Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001)

[snyprrr]

Where can I find a recording of the original version of Nyuyo? I'm enjoying Cecile Daroux's transcription for flute and 3 guitars on an Naïve disc, but it would be nice to hear the Japanese instruments the piece was first written for.

It's quite a twilit piece, no? Xenakis sure didn't explore the guitar-like instruments much, just a little psaltery in that 'cantata'. I would have liked to have heard his thing translated to the guitar (hey, isn't that what I'm working on?)

I would venture a guess that a future Mode release might have it, but I don't even think a premiere bootleg exists.

[snyprrr]

Where can I find a recording of the original version of Nyuyo? I'm enjoying Cecile Daroux's transcription for flute and 3 guitars on an Naïve disc, but it would be nice to hear the Japanese instruments the piece was first written for.

I still saddened that you didn't dredge up this Thread to announce the new Xenakis release.

[snyprrr]

Unbelievable. I just saw a depiction of Xenakis's architectural 'glissandi wires' in the 1957 movie 'Les Girls' with Gene Kelly!! It was in a jazzy dance number, but it was no doubt wires set up around the dancers in the style of Xenakis's laser lights from the polytopes, or the depiction on paper of the glissandi of Metastaseis. Groovy man!

[snyprrr]

No Xenakis news. I fear Xenakis is a dead issue. Every new recording seems to be another 'Rebonds'. ,... and that's been it for 2 years. Mode looks like they've had it with IX. Just give me what I want and I will go away!! WAAAH!!

[ibanezmonster]

I think the best bet we'll have for hearing Nyuyou played on its original instruments is for me to one day learn how to play the instruments and record and mix them.

[snyprrr]

I think the best bet we'll have for hearing Nyuyou played on its original instruments is for me to one day learn how to play the instruments and record and mix them.

I was thinking the same for the brass trio from 1971, Linea Agon (is that right?). I'm just not sure the navy brass players I know would care enough. Maybe I could check for a score, unless that IS the score on that Xenakis site. Hmm...

btw- Nyuyo actually has some difficult sounding techniques,... I'd love to see that score.

[Poelmo]

I was thinking the same for the brass trio from 1971, Linea Agon (is that right?). I'm just not sure the navy brass players I know would care enough. Maybe I could check for a score, unless that IS the score on that Xenakis site. Hmm...

btw- Nyuyo actually has some difficult sounding techniques,... I'd love to see that score.

Linaia Agon is on this recently released cd.

[snyprrr]

Linaia Agon is on this recently released cd.

HELLO!?!?!

Thank you so much. Let ... me ... take ... a ... look ...

[snyprrr]

Linaia Agon is on this recently released cd.

1) Linaea Agon
2) Eonta
3) Gmeeorgh

Fair enough. The 7090 Ensemble seems to have their heart in the right place. Perhaps an email is due? They also are responsible for the 'Beton Arme' cd on BVhaast. Interesting. Thanks again.

We still need a recording of Zythos. I think the YouTube has been taken down?

[snyprrr]

but it's like many things with Karlheinz Stockhausen, the idea is fantastic, and sometimes in realization it's slightly problematic.

[...]

BBC3.Sat.Nov.24.2012[/font]

I promise not to bring this up!


btw- the '12' SQs he's asked to name,... they ARE pretty obvious what they would be, no?

1) Xenakis 'Tetras'
2) Ligeti No.2
3) Lachenmannn (per IA)
4) Dutilleux 'Ansni(sic) la Nuit'
5) Ferneyhough No.2
6) Ferneyhough No.3
7) Carter No.3
Harvey No.1 (first piece written for ASQ)
9) Rihm ?
19) Dusapin ?                                                    Kutoislawki)WHAAAT?)...keyboard's faulkt...
11) Nono 'Fragmente-Stille'
12) Scelsi No.4

... or something like that...

[Karl Henning]

Still haven't learnt the difference between its and it's, I see....

[ibanezmonster]

Wow... I might end up doing something I'd never thought I'd do- purchase a single mp3 track! 

[snyprrr]

Wow... I might end up doing something I'd never thought I'd do- purchase a single mp3 track! 

I HAVE NOT YET PROGRESSED TO THAT LEVEL. CAN YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO ORDER THE CD? (oy, the caps lock monster... what IS up with that?)...... it looks like it hasn't been released yet or they're out of it. The sample of 'Linaia Agon' make it sound like a very micro/gliss work. The sonics sound good too.

[snyprrr]

Metastaseis (1953-1954)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCe25-TXbFk (7:30)

Here is a wonderful new 'live' performance of the Most Modern Work Ever Created by Man, James! Here, for the first time for many of us, the primal, cosmic dance of light and dark comes into stark relief. If only you ever hear 7:30 minutes of Modern Music after 1950, let it be this performance.

How can one deny the supreme mastery of density and texture as represented in this ground breaking work? The opening 'tuning of glissandi' and its resultant 'cosmic cyclops' is surely the most profound representation of genesis since Strauss (which one?).

Then, the main 'basin' of the work begins with single scraps of what sounds like some twisted Viennese waltz chewed to pieces and regurgitated into proliferation. This 'basin' is distinctly divided into three sections, each dominated by a different mode of expression. This basin, or 'tub', is an 'ether' into which Xenakis pours his stochastic stew. Wherever a particle land, there it stays, like a sonic arterial spray captured perfectly. It is Abstract Tone Painting of the highest order.

At the end, the glissandi return to tie a bow in the whole thing. 7:30, and the Universe Has Been Created. Seeing this live video puts one in a seat in the '50s, and it must have been a terrifying experience,... I wonder. There's not much information on the video, but it seems as though the thoughtful conductor has taking a lead from Arturo Tamayo's revealing Timpani recording (which I consider the absolute best recording available, Rosbaud coming in second) and brought in a very quick 'Metastaseis'. The benefits of this quicker approach is evident in the frissons actually felt.

Let this be the first Xenakis you have ever heard!


Pithoprakta (1955-1956)

20secs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC3XCfDBIK8

9:44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdQBblec0M

If you liked 'Metastaseis', you'd still be forgiven for wondering what-the-heck-is-that-thing called 'Pithoprakta'? Scored for strings, 2 trombones (barely heard once) and the ubiquitous Xenakis woodblock (haha 'modern' instrument!), it begins sounding like the snufalumpagii shuffling across the stage. No odder opening to a piece could be imagined. Then, transformations begin to occur and the next thing you know you are led down a shattering path of unified and broken string 'media'.

This whole piece seems to represent the 'basin, or 'tub' section of the earlier piece. Here, everything is playing for itself, thought the law of large numbers applies, and sounds are swept up in the vortex, only to be spit out as glissandi or pizzicati. In the middle, the 2 trombones act as a gyroscopic ground for a moment, and are then lost.

This piece is almost 10 minutes, but has something 'Metastaseis' did not: silences. 'Pithoprakta' is such an unbelievably alien landscape made the more strange by the constant change in texture, which includes the silences. At the end, the piece exhausts itself (as with many pieces by Xenakis) and shivers into the ether.

This old recording has sufficed for almost 50 years, and has enough of its own character to distinguish it for the new Tamayo recording (which recedes the trombones a bit).


Achorripsis (1956-1957)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WasFTDq0dJI&feature=player_detailpage

Op.3 is a chamber distillation of Xenakis's stochastic ideals. In this video, his procedure is made very clear. It is divided into 25 sections that take a total of about 6 minutes to perform. To these ears, it sounds like an alien one-man-band circus-horror-clown-carousel. If taken with a bit of humor, it's easy to see the 'machines' acting out in hilarious ways, like 'Fantasia' on acid!

This recording has also sufficed for decades, and again has its own unique character (the oboe (I think) entrance at about a minute has a 'sad' quality not found in the newer Tamayo recording).


So, these three pieces summarize Xenakis's 1st Phase. Staring with a dramatic pretext in 'Metastaseis', Xenakis then abandons all pretense and creates two works of the utmost randomness and abstraction, to the point that their abstraction breeds familiarity (the sounds of hooves and carousels). With his next grouping of works, Xenakis used the computer to make the calculations that he had up until now been doing by hand. Every note in these first three pieces was calculated by hand, a staggering feat. but, available to a man supplied with the mathematical wisdom of the ancients, the Math of God.

[snyprrr]

Diamorphoses (1957)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZyn4UiB6c

Concret PH (1958)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsOyxFybxPY

Analogique A + B (1958-9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTzOWKaDrVI

Orient-Occident (1960)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7N2-nuZbxY

Bohor (1962)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32a_bM2zuFI

Xenakis's early works in the electronic arena are classic expressions of the 1950s. 'Diamorphoses' and 'Orient-Occident' sound the most like typical, cool, computer vistas from the '50s, evoking outer space and ancient civilizations. I am of the opinion that these do not need analysis, they just need to be heard. They are pretty well transparent in their agendas.

'Concret PH' is three minutes of samples from sparks from a crackling fire, multiplied and divided. I'd like to bask in an hour's worth of this, which is more than I can say for 'Bohor', which is exactly an expanding of the previous work, but using BELLS instead of sparks. Wow!, this piece you really have to be in the mood for. Twenty minutes of overlapped clanging bell sounds is more than these ears can generally tolerate. 'Bohor' is great 'action' music,... as if you want to vacate your party or let your neighbors know exactly where you stand with their caterwalling(sic).

'Analogique A+B' utilizes a string sextet along with the electronics, and it too is a prime shining example of what was happening in the '50s. As with most all these works from the '50s, the charm here is in the over-the-top juxtaposition of bleeps and bloops with traditional string timbre.


ST/48
ST/10
ST/4
Morisma-Amorisma
Atrees

(all 1956-62)

All these pieces were created by inputting Xenakian data into a computer, and writing the results. These pieces truly have an otherwoldly voice, automated action, banks of glissandi. They are the most perfectly ordered pieces by Xenakis, sounding almost like Beethoven compared to later works! 'ST/10' and 'ST/4' are the same exact work, one scored for chamber ensemble, and one scored for string quartet, and make great comparison study. 'Morisma-Amorisma' takes the same sound world and sets it in a piano quartet (with bass) configuration.

'ST/48' takes the same trajectory and sets it within a classical orchestra. I declare that one of the random moments sounds just like the ending of the Sibelius No.7, such is the power and pathos of this most un-human music.

'Atrees' is the longest, and is divided into five sections. It is also the 'mellowest', or, 'static', and has a certain charm missing from all the other pieces here. This is available on the EMI set, along with 'ST/4' and 'ST/10'. 'ST/48' is available from the Tamayo Box.


Even Xenakis didn't really appreciate this era of his development (or, the results thereof), yet, when heard from a distance, the dawning of the computer age sounds almost quaint.


Duel (1959)
Strategie (1962)

These two pieces utilize Game Theory, and pit two orchestras against each other. Particularly, these may be the pieces Xenakis was not too pleased with. 'Duel' has never been heard by these ears, but, 'Strategie', long available through an Ozawa LP, is literally the most slam-bang, trash can noise fest I've ever heard. It is not pleasing by any stretch, and simply is an exercise in numbers. See how long you last:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipwbze36uj0

As we head out of the '50s with Xenakis, and into the later '60s, we will see his transition from these purely mathematical beginnings to the first flowering of the mature Xenakis 1972-3. With each successive work in the '60s, all the strands begin to come into focus, culminating in the giant works such as 'Kraanerg' and 'Persepolis'. We will see Xenakis's organizing becoming more deliberate, until we reach the cosmic vistas of 'Emprientes' in  the early '70s. From then on, the mature Xenakis reigned, churning out piece after piece in his mature style, until about the cutoff date of 1991, when the late Xenakis style began to take over.

[snyprrr]

snyprrr ..

New MODE Edition coming ..

Iannis XENAKIS: Ensemble Works 3 (Chamber Concertos)
Steven Schick conducts the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
+ first recording of "Zythos" for trombone and 6 marimbas (Benny Sluchin, red fish blue fish)

Yes, I saw, haha, 15 years later. I called Alice at Mode, but she didn't have any details, neither Amazon. I hope it's not the program they played recently (that would be a lot of duplication from other Mode releases). Still, having Zythos will shore that last little bit up there. Will be waiting for the Mode update. Somehow I get the feeling there's another recording of Thalleinn in there.

[HenselFlaeder]

Yes, I saw, haha, 15 years later. I called Alice at Mode, but she didn't have any details, neither Amazon. I hope it's not the program they played recently (that would be a lot of duplication from other Mode releases). Still, having Zythos will shore that last little bit up there. Will be waiting for the Mode update. Somehow I get the feeling there's another recording of Thalleinn in there.

There is a photo of the disc on the ICE Ensemble's site, and yes, it is the same program.

Palimpsest
Echange
Zythos
Akanthos
Thallein
O-Mega

I agree that it's not the greatest line-up for veterens, but it seems like a good introduction maybe. Mode has already recorded Akanthos and Echange, and the Vandenberg series recorded Palimpsest and Thallein. Yea, the state of Xenakis recordings seems somewhat frozen. Still, it has the Premiere Recording of Zythos (still not my favorite piece by any stretch).

[snyprrr]

There is a photo of the disc on the ICE Ensemble's site, and yes, it is the same program.

Palimpsest
Echange
Zythos
Akanthos
Thallein
O-Mega

I agree that it's not the greatest line-up for veterens, but it seems like a good introduction maybe. Mode has already recorded Akanthos and Echange, and the Vandenberg series recorded Palimpsest and Thallein. Yea, the state of Xenakis recordings seems somewhat frozen. Still, it has the Premiere Recording of Zythos (still not my favorite piece by any stretch).

FINALLY! :'(someone interesting!

Yea, I was afraid of that. Oh well. Wait, I do feel a rant coming on, but...

It's pre-orders are already looking impressive as the BIG DAY (Oct. 22) approaches. Depends worthy!!

It's hard for me to get excited. Maybe I'll pretend it's a date?

[HenselFlaeder]

FINALLY! :'(someone interesting!

Yea, I was afraid of that. Oh well. Wait, I do feel a rant coming on, but...

It's pre-orders are already looking impressive as the BIG DAY (Oct. 22) approaches. Depends worthy!!

It's hard for me to get excited. Maybe I'll pretend it's a date?

lol, thanks

The release has been moved back to Nov.5.

[Karl Henning]

. . . Wait, I do feel a rant coming on, but...

TWU!