - conductor

Medea for male chorus, galets and orchestra (1967)

Composition of orchestra: E-flat clarinet, contra-bassoon, trombone, cello and percussion

Suite taken from the music for "La Medee de Seneque at the Theatre de France, 1967

Syrmos for 18 strings (1959)

Orchestral composition: 6.6.0.4.2

The work is based on stochastic transformation of 8 basic textures.

a) horizontal parallel networks

b) ascendant parallel networks (glissandi)

c) descendant parallel networks (glissandi)

d) crossed parallel networks (ascendant and descendant)

e) clouds of pizzicati

f) atmosphere of frappes collegno with short glissandi col legno

g) configurations of glissandi traited in regulated left surfaces

h) geometric configurations of ascending and descending glissandi

The mathematical structure of this work is the same as that of "Analogique A" and "Analogique B" that is founded on Markovien stochastic processes.

Cf. "Formal Music," Chapter II, editor Richard Masse, 7 place St. Sulpice, Paris 6

Polytope (Le Polytope de Montreal)

Light and sound spectacle at the Franch Pavillion of Expo 67

Composition of orchestra: 4 orchestras placed equidistantly from the center of a circle. Each orchestra is comprised of a piccolo, an E-flat clarinet, a contra-bass clarinet, contra-bassoon, trumpet, tenor trombone, percussion instruments, 6 violins and 4 cellos.

"I have proposed a transparent architectural structure of steel cable which would surround an empty space and which would support the points of light. These are regulated forms. There is a limited number of cables, considering the space and various floors. These forms are changing in all points of view and obey the laws of mathematical progression which answer from one side to the other.

I have used all my knowledge of musical composition here for the lighting: the calculus of probability, logical structures and structures of groups. There are 1200 independent circuits (or lights) which function through a tableau of photoelectric cells where they are all reproduced. On this tableau, the film is projected allowing the rays of the projector to activate only those cells which are absolutely necessary. There are 800 white tubes of xenon and 400 colored ones, some warm colors, some cold colors.

The light composition plays with the theory of ensembles. Vertical and horizontal slices, for example. Differentiation on superimposed material.

The music is entirely independent of the light show. I wished to establish a contrast. The light in my spectacle is a multitude of points, with stops, departures, etc. The music is a continuum, with glissandi. The sound changes, but does not stop. It is instrumental music. Using the classical instruments of an orchestra. A music without electronic transformation. (Iannis Xenakis)

Tracklisting:

Side I

1. Medea {24:12}

Side II

1. Syrmos {11:25}

2. Polytope {6:10}

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Electronic Music/Musique Concrete

various artists compilation - Electronic Music/Musique Concrete: A Panorama of Experimental Music, Volume 1

Recorded under the supervision of Pierre Henry, in collaboration with the sound laboratories of the West German Radio, Italian Radio, French Radio and Television, and Studio Apsome in Paris.

The liner notes say:

Electronic music and musique concrete offer incredible possibilities to composers of imagination and vision. The works of eleven such composers are represented on these two discs and the rich diversity in approach and achievement testifies to the full blown presence of a new and vital art form.

In our century, one of a composer's principal functions has been to explore his environment and translate his discoveries into meaningful sonic symbols. Viewed from this angle, the development of electronic music and musique concrete over the past twenty years has followed a course of inevitability; creative artists are interpreting our contemporary life with sounds uniquely expressive of man's flight into technology and space.

In this album the listener will encounter some fascinating music that gives exciting artistic expression to the moods and tenors of today.

Note: There is a fragment of the first LP that has been broken. That means only the first tracks on each side of this LP are unplayable. All other tracks play okay. Apologies in advance for those missing tracks, but the music on this compilation is essential electronic music which makes this still worthy of posting.

UPDATE: Check the comments for the missing tracks. Thanks hamor.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The missing tracks provided by hamor are provided in the files.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Luciano Berio - Momenti {7:06}

2. Luciano Berio - Omaggio a Joyce {6:16}

3. Bruno Maderna - Continuo {8:03}

Side 2

1. Luc Ferrari - Visage V {10:37}

2. Iannis Xenakis - Orient-Occident {10:38}

3. Francois Dufrene and Jean Baronnet - U 47 {3:28}

Side 3

1. Mauricio Kagel - Transition I {12:55}

2. Herbert Eimert - Selection I {9:45}

Side 4

1. Pierre Henry - Entité {5:40}

2. György Ligeti - Artikulation {3:45}

3. André Boucourechliev - Texte I {6:12}

4. Henri Pousseur - Scambi {6:16}

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New Music for Piano(s)

various artists compilation - New Music for Piano(s)

all pieces performed by Yuji Takahashi

* not actually the cover, it's a photo of Takahashi; cover wasn't quite fit enough to be photographed

Excerpts from the liner notes:

Herma

"Bond," "foundation," "embryo." This piece is based on logical operations imposed upon classes of pitches; this is why I call this music "symbolic." Starting from the four classes defined in the score, others can be formed outside of time, as a result of the complementary relationship (negation), e.g., class A; the negation of A is written in the score A; also as a result of the operation of union (disjunction) and of intersection (conjunction). Union is shown symbolically by the sign +, and intersection by the juxtaposition of letters. Union corresponds to or and intersection to and. This A+B signifies that class in which the elements belong either to A or B; AB indicates the class in which the elements belong to classes A and B at the same time. The classes in this piece are defined solely within the realm of pitch. (Iannis Xenakis)

Fantasy for Pianist

"Fantasy for Pianist" was written during 1963-64 in Paris. Frankly concerned with sonority and ornament (it was originally based on an analysis of the textural features of four photos - stalks, vines, twigs in the snow) the work maintains a complex and detailed order. Forms of serialization were applied to proportional time structures (at all architectonic levels), pitch, dynamics, and attach characteristics; but all techniques were used primarily as stimulants to invention. The piece, as it evolved, determined its attach characteristics; but all techniques were used primarily as stimulants to invention. The piece, as it evolved, determined its own priorities which took precedence over continued allegiance to any particular technical device. Only the time structure remained firm from conception to completion. (Roger Reynolds)

Metathesis

"Metathesis" - to place differently; transposition; change or reversal of condition; the transposition of letters or sounds in a word; the interchange of atoms or groups of atoms between two molecules, the structure of the molecules being not otherwise altered, double decomposition. The structure is based on the subgroups of a permutation group of degree 6 and order 24, which are applied to the various factors of the tone events for piano, such as the density, the duration, the dynamic form, the tone form (all of them are extratemporal structures). The temporal structures are stochastic. The work was written at Tanglewood in 1968 and is dedicated to Gunther Schuller. (Yuji Takahashi)

Corroboree

"Corroboree" (for 3 pianos) was composed in 1963-64 on commission from Radio Bremen, Germany, and first performed in that city by Aloys, Alfons and Bernhardt Kontarsky in May 1964. The Work is dedicated to them. The title is an Australian native word of which webster says: "a nocturnal festivity with songs and symbolic dances by which the Australian aborigines celebrate events of importance: a noisy festivity: tumult." It will be a little noisy, and although the Kontarsky brothers are not Australian (and actually did not sing or dance) the festivity aspect of any of their activities is legendary and joyous, and thus the title seems quite apt. ...

When Yuji suggested this work for his record I had not considered the possibility of one pianist playing all three of the parts ("through the magic of recording"), but it is of course practical and interesting in this context. The technique was to record the first piano part and then the second while hearing the first and acting and reacting to the structure and the impulsive flexibility potentials within the given form:... then the third part in relation to the first two. The immediacy of "playing together" remains with the added fact of there being a single performance concept, rather than a correlation of three, as it was initally conceived. Although there are three of him here the nature of the piece is less virtuosic than the other works on the record, in which one might think that there were five of him. Yuji to any coefficient, and in all cases, is an astonishing technician and "poet." (Earle Brown)

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. Iannis Xenakis - Herma {6:39}

2. Roger Reynolds - Fantasy for Pianist part 1 {5:18}

3. Roger Reynolds - Fantasy for Pianist part 2 {11:56}

Side B

1. Yuji Takahashi - Metatheses {5:20}

2. Earle Brown - Corroboree {10:43}

NOTE: Fantasy for Pianist was accidentally ripped into two parts; only a few seconds of silence were lost

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Xenakis Electronic Music

Iannis Xenakis - Electronic Music

* originally posted on September 22, 2006

An essential CD of Xenakis' electronic works, this disc reissues the entirety of the Nonesuch Electro-Acoustic Music disc, and adds two later pieces. The contents are Diamorphoses, Orient-Occident, Bohor, and Concret P-H from the Nonesuch disc, and Habiki Hana Ma and S.709. The first four are all classics of musique concrete, generated from the simplest of sounds (smouldering charcoal, wrist bracelets). The highlight is the monumental 20-minute Bohor, a milestone of ambient-industrial music. Habiki Hana Ma is from the 70s and uses orchestral sounds as its base material. The latest piece is the computer-generated S.709 from 1994, which in a word is amazing. (David Martinelli)

Tracklisting:

1. Diamorphoses {6:55}

2. Concret PH {2:44}

3. Orient-Occident {10:58}

4. Bohor {21:38}

5. Hibiki-Hana-Ma {17:41}

6. S.709 {7:03}

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