The Late Works of XENAKIS

[snyprrr]

DREAM DISCS

Timpani Xenakis series Vol.6:

CENDREES
ANEMOESSA
NEKUIA




"Lindberg on Xenakis" BIS CD:

KEREN
ZYTHOS
IN MEMORIAM LUTOSLAWSKI
LINIA-AGON
TROORKH
KHALL-PERR

naw...too many choices....


"Arditti Quartet: Xenakis Vol.2":


TETORA
ERGMA
ITTIDRA
ROSCOBECK
HUNEM-IDUHEY
PAILLE IN THE WIND
THERAPS
MORISMA-AMORISMA
KAI ?
PLEKTO?

[greg]

i listened to Palimpsest today in the car. I was pretty much blown away! 
it's like a wild ride of free jazz, except intelligently constructed- only way i know how to describe after first listen. I'll get to Epei and Dmaathen tomorrow.

DREAM DISCS

Timpani Xenakis series Vol.6:

CENDREES
ANEMOESSA
NEKUIA




"Lindberg on Xenakis" BIS CD:

KEREN
ZYTHOS
IN MEMORIAM LUTOSLAWSKI
LINIA-AGON
TROORKH
KHALL-PERR

naw...too many choices....


"Arditti Quartet: Xenakis Vol.2":


TETORA
ERGMA
ITTIDRA
ROSCOBECK
HUNEM-IDUHEY
PAILLE IN THE WIND
THERAPS
MORISMA-AMORISMA
KAI ?
PLEKTO?

I like these lists a lot. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when I thought repeatedly about how much of his stuff I have, and how much I have left, but even now, there's so much left that it's still a long way to go. He wrote, what, 140 or so works (can never remember the number), so it's understandable.

one point we haven't mentioned is xenakis' obsessive use of the pacific "pelog" scale, most notable in the beginning of JONCHAINES, but seems to make a ubiquitous appearance in mannny of the late works.



til i hear O-MEGA, ZYTHOS, ERGMA, ALAX, PAILLE IN THE WIND, KOIRANOI, and SEA-CHANGE,....what more can i do?

keep on listening, again and again. 

as for the pelog scale, that's something I've noticed, too. I just never took the time to figure out which scale it was- although I've improvised with that scale (i think it has several modes that go along with it, too), I haven't gotten it in my head enough to instantly recognize it- so it's nice to know what scale that is he's using.
You do hear it quite a bit in the middle/late-middle period- I'm thinking of Keqrops, too- it makes the piece sound so exotic while being so dissonant at the same time, which is pretty unusual. I think it's mainly part of his pitch sieve technique, though- at least, I know the opening to Jonchaies is sieve-based.

[greg]

ever visit this site?

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~digimus/xenakis/pages/figurelist.html

one of my favorite examples is from Shaar:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~digimus/xenakis/pages/fig148.html

i heard something like that in Palimpsest- amazing rhythmic technique- like strands that slowly split apart.

[Diletante]

I have listened to only a few pieces by Xenakis, but I love Akanthos. The vocal part gives me chills (in a good way) every time I listen to it. Nice!

[snyprrr]

WOW g$!!!!

that link was great!i heard just enough to fill in the gaps...thank you!!!

i heard i suppose one half of PAILLE IN THE WIND and wow!- i guess i can figure the rest (if there's no surprises). it seems like a real "nocturne", very much a CHARISMA part 2 perhaps, and A'r. it is verrry slow, beginning with granite descending block chords, fortissimo, then fading,...then the cello grinds out what appears to be a very profound version of his new dissonent model alien melody

i heard the beginning and ending of ERGMA (which i guess runs about 7-9min) and it comes across as the most concentrated of his late "steles". kinda like ITTIDRA minus TETORA, or something like that. slow moving bitingly dissonent block chords alien chorale. a little like the LUTOSLAWSKI MEMORIAN of the same year, but without the counterpoint and not as "tender". so now i really don't understand why this wasn't on the "music for strings"/mode cd.. arrgh, i was actually hoping this piece would suck, but now i really need someone to record it!

i heard a brief snippet of O-MEGA, and wow!- how annoying!!!!! the ensemble appears to move in a less dark, less intense "cosmic vista" style of ECHANGE, (or a xenakis version of the UNANSWERED QUESTION?), AND THEN!!! the percusiion interjects with loud, RUDE, super fast and steady rolls and quick fills, like some shocking stereotype of an "i am god" drum solo. i think the piece is only 4min, so wow!- this is really the last statement, like against the backdrop of his universal mathematical mystery, the banality of "man" sticks out like a sore thumb, or perhaps the drum represents time ticking so fast (because we are on the cusp of annihilation) like it's beating us over the head saying- "hello?...wake up!"?? and i guess, then, poof, it's over quickly? the most disturbing discover so far.

i saw a slice of music from ZYTHOS which suggested that the perc. sextet play in the mellow tone-centered manner of some of PLIEDES (sic), and i suppose the trombone plays the modal stuff on top, maybe? really made me want to hear this piece.

finally i heard three snippets from ALAX for 3 orchestral groups, from 1985, the year before HOROS/KEKROPS, and it appears to take the culminating techniques of JONCHAIES-SHAAR-LICHENS and begin to take them apart. maybe hear he started thinking about new ways of putting things together, perhaps? sounds like a must for the timpani cd series.

wow- i'm going to have to absorb a lot from just these glimpses, but this definitely made my time on this thread worth it. thanks again!

[greg]

glad you found that link to be a discovery! 

wow, i just checked my Xenakis scores folder, and found that I had Persephassa and Palimpsest, among others, that I completely forgot I had! Well, if anyone wants to look at the score to Charisma, here it is:

just something i thought i'd throw on randomly since it's under 500kb

[snyprrr]

i thought i once saw in a picture in a book of the score to MIKKA for violin, and it was like graphic calligraphy? like the waw-waw notes were written as smears? going up or down depending on the note? did i see this?

[greg]

it appears so:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gfxc.smpgfx.com/Look-Inside/small/4178017_01.gif&imgrefurl=http://wwws.sheetmusicplus.com/sheetmusic/detail/HL.50420720.html&usg=__1IBvMoll1_knjKlmUJeV-JuaE_Q=&h=80&w=60&sz=3&hl=en&start=9&um=1&tbnid=_1ezg8XVW2rTaM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=56&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dxenakis%2Bmikka%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN


interesting! I don't think I've seen the flow of the notes alongside the actual notes like this before.

[greg]

i take that back as I'm looking at Stockhausen's Klavierstuck VI...

[snyprrr]

that's quite an address.
i think this might have been a biography. the only place i can think of that i might have seen it was in the peabody consv. library.  still, the first page "looks" cool. it amazes me how black dots on a page can sound like so many different things!.

thanks again.

maybe tomorrow i'll write up a 'XENAKIS "CLASSIC" ERA WORKS (1969-89)".  see how it goes.

[snyprrr]

CD COLLECTOR SWOONS LIKE SCHOOLGIRL AFTER SEEING XENAKIS' COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS ON MODE!!!

"Finally I can wear this wedding dress without shame..." he was overheard telling friends and family as police whisked him away to the CD Rehabilitation Clinic.

"Ergma...oh Ergma"

[greg]

 
It looks like it's not released yet, and Jack Black is in the group.... well, at least they tried.

[petrarch]

O-MEGA is available of bvhaast, but i have heard neither piece. i can imagine that O-MEGA fits the WAARG/EPICYLES mode, but i DO wonder about ZYTHOS. why hasn't lindberg recorded it?

it seems as though xenakis' style became solidified, like his own musical tombstone. one really has to trudge through this stuff, and there is a dark light glowing in the midst of a few of these pieces, but there is a LOT here that a lot of people could quibble with, too: the recycling, the apparent abandonment of earlier achievements, the forebidding demeanor of much of this music. the incomprehensible- why would he go there?

Just a brief note to say that if you want a thorough and systematic description with some analysis of all of Xenakis' works, one by one all the way to O-Mega, do check out the book Xenakis: His Life in Music by James Harley. It's expensive, but it is the most thorough book I have about him and his music.

Oh and I was at the premiere of Dammerschein and I got him to sign the programme notes .

[greg]

Are you the same Peter with the old penguin avatar?

[petrarch]

Are you the same Peter with the old penguin avatar?

If that was a question for me, no I am not. My name is not Peter either.

[CRCulver]

I've been corresponding with Steven Schick, and he says that he intends to record O-Mega soon. A pity it was left off of the Mode set of Xenakis' complete percussion works.

[c#minor]

Just saw this one posted. One of my favorite Xenakis works of all time.

Hibiki Hana Ma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJRrM4TpXSQ&feature=channel_page

but be warned if you have no sense of imagination  0:)

Thanks for the post, i have had my interest by some recent posts about Xenakis but never got into it. I don't quite know what to think about it yet aside from the fact that it's very very interesting.

[greg]

If that was a question for me, no I am not. My name is not Peter either.

Oh, okay.

I've been corresponding with Steven Schick, and he says that he intends to record O-Mega soon. A pity it was left off of the Mode set of Xenakis' complete percussion works.

Cool! 

Thanks for the post, i have had my interest by some recent posts about Xenakis but never got into it. I don't quite know what to think about it yet aside from the fact that it's very very interesting.

It'll grow on you if you really open up your imagination... really, playing a science fiction-type video game like Beyond Good and Evil, or Half-Life might help- well, at least, stuff like that enhances the experience for me. Also, listening to more Xenakis could help- or just listening again and again. 

[snyprrr]

I've been corresponding with Steven Schick, and he says that he intends to record O-Mega soon. A pity it was left off of the Mode set of Xenakis' complete percussion works.

That's not my main gripe about that 2cd set. Why couldn't they have recorded Zythos for trombone and six perc., or Khall Perr, or even a re-recording of Plekto? Why did they bother to record an incomplete "complete" perc. set? There could have been so many other ways to package it. Just set Persephassa and Pleiades aside for a later release.

I just wish Mode, in their whole series, would concentrate on pieces LACKING recordings, instead of making us wonder if they're going to do a "Complete Xenakis" (which I doubt). I just can't TAKE another recording of Rebonds (much less Okho!) At least "Complete SQs" has righted one wrong.

I predict their next release will be called "Solos, Duos, and Trios". Perhaps, at least, that will shore up the string music.

Timpani and Mode: WE WANT IT YESTERDAY ALREADY!!!

[snyprrr]

I just got the JACK Quartet playing the Complete String Quartets of Xenakis (on Mode; also available on DVD!!!).

I have waited a long time to hear Xenakis' last SQ, Ergma. I heard a great intro/outro clip on one of the great links provided earlier in this thread, which revealed Ergma to be, obviously, in the same league as other late Xenakis string work: Hunem-Iduhey (vln/vnc), Roscobeck (vnc/bs), Voile (20 strings), Ittidra (sextet), and the earlier SQ, Tetora.

On this cd, Ergma's opening salvo is delivered with more polish, sheen, and lustre than the clip I heard. Yea, I know, you're saying, Polish??? Sheen??? Yes, this JACK Quartet plays Xenakis beautifully. All this music is so radical, yet the group has it down so tight that all they seem to be worried about is how beautiful to play it all!

All of Xenakis' late string music sounds to me like lasers eating through diamonds at a funereal pace, and this SQ is no exception. All players play 2notes throughout, grating 2nds and 7ths, grinding out slow, tiered chords in an "ancient" sounding "mode", with the occasional peculiarity (a 4th!). Again, the players, vibrato-less, sear this music with a tonal beauty that belies the "ugliness" of the actual notes.

In a way, one of the only differences between the pieces is the amount of darkness or light afforded to these laser drills by virtue of the instrumentation. Obviously, the cello/bass duo, Roscobeck, will be the darkest (purely in a tonal sense, not emotional), whilst the violin/cello duo is my favorite because here the piercing highs of the violin are brought out more so than in the SQ or the sextet, the sense of laser drilling more etched and severe. In this regard, the SQ almost has a comforting mellowness (but again, that could be the beautiful playing). The sextet will obviously be the most bristling.

I am grateful to finally get the bigger picture in this later string music. The sheer BALDNESS of this music I find so enigmatically inviting, like, there is nothing after it... the final word, so to speak.

Xenakis' masterpiece, Tetras, also receives its most beautiful recording. In comparing to the two competing Arditti versions, the JACK do pretty much come out on top... and, of course, I'm not slighting the Arditti one bit (of course I'm keeping theirs). The JACK take about a couple of minutes longer (though it's hard to tell while the SQ is playing), and this allows their tonal beauty to come through, especially in the difficult unison glissandi passages. The bass response, and the recording itself, are space age awesome!

This cd reminds me of the Arditti's Complete SQs of Berio. Having all the Xenakis on one cd really throws his acheivement into bold relief. ST-4 (1962), when compared to Berio's Sincronie (1964), comes across as more integral than Berio's scattershot, kitchen-sink approach, though listen to both shows the "man vs. computer" to great effect. The JACK really play this SQ's pointallistic galaxies and shooting star glissandi with...


argh...gotta get off the computer...