Topic: Xenakis's Xen

[CRCulver]

The new Legende d’eer on the same label is also worth exploring I think.

This is not a surround-sound release of this very spatialized work, so what is the point of this when a fine stereo-only recording was already released on Naïve? I wish someone would do a Bluray release, that would be worth getting. The Mode DVD, like all of their surround-sound releases, has a relatively low-quality codec and one would wish for lossless sound.

[Mandryka]

This is not a surround-sound release of this very spatialized work, so what is the point of this when a fine stereo-only recording was already released on Naïve? I wish someone would do a Bluray release, that would be worth getting. The Mode DVD, like all of their surround-sound releases, has a relatively low-quality codec and one would wish for lossless sound.

The point is as follows:

this now is a new version, using the 8-track-version that XENAKIS himself presented at Darmstädter Ferienkurse in august 1978. As the automatic spatialization is lost, this became the only original version of this composition and is presented here (mixed down to stereo by MARTIN WURMNEST who tried to preserve the spatial movements as perceptible as possible – mastered by RASHAD BECKER at D&M) for the very first time.

Re specialisation, people tell me that new ideas about binaural mastering are better at capturing the feeling of sound coming from several places than regular stereo through room speakers. That’s the way to go I think. Richard Barrett has been working on this.

I get the impression that a lot less is known about Xenakis’s mixing, there’s a lot of scope for new ideas about how to mix the master tapes.

[CRCulver]

Re specialisation, people tell me that new ideas about binaural mastering are better at capturing the feeling of sound coming from several places than regular stereo through room speakers. That’s the way to go I think. Richard Barrett has been working on this.

Binaural masterings assume that one is sitting precisely between two stereo sources. However, originally La légende d'Eer was presented in a venue where people could walk around, move closer to some sound sources than others. A 5.0 release would better that.

Thanks for the blurb about what makes this new release distinctive.

[Brewski]

From Feb. 2-10, Musica nova Helsinki is doing some Xenakis, livestreamed at the link below. Also music from Simon Steen-Andersen and Lisa Streich, the festival's composers-in-residence.

https://musicanova.fi/en/

--Bruce

[Mandryka]

Formalized Music

https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Xenakis_Iannis_Formalized_Music_Thought_and_Mathematics_in_Composition.compressed.pdf

[T. D.]

Formalized Music

https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Xenakis_Iannis_Formalized_Music_Thought_and_Mathematics_in_Composition.compressed.pdf

Thanks. I have a background in math and statistics/probability, so this is interesting reading.
Years ago, I saw a snippet of FORTRAN code that implemented one of Xenakis's ideas. It found it really simplistic, just a Gaussian random walk. The booklet you linked to furnishes background and treats more topics.

[Mandryka]

Thanks. I have a background in math and statistics/probability, so this is interesting reading.
Years ago, I saw a snippet of FORTRAN code that implemented one of Xenakis's ideas. It found it really simplistic, just a Gaussian random walk. The booklet you linked to furnishes background and treats more topics.

The thing which caught my attention wasn't so much the maths but the account of the development of music at the start -- his discussion of serialism and polyphony. Really there's a lot in common between Xenakis and Ligeti.