|
 |
 |
Iannis Xenakis |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Info: Biography, Pictures, Discography of all CDs & DVDs |
|
| Iannis Xenakis in 1975.February 4, 2001) was a Greek composer and one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century.He was a major figure in the postwar development of musical modernism.Xenakis participated in the Greek Resistance during World War II and, during the period of the British martial law, in the first phase of the Greek Civil War as a member of the students' company Lord Byron of the leftwing ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos, Greek People's Liberation Army).He received a severe face wound from a British shell which resulted in the loss of eyesight in one eye.In 1947 he fled under a false passport to Paris.In the meantime, in Greece he was sentenced in absentia to death by the rightwing administration.Xenakis performed at many world expositions and fairs, and played annually in the Shiraz Art Festival in Iran.His first meeting with Honegger exemplifies his attitude toward formal instruction: asked to play one of his compositions on the piano, Xenakis was stopped promptly as Honegger pointed out parallel fifths and octaves.Xenakis had written them intentionally and refused to "correct" the piece.France's most innovative and promising.Nomos Alpha), and Boolean algebra (in Herma and Eonta), Brownian motion (in N'Shima).This was later revised, expanded and translated into Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition in 1971.In 1966, Xenakis founded the Centre for Automatic and Mathematical Music in Paris and subsequently set up a similar centre at Indiana University.From 1975 to 1978 he was professor of music at Gresham College, London, giving free public lectures.He died in Paris in 2001.Indeed from the 1970s onwards Xenakis' use of method became deeply assimilated into his general musical thinking and he reports in interviews from that time that the strict application of statistical processes was no longer necessary to produce the results he was looking for.In a sense his early statements about "looking at music statistically" were a response to what he saw as the mistake of placing too much emphasis on the likely benefits of applying methodology too rigorously.Many essays have been written about the formula titles of his numbered works but it seems very clear that his obsession in most of his titles was with ancient Greece."Chronologie", in Portrait(s) de Iannis Xenakis, p.Xenakis: his life in music."Texture as an Organizational Factor in Selected Works of Iannis Xenakis"."Chronologie", in Portrait(s) de Iannis Xenakis, p.Bibliography
Amagali, Rosemary Tristano."Texture as an Organizational Factor in Selected Works of Iannis Xenakis".Xenakis: his life in music.Portrait(s) de Iannis Xenakis Seuil.Conversations with Iannis Xenakis.London: Faber and Faber.Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press.Friends of Xenakis
Centre for Composition of Music Iannis Xenakis
Medieval.Modern Music: Xenakis
Edward Childs, PhD.This page was last modified 09:52, 29 November 2007.See Copyrights for details.If a work of art succeeds in this undertaking even for a single moment, it attains its goal."All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.Charlottenburg (1954), los diferentes edificios constitutivos del plan de urbanismo de Chandigarh en India (1951), y el Centro Deportivo y Cultural de Bagdad (1957).Le sacrifice (Anastenaria II), pour 51 musicien.Formes Rouges, for seven instruments (Withdrawn.Music for the film by P.Polla ta Dhina (Textes d'Antigone de Sophocle), pour choeur d'enfants et 48 musiciens.Agon, trio de cuivres (cor, tb, tba) (dur.Shaar, para gran orquesta de cuerda.Sciences: Alloys, The Thesis Defense of Iannis Xenakis, Pendragon Press, New York, 1985.Conversations with Iannis Xenakis.Aristote Koundourov in analysis,
harmony and counterpoint.His favorite readings include Plato, Marx and
Lenin.British army establishes martial law.Considered dead and abandoned there, his father found Iannis
and took him to a hospital where he underwent several operations.Konstantin Kastrounis, a cargo en route for Italy.Honegger at the Ecole normale de musique,
and later Milhaud, who replaced the former.Nadia Boulanger who declared she was too old to start reviewing
the fundamentals of harmony and counterpoint with him.Pierre Schaeffer and attempts to joins the group, in vain.The latter invites him to audit his
classes, which Xenakis does faithfully in 1952 and less regularly in 1953.India and Japan, and jazz).La Colombe de la paix is played at the Fourth World Youth Festival
for Peace and Fellowship in Bucharest.Le Sacrifice (summer
1953), and finally, Metastasis (end of 1954).Metastasis, whose textures of glissandi are based on ruled parabola
and graphically conceived.Xenakis denounces the very principle of the series and the polyphonic
organization that is derived from it.Its origin is
found in the choice of how the 12 tones are arranged.In reality, what
one hears is a bunch of notes in various registers.Consequently, there is a contradiction between the linear
polyphonic system and the audible result, which is a surface, a mass.Orchestra, conducted by Hans Rosbaud.GRM or Groupe de recherches musicales in 1958) and remains
until 1962.There, Xenakis explains the stochastic laws used
in Pithoprakta, which he was composing at the time.Studio, Xenakis collaborates on the Youth and Cultural Center
in Firminy.Philips to realize the music of
this Electronic Poem.Festival Musica Viva in
Munich by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, conducted by Hermann Scherchen.Buenos Aires by the Teatro
Colon Orchestra, conducted by Hermann Scherchen.This text is later printed
in his book, Musiques Formelles (op.Achorripsis at the Salle Pleyel in Paris,
conducted by Hermann Scherchen leading the Concerts Lamoureux.Hermann Scherchen at
his Festival in Gravesano.Xenakis, along with two of his colleagues, is dismissed by Le Corbusier.Pithoprakta by Hermann Scherchen.Tokyo, including no less
than eighteen instrumental and electracoustic works by western composers.The composer Toru Takemitsu introduces Xenakis to Seiji Ozawa.Scherchen asks Xenakis to draw up plans for an experimental auditorium
in Gravesano.SMIP (Semaines musicales internationales de Paris).Ensemble de musique contemporaine de Paris, conducted by Konstantin Simonovitch.BnF, music department,
Xenakis archives.GRM studio, which led to the definitive break between Xenakis and
Pierre Schaeffer, to whom the work is dedicated.David Del Tredici were among his students there.Symbolic Music), relating to the compositional principles used in Herma.English, and again
reprinted and augmented in 1992 in English.Spring 1964 : Xenakis lived in West Berlin on a grant from the Ford
Foundation.Theatre, without Xenakis since he still carries a death sentence in Greece
and has been stripped of his Greek nationality.Grand Prize from the French Recording Academy.Pithoprakta is conducted by Aaron Copland in San Francisco.Xenakis gives classes and lectures for four weeks at the Institute Torcuati
di Tella in Buenos Aires, where Alfredo Ginastera is director.Diego Masson and stage directed by Jorge Lavelli.French Pavilion at
the Montreal World Fair.He is promised a musical mathematics and automation research
center.But, year after year, the project is postponed.It is an absolute triumph.Bohor from the electroacoustic console.Perhaps the gap between creator and public, which
has grown incessantly since Beethoven, is finally being filled?Kraanerg, conducted by Lukas Foss, and choreographed
by Roland Petit, with stage design by Vasarely, is given.Paris Octet at the Avignon
Festival.Xenakis observed that beams of pure light, homogenous and undiffused, are
somewhat like continuous sound.Pithoprakta, by the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Juan
Pablo Izquierdo at the Santiago Municipal Theatre.ORTF (French Radio) Orchestra, conducted by
Michel Tabachnik.Maurice Fleuret, Nouvel
Observateur, September 6, 1971).Duel (written in 1959) in Hilversum
by the Radio Orchestra, conducted by Diego Masson and Fernand Terby.Mikka by Ivry Gitlis at the Museum of Modern
Art, Paris.This book comprises articles
previously published in various periodicals.Guy commissions Xenakis to write an opera.In all, nearly 100,000 tickets
were sold.Xenakis realized in the Studio Acousti.National center for telecommunication studies).Xenakis is invited to teach at the Darmstadt summer session.Paris of Erikthon by Claude Helffer and the
ORTF (French Radio) Orchestra, conducted by Michel Tabachnik.Orchestra of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, conducted by Michel Tabachnik.Gmeeoorh (56 stops), by the Orchestra of the Cologne Radio, conducted
by Michel Tabachnik and Xavier Darasse, respectively.An exhibit about the
composer is also presented.This exhibit will travel to the English Bach
Festival the following year.Cologne, where another music of the future has reigned
for some time now, this homage has a weighted meaning.Paris of Noomena by the Orchestre de Paris,
conducted by Sir Georg Solti.Maurice Ravel Gold Medal from the SACEM.Philharmonic Orchestra of the Netherlands Radio,
conducted by Michel Tabachnik.Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and
Letters.Bonn by the twelve
cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic.This work was commissioned by the Gulbenkian Festival and Foundation.Elizabeth Chojnacka in Cologne.Yet the arts are governed in a manner even
richer and more complex by this experimental mode.This is the strength of art and, so it seems, its superiority
over the sciences.National Grand Prize for Music from the French Ministry of
Culture.Mstislav Rostropovitch International Competition.Rhine Opera Ballet company, choreographed by Germinal Casado.The spectacle is presented there three times
a day.Academia Musicale Chigiana in Sienna
(Italy).Brooklyn Philharmonia, conducted by Lukas Foss.Xenakis is named member of the National Board of Hellenic Resistance.Roger Woodward at the Edinburgh International Festival.Athens by the Greek Radio
Chorus.Gualda at the Rencontres internationales de musique contemporaine in Metz
(France).Congress on Philosophy
and Mathematics.Festival in Brussels by Spyros Sakkas and Claude Helffer.This structure surges towards the sky in an inverted tulip shape composed
of hyperbolic paraboloids in reinforced concrete.Auditorium is in the form of a "patatoid", in order to eliminate
any zones of concentration or acoustic shadows.It is curved all around
and the curve's degree is constantly and uniformly variable.It is important not to forget that in a "jewel box of sounds,"
the interior architecture may either caress or aggress the sounds within.Olivier Meesiaen gave the welcoming speech.Lincoln Center, New York by Roger
Woodward and the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Zubin Mehta.Automne by Claude
Helffer and the Arditti Quartet.Gibellina that was destroyed by an earthquake
and partially razed.This work, under a new stage direction, will also be performed in Strasbourg
that fall, at the Festival Musica.Sylvio Gualda at the Villa Medicis
during the Roma Europa Festival.And, can one imagine a rule without
repetition?Settembre Musica da Torino Festival is entirely dedicated to
Xenakis.Kamejama Honyokuji Temple in Osaka,
as part of the International Kite Exhibit.Doctor Honoris Causa at the Edimburgh University and also a foreign
member of the Swedish Royal Academy.Oophaa at the Warsaw Autumn Festival,
by Elizabeth Chojnacka and Sylvio Gualda.Montpellier by the Montpellier
Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zoltan Pesko.Officer in the French Legion of Honor and Commander in the French
Order of Arts and Letters.Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Ramon Encinar.Cecilia Academy in Rome.Jacopo Scalfi and
Roger Woodward at La Scala in Milan.This work will be performed nine times
over the following days.Polytope de Cluny is given at the Ultima Festival in Oslo.Cannes, Grenoble, and
Amsterdam.Jeunes Solistes, conducted by Rachid Safir.Knight in the Greek Phoenix Legion and Commander in the French
National Order of Merit.Hamburg by the Norddeutscher
Rundfunk Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Zoltan Pesko.Christian Lindberg and the Kroumata Ensemble, in Birmingham.Amsterdam during the Holland Festival by the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble.New York by Edna Michell
and Ole Akahoshi during the Lincoln Center Festival of Arts.Oh Ton Ensemble, conducted
by David Coleman, in Oldenburg.Stefano Scodanibbio at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk as part of the Musik der
Zeit Festival.Xenakis is awarded the Kyoto Prize in Japan.Evelyn Glennie (solo percussion) and the London Sinfonietta, conducted
by Markus Stenz.Bloch University and Museum of Modern Art
in Strasbourg.Xenakis Festival in Nicosia and Larnaka (Cyprus).Le Sacrifice, Metastasis) in Munich, conducted
by Charles Zacharie Bornstein.Iannis Xenakis dies at home at five in the morning.Distributed by Seuil
Paperback : 17.Amongst these, Iannis Xenakis would begin to compose his first mature works.The style of music which arose from these principles he labeled 'stochastic music,' and the first two works which arose in this style, "Metastaseis" and "Pithoprakta," set the foundation of his aesthetic principles that he would go on to develop and experiment with for the rest of his musical career.In assessing how Xenakis came to use aesthetics grounded in abstract mathematics one must examine his early life prior to mature music composition.He recalls, in a 1987 article, that at around twelve or thirteen years of age he would be practising piano, reading about astronomy for hours on end and studying mathematics and archaeology.It was at this time, in 1938, that he enrolled in the Athens Polytechnic to study engineering, where he undertook courses in mathematics, physics, law and ancient literature.He also took up studying harmony and counterpoint with Aristotle Kondourov "who impressed upon Xenakis the necessity of absolute rigour and discipline in the pursuit of composition."During these years, Xenakis would mostly involve himself as a Communist resistance fighter against the Germans, who had occupied Greece, and he was frequently involved in mass resistance demonstrations, often finding himself in prison as a result.It was the first time I had ever met a man with such spiritual force, such a constant questioning of things normally taken for granted.Not until he approached Messiaen after an analysis class did Xenakis finally attain a clear directed response of the path in which he should take.But this was a man so much out of the ordinary that I said...Take advantage of these things.As Elisabet Sahtouris wrote, in her 1998 article "The Biology of Globalization," "some of the greatest catastrophes in our planet's life history have spawned the greatest creativity" 12; this would hold true as a result of the highly experimental compositional climate that came about in Europe during the 1950's.Several composers, among them Stockhausen, Berio, Xenakis, report detailed accounts of aural phenomena which have remained with them twenty years after the experience.The war had accustomed them to a sound world which had never seemed possible before and each one had to adjust to it in his own way.The war experience was to leave a profound effect upon Xenakis' music and intertwining creative thought.The human river shouts a slogan in a uniform rhythm.Then another slogan springs from the head of the demonstration; it spreads towards the tail replacing the first.Then the impact between the demonstrators and the enemy occurs.Peter Hoffmann, on the other hand, labels this music 'Macroscopic Stochastic Music' which illustrates this point more clearly than Xenakis' label.However, the formal methods for ordering the sonic state of 'noise' between Xenakis and his European contemporaries were highly different.In this he commented that in serial music "linear polyphony destroys itself by its very complexity" producing "nothing but a mass of notes in different registers" and also noted the contradiction between the "deterministic causality" of serial methods and the actual effect of "an irrational and fortuitous dispersion of sounds over the whole extent of the sonic spectrum."This article, however, was not so much an attack on serial music as much as it was a boost for his own compositional aesthetics.John Cage first applied the fundamental philosophical principle of chance to music, that is, "to remove from music any reference to tradition or any trace of subjectivity."Finally I said the purpose of this purposeless music would be achieved if people learned to listen; that when they listened they might discover that they preferred the sounds of everyday life to the ones they would presently hear in the musical program; that that was alright as far as I was concerned.The assumption that removing certain constraints from a performing situation frees the player and audience from learned responses and habits was rejected by Xenakis who asserted that on the contrary the player was likely to fall back on his habitual conditioned behaviour or merely oppose it in the most superficial way under pressure of performance.To equate chance with the suspension of responsibility by the composer in the name of freedom was illusory.He also noted that composers never relinquished their authorship over performances despite claims made in the name of chance which smacked to him not only of inconsistency, but piracy.In "Metastaseis," Xenakis confronted most of the fundamental musical problems and in effect "Metastaseis" presents the foundation for the style and aesthetics he would follow through for a good deal of his musical career with the concept of textural sound composition.He later used plotting of string glissandi in "Metastaseis" as the curvature for the walls in the Philips Pavilion (constructed for the 1958 Brussels World Fair).The massed moving formations of string glissandi and 'brass in total disorder', as Xenakis describes, that occur in "Metastaseis" and later in "Pithoprakta" relate to the kinetic theory of gases.To construct the seething movement of the piece, he governed the 'molecules' according to a coherent sequence of imaginary temperatures and pressures.The result is a music in which separate 'voices' cannot be determined, but the shape of the sound mass they generate is clear.While in "Metastaseis" Xenakis applied the kinetic theory of gases to organize musical materials, the materials themselves, such as pitch, were acquired via a dodecaphonic row set with time (at the opening) ordered by the Fibonacci series (both common sources for organization amongst European composers at the time), which is why some critics argue that "Pithoprakta" is Xenakis' first truly mature musical composition in a style that acquires all its musical elements through mathematical theories and principles.The concept of 'sound masses' and the textural use of the orchestra (for example glissandi, pizzicati) remain similar in "Pithoprakta", however the musical materials were undertaken purely by using Probability theory ("Pithoprakta" literally means 'actions through probabilities').Xenakis would still apply other theories and principles in creating the music, such as the theory of gases and Poisson's law of sparse events, which dictates the sparse textures late in the work, but the importance of Probability theory was, according to Christopher Butchers, of vast importance in the blending of science and art.Each line represents a string instrument named on the vertical axis, starting with the lowest register at the bottom to the highest at the top while the horizontal axis represents time.Therefore, the style of 'stochastic music' that Xenakis created amidst a wilderness of other experimental trends was to stand out as his own unique entity.Iannis Xenakis, "Xenakis on Xenakis," Perspectives of New Music, vol.Ancient literature would be of more significant inspiration later in his musical career from the early 1960's onwards, where he would apply names from Ancient Greek tragedies as the titles to his works, and write music set to Greek tragedies (for example Oresteia), thus it is of little relevance in the purpose of this essay.Mario Bois, Iannis Xenakis: The Man and his Music: A Conversation with the Composer and a Description of his Works, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980), p.Xenakis, "Xenakis on Xenakis," Perspectives of New Music, p.What counted above all was the row I had with Honegger.The students would bring their works, and he would critique them in front of everyone."And there, parallel octaves."Iannis Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), p.Peter Hoffmann, "Iannis Xenakis," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol.Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition, p.Century Music, (New York: Norton, 1991), p.Bois, Iannis Xenakis: The Man and his Music: A Conversation with the Composer and a Description of his Works, p.Paul Griffiths, "Aleatory," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol.Wei Choong, Iannis Xenakis and Elliott Carter: A Detailed Examination and Comparative Study of Their Early Output and Creativity, (Brisbane: Griffith University, 1996), p.Griffiths, "Aleatory," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p.Hoffmann, "Iannis Xenakis," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p.Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition, p.Hoffmann, "Iannis Xenakis," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p.Choong, Iannis Xenakis and Elliott Carter: A Detailed Examination and Comparative Study of Their Early Output and Creativity, p.Christopher Butchers, "The Random Arts: Xenakis, Mathematics and Music," Tempo, vol.With the aid of electronic computers the composer becomes a sort of pilot ...Iannis Xenakis is one of the most radical and important composers of the twentieth century.In 1963, he published Musique Formelles, a collection of his articles relating music, architecture, and mathematics.Moulineaux, just outside of Paris.Polytechnic, where he studied engineering.Nomos alpha for cello, 1966).SiteCatalyst code version: H.You may give each page an identifying name, server, and channel on
the next lines.Iannis Xenakis (read more)
75,902 plays scrobbled on Last.Greek composer of Greek parentage and Romanian birth.Other interests were in electronic music (Bohor, 1962), ancient Greek drama (used in several settings) and instrumental virtuosity (Herma for piano, 1964; Nomos alpha for cello, 1966).Add this track to your playlist
S.Wasn't he French last week?Besides, why insist on using the Greek alphabet?He's widely known under the romanized name, and it's not like there's another Iannis Xenakis he could be confused with.Succeeding it is simply a transgression.Antimatter is what electronic music should be.It would be amazing to see him. |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
