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.
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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}
