"Drawn Into the Flight Path of the Sounds": Xenakis Listening Thread

^ seems an uncharitable perspective on "new music"/"art music," but maybe not entirely baseless-- bringing to mind the essay by Babbitt about how some music was meant to be composed and studied, but not necessarily heard or performed live. (Interesting take considering Persepolis was designed only to be heard "live" in a very particular setting, and also considering some of the performing demands of say Persephassa and its hexagon of performers.)

Good piece, mark. 'Running out of language' is exactly what I want a work of art to do to me, however, so much of what you find off-putting about the Modernist (Romantic neo-sublime) aesthetic (unless I misunderstand you) is the very reason I listen to music – to experience the illusion of being ephemerally freed from language, over and over again. It seems to me that works of art that take the path of least resistance to language better lend themselves to commentary, so critics are quite grateful for such verbal crutches when they arise… but I am not a music critic and part of my enjoyment stems from knowing I don't have to say anything about music at all! (This is the blind spot of these listening series, incidentally – oftentimes I'd rather just listen and remain mute, but that would break the undertaking's spirit of camaraderie.)

the essay by Babbitt about how some music was meant to be composed and studied, but not necessarily heard or performed live

If you mean "The Composer As Specialist" ("Who Cares If You Listen?"), this seems like a misreading. Babbitt's point was that it is fine, and even desirable, for composers of "'serious', 'advanced' contemporary music" to write just for a niche audience of other highly trained specialists since the music requires so much knowledge and training (or at least "experience") and effort to appreciate that it is not meant for the general public, in the same way that academic conferences on theoretical physics are meant for other specialists - but that pursuing this work in an academic niche is necessary in both cases for the sake of the evolution and progress of the discipline. I don't see anything that indicates that he didn't think the music had to be heard or performed - if anything, he advocated the use of electronic means to precisely reproduce the complex compositions better than human performers could (or would) in some cases. As per the quote at the top of the thread, Xenakis's views on the purpose of music and how an audience should relate to it were fundamentally different from Babbitt's, however, and, as we've seen, many of these pieces were written for large public events.

But if Babbitt did write something that advocated for music that lives just on paper, I'd be interested to read that.

(more of a misremembering than a misreading, but yes, that one)

OK, Harley's description of Hibiki-Hana-ma is more useful and makes more sense than the liner notes:

Hibiki-Hana-Ma (“reverberation-flower-interval”) is just under eighteen min- utes in length and was originally composed for twelve tracks, later mixed down to eight for concert diffusion. The music was recorded and assembled at the electronic music studio of Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in Tokyo. Xenakis had access to an orchestra there, and much of the material comes from orchestral sonorities (typical textures from existing scores with emphasis on strings, particu- larly glissandi and natural harmonics). To this he added the Japanese plucked biwa and some percussion sounds. As in the tape part of Kraanerg, there are varying degrees of studio manipulation of the instrumental sounds, from virtually none to so much that the original sources are unrecognizable. There is a much wider range of sounds presented in Hibiki-Hana-Ma than in the earlier ballet, which is under- standable considering that the tape is the only sound source. The possibility of deploying up to twelve channels enabled Xenakis to build up layers and complex superpositions of sonorities.

The music is put together from blocks of material spliced into the different channels, in a similar process to Kraanerg, extended from three or four layers to twelve. There are many sudden shifts of sonority, density, and intensity, and various + layers are brusquely cut in or out. Major articulation points serve to loosely divide
the piece into four sections. The first, lasting up to the 3'00" mark, is built from a low, booming, undulatory sonority over which orchestral string sounds are layered, primarily built from glissandi of different speeds, directions, and densities. A sweep up to a sustained high-register cluster signals the start of the second section, which introduces a layer of tinkling bells, stochastic clouds of whips and pizzicati, and much else. A sudden drop in dynamic level and number of layers at 6'32" signals a new section, although it features successions of a wide range of sonorities, most of which were heard in the previous section. The orchestral winds are introduced, in both sustained sonorities and glissando textures reminiscent of similar passsages in Nomos gamma and Kraanerg. At 11'07", another sudden drop in intensity/density signals the final section. This is the longest and most sustained of the four, introducing various noise-based sonorities of both the sliding and fixed-band types. These continue to the piece’s end, layered with previously introduced sounds. The impact of hearing this wide range of sonorities, both sustained and percussive, being projected through a large, spatialized sound system would surely have been powerful.
Hibiki-Hana-Ma (“reverberation-flower-interval”) is just under eighteen min- utes in length and was originally composed for twelve tracks, later mixed down to eight for concert diffusion. The music was recorded and assembled at the electronic music studio of Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in Tokyo. Xenakis had access to an orchestra there, and much of the material comes from orchestral sonorities (typical textures from existing scores with emphasis on strings, particu- larly glissandi and natural harmonics). To this he added the Japanese plucked biwa and some percussion sounds. As in the tape part of Kraanerg, there are varying degrees of studio manipulation of the instrumental sounds, from virtually none to so much that the original sources are unrecognizable. There is a much wider range of sounds presented in Hibiki-Hana-Ma than in the earlier ballet, which is under- standable considering that the tape is the only sound source. The possibility of deploying up to twelve channels enabled Xenakis to build up layers and complex superpositions of sonorities.

The music is put together from blocks of material spliced into the different channels, in a similar process to Kraanerg, extended from three or four layers to
+ twelve. There are many sudden shifts of sonority, density, and intensity, and various + layers are brusquely cut in or out. Major articulation points serve to loosely divide
the piece into four sections. The first, lasting up to the 3'00" mark, is built from a low, booming, undulatory sonority over which orchestral string sounds are layered, primarily built from glissandi of different speeds, directions, and densities. A sweep up to a sustained high-register cluster signals the start of the second section, which introduces a layer of tinkling bells, stochastic clouds of whips and pizzicati, and much else. A sudden drop in dynamic level and number of layers at 6'32" signals a new section, although it features successions of a wide range of sonorities, most of which were heard in the previous section. The orchestral winds are introduced, in both sustained sonorities and glissando textures reminiscent of similar passsages in Nomos gamma and Kraanerg. At 11'07", another sudden drop in intensity/density signals the final section. This is the longest and most sustained of the four, introducing various noise-based sonorities of both the sliding and fixed-band types. These continue to the piece’s end, layered with previously introduced sounds. The impact of hearing this wide range of sonorities, both sustained and percussive, being projected through a large, spatialized sound system would surely have been powerful.

Sorry for the double-paste

As per the quote at the top of the thread, Xenakis's views on the purpose of music and how an audience should relate to it were fundamentally different from Babbitt's

"Without a special training being necessary" seems U&K (so I'm not sure understanding the mathematics behind his compositional method - which I freely admit I don't - is expected of the listener or meant to be integral to the listening experience)

as someone who owns and has ploughed through formalized music (and has a degree in maths and philosophy lol) i think the answer has to be no

except to say it's kind of built into the idea of stochastics that no one can apprehend the many micro-elements individually (and nor do you need to grasp and study the effects on masse)

i mean it's not actual bullshit the wa it sometimes is in stockhausen and la monte young

good review of that crazy Asphodel remix edition of Persepolis. it had an upstart feel coming at a time of peak exhaustion for remix albums -- even though Naut and Karkowski's curation felt great, it had the same whiplash effect most projects like that have. going back to it for the first time in 20 years last week, I was more able to enjoy it as a time capsule, hearing tiny flickers of the source material remade totally in each composer's style, but it still required absolutely all of my attention. (Probably a good thing Volume 2 never panned out, but it was fascinating at least to hear the multitracks when they made the rounds back then)

I've only heard the original Philips vinyl Xenakis mix once, which breaks the piece into two sides and omits a bit of the piece's middle. The Fractal CD's silver cover is modelled on the original Philips vinyl cover, with João Rafael's mix in 2000. I hear the idea of that one was to match the original vinyl release as closely as possible, while staying complete, still hoping to compare (if anyone's got a good transfer of this, help me out)

The Daniel Teruggi mix on Disc 1 of the Asphodel imported the 48k masters at 44.1k, so the Asphodel version is a half-step slow. This is deal-breaking for some, but one of the pleasures of listening to this on vinyl is taking it -16% down.

The Daniel Teige mix on the 2CD Editions RZ comp around the same time is notably different -- slower fade in, mammoth modern reverb, really hovers, totally epic. My favorite for a while, but definitely an interpretation.

The Martin Wurmnest mix on Karlrecords a few years ago really gets precise and vivid with the EQs. The panning & distinction between the layers is more chiseled. Totally great! Rashaad Becker mastered all 56 minutes onto one vinyl disc, but I burned the FLACs from bandcamp.

Ooh that's good stuff, mark, though, of course, in 2020 we all know Xenakis lost an eye fighting the bloody British not the Nazis.

mark, I seem to recall you linking to a typically stimulating piece on so-called ‘extreme’ metal in which you also approach the genre from the problem of verbal congruence, i.e. which descriptors best match the sounds under discussion, how quickly criticism exhausts its designated lexical well, and what this tells us about the music ‘itself’. Have you explored these issues from a broader and more abstract theoretical point of view in any of your other essays? If so, I’d be very curious to read them.

...but...but...isn't <i>Persepolis</i> for later, this is <i>Persephassa</i> week! Ah ok then, good discussion started is well continued, go on plz :)

I'm just here to say that I've been fortunate to experience <i>Persephassa</i> live in hexagon, so to speak. I don't know how they did the coordination of the rhythms, and I cannot speak to the overall composition and organization, but I do know that towards the end, when the drumrolls were circled and bounced around the perimeter and across the diameter like hot speedy fire balloons, the thrill was as visceral and far from cerebral as any I have experienced in music.

Like that hoary Elgar quote of "I've got a tune that'll knock'em flat" for the hope & glory thing, I cannot listen to the end here without imagining Xenakis rubbing his hands going "hah this will put the ph3ar of Zeus into'em". I don't get much of this feeling from any recording I've tried, though. If it is played, go, I guess is my message.

aaargh tag fail #2419

yes sorry i posted out of order, i felt the things i was discussing in that review maybe applied to earlier works and also i knew i wd likely be busy when it reached the actual proper moment and miss it entirely

pom the two pieces are nearly 20 years apart and honestly i didn't notice or think of overlap until you pointed it out: it's absolutely a general topic i care about and plan to write more about -- but strangelyi haven't till now thought abt organising pieces under this specific heading, other things i wrote may well go in this column, i will give it a good think

Thanks, mark. It leaped out at me because it's a topic that plays well with my own critical/theoretical hobbyhorses. No pressure, obv., but if you do come back to this theme, do let me know!

Just a note that we'll pick this up next week after the holidays. My listening is largely occupied with the virtual Kalakendra Carnatic festival and catching up 2020 releases rn.

Perfect, thanks.

And we're back in the new year:

Week 11

Antikhthon (ballet), 1971
Aroura, 12 str, 1971
Charisma, cl, vc, 1971
Mikka, vn, 1971

I really have no idea how to talk about this music but Mikka is great. thought I knew it but had it confused with one of the cello pieces- this solo/chamber stuff is definitely my way in, I feel it a lot better than the big ensemble stuff which I will need to let grow on me (seems to be the other way round for some people)

Before I tackle the latest batch, I just wanted to say that I liked Persephassa better than I expected (not huge on all-percussion ensembles more often than not), and that Hibiki-Hana-Ma is wonderful both in terms of its electro-acoustic integration and its use of the biwa. Speaking of which…

https://ase-hujiko.tumblr.com/post/118838964334#

Love it!

I'm quarantined in my room outside of work hours, so I will probably be able to catch up over the next ten days. I'll start with the current batch and either work backwards or listen to multiple recordings of things-- there are at least two recordings on Spotify of the original Mikka (not Mikka S, which I imagine is different), for example.

I just listened to Mikka (Irvine Arditti recording) and Charisma (Alain Damiens/Pierre Strauch) twice each. They're both interesting. Mikka seems like a study in wide glissandi and sustained straight tones throughout the range (in register, dynamics, and timbre) of the violin. The overall shape seems comprehensible, starting quieter, almost like a sigh, emphasizing the lower register, working upwards, building to contrasting dynamic levels and scratch timbres, and ending softly closer to the upper register. I think those are glissandi on artificial harmonics in the latter part? It's effective and pleasingly crafted, affecting in its expressive range. Charisma I had a little harder time with: the 'extreme' sounds on cello and clarinet and the use of silence are definitely interesting, but I didn't quite get the form. I'll come back to it, maybe after reading a bit.

Listened to Aroura twice just now, when distracted. The intense masses of string sound contrasted with stretches of silence definitely make an impact, though, again, I wasn't sure I picked out the form.

I went back and listened to Kraanerg, quite a trip. I kept thinking something was wrong with my headphones. It sounded like recordings of the orchestra that were tape-damaged?

Yeah, orchestra + tape (mostly from processed recordings of the orchestra) iirc.

Listened to Antikthon twice now, while doing things, and read Harley on this week's pieces. I love the opening section with multiphonic clusters in the clarinets, brass clusters, and snare drums, and the fourth section with the string glissandi, although my mind did wander a bit, maybe since, again, the overall form is episodic and doesn't lead itself to an easily apparent narrative or environment ime. It's another case where I imagine the live experience might be much more intense. Mikka is definitely the standout from this week for me. Fascinating to read how it was conceived as an application of a random walk (use in designing a digital waveform) for solo instrumental writing - it makes perfect sense! Also to think about the challenges for the violinist in accurately playing those glissandi when it is harder to aurally ground oneself with reference pitches.

Week 12

Linaia-Agon, hn, trbn, tuba, 1972
Polytope de Cluny, 8-track, lighting, 1972
Eridanos, 8 brass, str orch, 1973

Sorry, I'm not doing a very good job of keeping up with Mr X at the moment. I'll try to catch up pronto.

Before I check out the last three, I did catch up with…

Antikhthon: a wonderful title, that – 'Anti-Earth'. Beyond the Pythagorean reference and the fact that Xenakis conceived it as a piece of abstract music, I can't help but read a bit of Stravinsky into it, since Georges Balanchine is the one who commissioned it for the New York City Ballet. It's nowhere near as tightly structured as a Stravinsky score, however, and, barring a few episodes here and there, it doesn't have enough going for it in terms of uniqueness to make me want to revisit it over his other orchestral works from this period.

Aroura: after 'Anti-Earth', this one reportedly just means 'Earth'. Although its moment-to-moment narrative impetus remains quite elusive, it's far more immediate to my ears: the timbral palette is narrower, which creates a sense of focus, and its rather more liberal use of silence helps punctuate proceedings, even as the 'sentences' themselves are hard to unpack. It all flows quite nicely, though I certainly couldn't tell you why!

Charisma: that cello entrance is metal af! What follows is a play of alternatively aggressive and airy sustained notes for both instruments – it's quite suggestive over its 4:30 duration. I like this miniature a lot.

Mikka: an all-glissando, all-elastic piece for solo violin. Even if I didn't know (as I now do) that it's meant to mimic a 'random walk', there's something very figurative and appealing about it from the get-go. This is a memorable piece, for sure, and Irvine Arditti unsurprisingly nails it.

I listened to two recordings of Linaia-Agon today. Before reading, it seemed far more loose and improvisatory than anything else so far and, after reading Harley, I gather that it is exactly this: a Stockhausen-inspired attempt at integrating improvisation, structured as some sort of game between the musicians. He doesn't spend that much time on it so I look forward to reading more. Wasn't sure I fully got my head around it.

Little time right now bcz of sudden stressful personal stuff, but had a whack through this week's; the Polytope I would like to gnaw more on at a later date possibly but certainly not now; the two acoustic ones felt unexpectedly... peaceful and inviting or something? Thoroughly enjoyed having them in my ear while not in the best of spaces, which I'm not sure I could say about a majority of the earlier stuff (not a diss).

Eridanos: It seems like we've lost the really clear, obvious dramatic forms of the earlier Xenakis but yes, I also find this one pleasant and inviting, even 'soft' in a way. There's still a lot of drama and intensity but I don't find it harsh and I can get lost in the sound-world, even when I'm not following an obvious form. Harley's comments are helpful:

This score pits the brass against the strings (there are no woodwinds or percussion), treating them more or less on equal terms (the strings play no glissandi at all, which is unusual). Rather than construct an architectural form from contrasting sonic entities, Xenakis looked to harmonic structures for his building blocks. Inspired by the structure of DNA chains, four elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and phosphorus) are represented by intervallic sets, divided between the brass (carbon, phosphorus) and the strings (hydrogen, oxygen). The form consists of statements (blocks of rhythmicized textures) of these elements, the overlapping succession of intervallic sets building up a structure rather in the manner of the genetic chain. These harmonic fields are subject to permutation, and are sometimes shared between brass and strings.

On occasion, between statements of the elements, episodic material is heard, built primarily from timbral and dynamic variations of a single pitch (which changes each time). There are also three moments in which the strings create an unusual sonority by bowing on the body of the instruments. These episodes serve as a foil to the ongoing dialogue, providing respite from the high density of musical information being projected and acting as connecting tissue between larger groupings of the intervallic blocks. The harmonic sets are built from quarter tones, necessitating

accuracy in performance and reception in order to distinguish between them. This intervallic intricacy is mitigated by the simplicity of the rhythms, limited to multiples of the basic sixteenth-note pulse with no layering of different tempi or subdivisions. While Eridanos is something of an anomaly in Xenakis’s output, it nonetheless points to a return to considerations of pitch organization. In the works leading up to this point, Xenakis had been more concerned with other aspects of the music, particularly on the architectural level. Through the 1970s, and manifestly in Eridanos, he became more and more preoccupied with developing more allencompassing, or at least more prominent, structures involving pitch.

Thoroughly enjoyed having them in my ear while not in the best of spaces, which I'm not sure I could say about a majority of the earlier stuff (not a diss).

Same here. Linaia-Agon in particular feels like a nice change of pace after the bold din of his previous works, and I dare say he does a better job with these quieter moods than I expected. (Also, is it just me or is the title a bit misleading?)

Eridanos feels busier and more characteristic despite the absence of glissandi. I would have preferred a bit more gestalt.

As for the Polytope de Cluny, parts of it have a bit of a 'fourth world' vibe to them thanks to the mbira, which is not an instrument I expected here given the installation's setting (the Musée de Cluny showcases artifacts from the Middle Ages and it was built on the remnants of third century Gallo-Roman baths).

Just listened to Polytope de Cluny. Although it's ofc different, I also found it relatively gentle and pleasant, with am ambient quality. Really enjoyed the sounds and textures. The mbira almost tickles the ear over the washes of noise. Apparently, it was the first piece in France to use digital synthesis?

That's probably my favourite of this week.

Week 13

Erikhthon, pf, orch, 1974
Cendrées, chorus, orch, 1973–4
Evryali, pf, 1973

"Evyrali" is awesome.

Evryali there's a halo hanging from the corner of my girlfriend's four-post bed

Listening to Aki Takahashi's performance now, I'm so used to hearing her Feldman performances that I guess I wasn't expecting this level of almost mania.

There's a lot of cascading up and down the keyboard, sometimes I suspect each hand in a different direction. This motion seems coherent, in a way, despite no clear tonal center or traditional harmonic structure, if only because the change to repeated chord clusters or a swirling monophony or dead silence feels abrupt, almost shocking.

I'm trying to balance "sounding smart" with "knowing what the heck I'm talking about," so please bear that in mind. I'm not a musician (I'm a drummer) so I'm probably using the language incorrectly.

Does anyone have a Spotify link to Cendrées to add to the playlist?

On to Cendrées now on YouTube, the version with the description in English (Chœurs de la Fondation Gulbenkian de Lisbonne / Orchestre National de France / Michel Tabachnik). I can appreciate Xenakis' dedication to the art of the glissando, but I wonder if he ever felt pigeonholed? Pressured to write glissandi anytime he was composing for strings? Do you think people stopped him on the street and begged him to do a glissando for them?

He moved away from glissandi in the Week 12 pieces!

I listened to Cendrées twice now, following the score the second time, and this is revelatory, almost exhausting (and exhaustive in the range of techniques and sonorities it integrates). I think I'm still processing it all.

From (brief) loosely structured quasi-improvisatory passages (often with expressive, emotional directions) to all the rigorously notated complex tuplets, sustained vocal drones vs barked or guttural sounds ("of rage"), masses of orchestral and choral sound vs the delicate quarter-tone flute solo and duet vs 'clouds of phantom sound', massed glissandi vs staccato bursts, the piece kind of does it all, sounds beautiful, and remains compelling the whole way through, without ever being predictable.

Tom, your description of Evryali makes perfect sense and is really not a world away from Harley's:

One of the most striking aspects of Evryali is the rhythmic drive that propels the music at a relentlessly steady pace (the sixteenth-note pulse is set at 480 MM). The music is not metric, but most passages are built upon this pulse, the exceptions being two appearances of a more rhythmically diffuse, cloudlike texture, and the three measured silences.8 Otherwise, the music is made up of three sonic entities: “waves,” arborescences, and fixed-range rhythmic passages. The waves and arborescences are closely related, in that wavelike contours form the primary outlines of the arborescent passages. The difference is that the waves are monophonic entities, whereas the arborescences are polyphonic. The sketches confirm the importance of graphic design, with the dendritic shapes of these contours being sketched on graph paper rather than plotted on score paper. From his earliest works, Xenakis often sketched musical ideas on graph paper, linking graphic designs with compositional and/or instrumentational concerns. Here, for example, he would have had to keep in mind, when tracing his arborescences, that the two hands and ten fingers of the pianist can only reach so far. In fact, Xenakis overlooked this limitation on a number of occasions, and even includes a high C#, beyond the range of any piano, in the penultimate passage of arborescences.9

As with Aroura and Eridanos, it is difficult to perceive large-scale divisions in Evryali. The alternation and layering of the different textures proceed by means of shorter and longer passages. The silences are, by their placement, treated as independent entities, resonating in a special way the extraordinary rhythmic energy of the music. Harmonically, the set intervallic structure of the static, rhythmically defined passages contrasts with the more fluid waves and arborescences that tend to proceed chromatically. There does not appear to be any overriding principle or sieve linking the numerous manifestations of the fixed-rhythm entity; each is built from a different intervallic configuration, the density ranging from three to eight pitches.10 Sieves appear to have been applied to the generation of rhythmic patterns, but the layering of these structures makes precise determination or comparison of their content virtually impossible. There is no concern on the composer’s part that these sieves be identified. In very general terms, they exhibit statistical similarities by containing values limited to just a few multiples of the basic unit of pulse.

I first listened to Kayako Matsunaga's approx 6 minute-long recording twice and felt like it went right over my head. Now I'm listening to Takahashi's 10-minute recording and it's making much more sense to me - maybe the pacing just works better for my slow brain but I definitely feel the driving pulse here and catch the melodic motives.

Confession: although I know I came across it in grad school and I think even had to read a paper about it, I don't actually know what a "sieve" is in this context. (Also, I couldn't explain Shepard tones very well if I had a gun to my head.) I will look it up soon enough since it seems pretty important in X's work, esp in this period.