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

Jonchaies is incredible, yes – top 5, possibly top 3 Xenakis for me.

I'll try to catch back up tonight, the metal poll rollout had me busy most of last week. Spotify is as updated as I could get it, unless someone has a bead on A Colone or Retours-Windungen.

I bought the New London Chamber Choir/Critical Band/James Woods album Xenakis: Choral Music on iTunes since I couldn't find a streaming version of "À Colone" anywhere. It doesn't seem like the most exciting of his works. The singers mostly chant/declaim in ancient Greek (from Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus apparently) with occasional brass punctuations. There is a brief melodic instrumental introduction. The liner notes describe that this was Xenakis's effort to recreate speech patterns of the fifth century BC. I don't dislike it but I feel like I might get more out of it if I knew the language or had studied the text? At least the next track on the album is the mind-warping "Nuits".

Do people want a week to catch up after the metal poll?

I didn't dare ask, but that would be great, yeah.

No problem, also gives me time to listen to more of the metal albums (and do a little listening before Rundgren ballots are due!).

Thanks!

Listening to Khoaï now, it really is a trip. Is this solo harpsichord? Some of these sounds don't seem like they could have existed in the 17th century, but I guess theoretically they could have if anyone had thought to play them. Sounds like video game music, if you play really weird video games.

According to this article:

The continuous and very quick change of registers is possible only with modern harpsichords where registration can be made using pedals. If the piece is performed on a historical copy the player will be forced to ignore a great deal of these indications.

Harley also notes that Elisabeth Chojnacka, for whom the piece was written, incorporated "amplification as an essential element of her instrument".

Ah. I noticed some seemingly impossible timbre changes at one point near the middle, too, I wonder if that was a modern innovation. FWIW I didn't even know they were still making harpsichords until maybe a few months ago.

What I didn't know was that there was a modern harpsichord developed in the 20th century, heavily influenced by the piano (and perhaps the organ??) which apparently fell somewhat out of favour with the HIP trend in the late 20th century: these have 4', 8', and 16' registers controlled by pedals, and which can also be partially engaged to allow for some timbral variety. (You can find excerpts of the score for Khoaï that have staves for these different registers.) Seems they also have other differences like wound steel strings, metal casing, hard leather plectra, and more powerful soundboards (and possibility of amplification). There's some info near the bottom of this; the author is clearly not a fan: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-harpsichord/history-and-construction-of-the-harpsichord/3A52A2F5D80CF9382932EF6E1024EA02/core-reader

Based on the fact that it made Khoaï possible, I think I'm a fan.

Haha yeah there's a little 'editorial' in that tone. "Deficient sound," etc. I have a hard time understanding people who think you can't (shouldn't?) improve on technology in 400 years.

I'm not sure he's right about the early 20th c modern harpsichord being used widely by pop/rock artists. I think this is the instrument that was used in 60s pop; it seems much more stripped-down, without the pedals etc, just with a guitar pickup: http://collections.nmc.ca/objects/205/baldwin-electric-harpsichord?ctx=cedc754f-cd3e-4924-980f-7da04725a0e2&idx=8

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/PleyelGrandModeleDeConcert.JPG/600px-PleyelGrandModeleDeConcert.JPG

vs

http://collections.nmc.ca/internal/media/dispatcher/741/preview

If any rock bands did in fact use the kind of modern harpsichord that was played by Chojnacka and Landowska, I def want to hear it, though.

Getting OT but Tori Amos? This definitely doesn't look (or really sound) like the Baldwin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vi-hnpvMt0

And getting back on topic, here's our listening for this week. Between 45-50m this week; a mix of small ensembles, solo, and tape music. I'm leaving La légende d'Éer for next week, since it is 46m on its own.

Week 19

À Hélène, Mez, female vv, 2 cl, 1977
Akanthos, 9 insts, 1977
Kottos, vc, 1977
Ikhoor, str trio, 1978
Mycenae alpha, 2-track, UPIC, 1978

Just in for a nod in agreement to Jonchaies being a monster. I already knew that, of course... because it was in pom's period polls not too long ago, where glowing talk about it made me check it out. :)

Happy to hear it. :)

I've fallen behind but I'll try to catch up in the coming days.

So have I tbh. 21st Century Guitar took up my whole week.

So, based on one listen while putting together breakfast and dealing with the sound of construction, À Hélène seems like another declamation, although with what I think of as more conventional choral vocal timbres (at least in this recording) and with a bit more to it melodically - nothing very disjunct or dissonant but no strong sense of development or dynamic range. I'm listening to a version by members of the Danish Natl Radio Choir on NML. Are there clarinets in other recordings? This is just voices.

Akanthos otoh seems really gripping and emotional. I was listening to the recording by Tony Arnold and ICE from this album: https://moderecords.com/catalog/261xenakis/ . It flows really organically, the wordless vocal is really expressive, and the instrumental responses are evocative and dramatic. Very effective blend of X's timbral and dynamic explorations with melody and pulse.

I listened to Rohan De Saram's recording of Kottos from the Arditti album. It's pretty cool. Seems to juxtapose deep scratch tones (on-the-bridge bowing acc to Harley - just checked), glissandi (with art. harmonics), and long bowed pitches, then develop each of these ideas with greater activity, again keeping a good pulse near the end.

I stuck with the same album for the string trio Ikhoor. This is a satisfyingly constructed and energetic piece that again juxtaposes and reconciles a couple of ideas. It starts with quick rhythmic hocketing between the three players, over which glissandi begin to emerge, which become a focus of the B section. Some ostinato material also appears here. We then return to the rhythmic back-and-forth but using something closer to the ostinato material now, before we get to longer sustained harmonics, which again become rhythmic.

Mycenae alpha: all right, no mellowing here. This is a nicely raw and bracing slice of noise with effective stereo movement. What sounds like a flanging effect at times. The comparative simplicity of the 2-track construction actually means that it translates v well to headphone listening. Reading a bit from here, it seems that the UPIC system was an early system for transforming graphic composition into sound, where the composer would draw on a tablet w axes for pitch and time: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02986061/document . You can see some of his preparatory sketches here: https://fr.calameo.com/read/0043738738c59884d6fd2?page=1

Superficially catching up…

Retours-Windungen: watched the Ensemble Nomos's performance on YT and it was quite placid and pleasant despite its forward momentum. I am not at all surprised that it was written for the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, who don't appear to have recorded it, however.

Dmaathen: an unexpected pairing, and since I, like anatol_merklich, also love the oboe, I am quite taken with this piece's archaisms. In fact I prefer it to his works for solo percussion.

Khoaï: this is way more metal than 99% of avant-metal fare, and I'm here for it (listened to Jukka Tiensuu's recording).

Mikka ‘S’: I know this one from the Arditti two-fer and I still enjoy its deceptive single-mindedness a great deal.

Jonchaies: spectacular, possibly the peak of his orchestral output as far as I'm concerned. Per Nørgård's Terrains vagues, a belated offshoot of Jonchaies, is also worth looking into if you're a fan.

A Colone: Xenakis in his Ancient Greek ceremonial mode, and too text-oriented to speak to this non-Greek speaker.

À Hélène: along similar lines, although I much prefer this one, perhaps due to its relative accessibility melody-wise (there was no clarinet on the version I heard btw, by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart).

Akanthos: more enjoyable still, in no small part thanks to Tony Arnold's performance and because this piece comes across as a synthesis of the ancient and the modern rather than a doomed attempt at recreating the former.

Kottos: I get why Nomos alpha's controlled chaos is more revolutionary, but I think I prefer this one for its craftsmanship and overall coherence.

Ikhoor: Harley points out that this one owes much to Jonchaies and exhibits a greater concern for tempo and pulse, which I think suits Xenakis quite well and partly explains why late 70s/early 80s Xenakis may well be my favourite of his avatars.

Mycenae alpha: loses some of the sense of discovery that marked his early electronic works but more than makes up for it in simplicity of execution.

still have to get to most of these. butsince it hasn't come up yet about Jonchaies, it's worth noting: its middle section is basically a straight transcription of the rendered computer music crescendo at the center of Legende d'eer

I know a lot of people who always rate the orchestral works as The Work, and point to his transcriptions of his electronic efforts almost as proof that they were mostly useful as research. But that unbelievable rhythmic shepard's tonepile in the middle, it still does the exact same thing to my brain every time I hear it, it goes all the way in, that piece is still the summit for me. Hearing Jonchaies nailed all these issues for me about what a score is, what's an artifact, what depicts a sound...

Unlike Persepolis there aren't too many mixes of it out there, just make for sure you are not listening to one released on Mode. the 2016 one on Karlrecords from a few years ago does some interesting things with EQs that amp it all up without ruining it. but it's still the original stereo on Auvidis right down to the cosmic liners, which a generous person uploaded: https://www.discogs.com/Iannis-Xenakis-La-L%C3%A9gende-DEer/release/978498

As promised,
Week 20

La legénde d'Eer (Diatope), 4- or 8-track, 1977

Well, this is delightful brain-melting noise so far.

I'm listening to the 2003 Naive release, on NML. It's almost done and it was very satisfying - the overall shape is very clear, there's a lot of sonic variety, and I really enjoy the high tones that begin and end the piece. I gather it's a mix of synthesized and prerecorded sounds?

And we're back with:

Week 21
Anemoessa (phonemic text), SATB (42 minimum), orch, 1979
Dikhthas, vn, pf, 1979
Palimpsest, eng hn, b cl, bn, hn, perc, pf, str qnt, 1979
Aïs, amp Bar, perc, orch, 1980

42m percussion ensemble piece Pleïades will get its own week next week.

Falling behind as usual, but I always catch up in the end, so it's only a matter of time…

Spotify playlist caught up, me not so much. Let me know if there are better recordings, different recordings, any recordings of Anemoessa, etc that I can add. Easy enough to skip around if there are four different interesting versions of one piece.

There are four (!) recordings of Pleiades on Spotify, if anyone already has a favorite, lemme no

(I know I'm the resident percussionist, which makes this request all the more ardent)

Can't go wrong with the Percussions de Strasbourg.

Anemoessa: I listened to this version, credited to "Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Chorus of the Netherlands Radio; Richard Dufallo. Concertgebouw Amsterdam, 16/06/1979" (?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH0ss-cIigk
It's got great mood and sweeping drama with dense masses of orchestral and choral sound. The choir often just turns into a wash of sound. Harley notes that the material for choir is very similar to the material for orchestra (quarter-tone clusters, glissandi), which makes sense.

Dikthas: I just listened to the Irvine Arditti/Claude Helffler recording of this violin/piano duo twice while spaced out and reading ilx and working on taxes. Seems like a fun dialogue between the two parts, with a lot of variation in texture, dynamics, register, and activity.

Palimpsest: I really like this one. I listened to the recording by Aki Takahashi/Society for New Music/Charles Peltz. Very energetic and complex but still easy enough to follow (as this kind of thing goes). Rhythm seems to be the focus here and there's usually a pulse, against which you have all kinds of layered cross-rhythms, or which break for bracing metrical changes. (Harley says up to four simultaneous tempi just in the opening piano solo!) There are clear motives. The piano, string, wind, and percussion parts are all treated something like distinct entities that are sometimes featured on their own, sometimes juxtaposed against each other, then combined about 10m in into a homophonic chorale-like texture. Harley notes that it is a relatively rare piece that has no microtones; we actually end up in modal territory eventually. Really clear, dramatic, satisfying conclusion.

I listened to Aïs twice last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, the energy and interplay between the baritone singing a three-octave range of material, the orchestra, and the percussion - never really reverting to a traditional voice + accompaniment texture. I feel like Xenakis was mostly having fun with his material in this period.

And as promised, 42 minutes of percussion for this week:

Week 22
Pléïades, 6 perc, 1979

I love Xenakis' more percussive and textural orchestral pieces. The opening to Pithoprakta is exactly the kind of thing I need sometimes, and this piece certainly takes those concepts and explores everything so much further, and it's far more "precise"

Currently listening to the Les Percussions de Strasbourg (DENON recording, 1988) version, but there appears to be one released a couple years ago by DeciBells under Domenico Melchiorre that is six minutes longer. Definitely enjoying the Strasbourg version so far, but very curious to hear other versions now too. Other Xenakis recordings done in the last 10 years really have some amazing recording quality (better mics? mic placement?) that pulls you into the sounds more viscerally, especially when listening on a good setup.

I've listened to three recordings now: Kroumata Percussion Ensemble (1990), Red Fish Blue Fish/Steven Schick (2007), and the Strasbourg (86). Interesting that none of them exactly follow either of the two possible orderings that Harley says X allowed!:

The composer allows for two different orderings of the movements: (1) Claviers—Peaux—Métaux—Mélanges; and (2) Mélanges—Claviers—Métaux—Peaux.

The Strasbourg and RFBF recordings reverse the order of "Claviers" and "Métaux" in (2). Kroumata do it Métaux-Claviers-Mélanges-Peaux (which kind of works!).

The microtonal "sixxen" instruments that were designed for the "Métaux" movement sound really pleasant in the Kroumata recording and it's easy to pick out the different layers - generally, layering parts in different tempi seems to be a core idea of this piece. My favourite is "Claviers", where we start with a melody played in unison that then starts to diverge as the different mallet percussion players start playing it at different tempi - it actually reminded me a bit of Reich. Overall, it's a piece that rewards close listening, I find, while I also think it does some dazzling and spectacular things that I can imagine a general audience latching onto.

Week 23

Komboï, amp hpd, perc, 1981; Chojnacka, Gualda, Metz, 22 Nov 1981
Embellie, va, 1981; G. Renon-McLaughlin, Paris, 1981
Nekuïa (phonemes and text from J.-P. Richter: Siebenkäs and Xenakis: Ecoute), SATB (54 minimum), orch, 1981
Pour les baleines, str, 1982

Welcome to the 1980s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6f8X306XLk

I listened to Komboï yesterday morning, the Chojnacka/Gualda recording. I was listening casually but really liked it - the manic glitch electronica/proto-Aphex Twin qualities in Khoaï mentioned above seem even stronger in this - really interesting and gripping rhythms. Reading Harley now:

The combination of harpsichord and percussion is not at all a common one, but the percussive nature of the keyboard, together with the power it is capable of when amplified, makes it an interesting match for the percussion’s range of sonorities and dynamics. Rather than exploit the aggressive chararacteristics of the instruments, however, Xenakis creates passages of delicacy and beauty, particularly in the combination of harpsichord and vibraphone.

The title, Komboï, means “knots,” in this case of rhythms, timbres, structures, personalities (Xenakis 1982b). There are, as might be expected, a wide range of rhythmic structures and patterns deployed. The opening, for example, launches into a fast, regular pulsation on the bongo. Xenakis sets up an interlocking pattern of accents on top of the ticking drum: the dynamic accents at first follow a durational pattern of 8–3–3; the timbral accents, manifested by punctuations on other drums, follow a more variable pattern of 4–4–long (18, 30,16). The variation of these elements, together with the agogic accent created by the occasional shift of the bongo pulse to triplets, continues through the first section.

Set against this, the harpsichord outlines a pitch sieve by means of rising chordal sequences. This sieve bears little resemblance to the pelog sonorities of Serment or Jonchaies. There are no adjacent intervals of a major third, and there are segments of three whole steps outlining whole-tone tritone segments. The pattern of the six-note chords remains fixed, and the harpsichord continues the passage by fragmenting the rising sequences into increasing disjunct segments. A brief reference to Mists is found at m. 16. An elaborate arborescent flourish in the harpsichord drops down to the low register in preparation for a pause, then the vibraphone signals the second section.

As in the piano solo from the previous year, this long section features stochastic clouds of notes, beginning with the harpsichord (the pitches belong to the same sieve as before), then adding the vibraphone. In his score, Xenakis uses the word crystalline to describe the character of this passage. The timbres of the two instruments fuse in a remarkable way, creating a sound of striking beauty. The density and ambitus of the notes ebb and flow, passing back and forth between the instruments. The two do not share the same pitch sieve, counteracting the timbral synthesis of the instrumental combination. Brief interjections of a repeated chord in the vibraphone (an A major triad with an added B) act as transition to the next section, which continues the combination of harpsichord and vibraphone but in a completely different style.

In a passage toward the end of Dikhthas Xenakis creates a tonal, toccata-like atmosphere by combining two modal segments. Komboï contains a similar section, though the sonority is much closer to gamelan than to Beethoven. A three-note pattern in the harpsichord is juxtaposed against a four-note pattern in the vibraphone, with additional gonglike punctuations from lower notes in both instruments. As in the beginning, Xenakis layers a number of temporal patterns onto the pulsating three-note figure in the harpsichord. While the left hand of the harpsichord creates a triplet pattern, accenting every three notes, the vibraphone articulates a more complex pattern: 3–3–3–3– 3–2/3–3–3–2/3–3–2. The number of repetitions of the triplet follows a 5–3–2 pattern. Interestingly, the ordering of the notes, both in the vibraphone and the harpsichord, repeats, these cycles coinciding with the rhythmic cycle of the vibraphone. Thus, the material is very carefully constructed, setting up a cycle of repetition that, once established, is then subject to permutation.

After well over a minute of this, the harpsichord breaks out with another Mists-like flourish, only to have the vibraphone jump right back in, taking over the harpsichord’s pattern from before. This reversal carries into a more radical variation, a rhythmic layering in which each instrument sees its material broken into two independent tempi. Subsequently, the hitherto static pitch material opens out into layered contours, meandering lower and lower until the section ends with an ascent and final pause, the gamelan sonority ringing on.

A sparser passage follows, built on a fixed sonority of two interlocking chords different from the previous section. They are paired either with the vibraphone or the harpsichord, but the vibraphone soon drops out to switch to woodblocks. Gradually, a regular pulse is built up, the harpsichord playing an irregular pattern of alternations between the two chords. As the woodblocks join the pulse, the harpsichord breaks away, first with another flourish of layered runs and then with a much more sporadic continuation of the two chords. The irregular structure of the harpsichord part leads quite smoothly into a second passage of stochastic flurries, this time in counterpoint to the regular pulse in the woodblocks. A further rhythmic variation is introduced in a short passage for harpsichord as the woodblocks fade out, where two-part layered scalar contours accordion in and out over the range of the keyboards.

The fifth section of Komboï features the harpsichord alone. In an effort to explore the subtle resonances and timbral changes the instrument is capable of, Xenakis asks the player to keep her fingers down on a ten-note chord. The passage consists of pseudo-melodies created by the articulations of these notes one at a time, punctuated by chords of both hands, or one or the other. These are accentuated by the addition of registral changes effected by the pedals. After some two minutes, the music finally breaks away to new pitch material, though still held to the same narrow range. As the percussion enters, the harpsichord shifts—after a break—to a reprise of the two-part, layered running contours, sailing right into another stochastic passage. The final section, the longest at over four minutes, constitutes an extended series of variations on seven chords, set against a whole range of rhythmic and timbral elements in the percussion, most notably a set of ceramic flowerpots. The chords, of variable intervallic content, are first introduced in order, accompanied by an irregular rhythmic structure on the woodblocks and drums. Thereafter, the progression is reordered in an unpredictable fashion, though the seventh chord becomes a kind of anchor, recurring more often than the others. As the percussion shifts to stochastic rhythms, the left- and right-hand components of the chords become separated and start to be treated independently. Finally, as the percussion switches to the flowerpots, the harpsichord repeats the seventh chord in its entirety for twelve beats. The percussion then takes over the pulse and the harpsichord launches into a complex passage in which the chordal components are again reordered and recombined, colored by intricate pedal changes (like the solo passage earlier). With various pauses and fluctuations of density, this material continues to the end, along with the evocative ceramic sonority of the flowerpots.5 The final chord is a composite, created from the left-hand portion of the sixth chord and the right-hand portion of the seventh chord.

At seventeen minutes, Komboï is one of Xenakis’s more substantial chamber works. The sections are laid out on a broad scale, with many “knots” and fluctuations of elements. It is striking just how well the two instruments go together. The plucked metallic sound of the harpsichord blends both with the vibraphone and the ringing tones of the flowerpots (strokes of a vivid sonic imagination). The various types of rhythmic material are familiar from earlier works, but the range of harmonic material is new. There is not just one sieve used, but several, and chords or melodic patterns of limited range are chosen with care.

Coming back to it this morning, this might be one of my favourites.

I haven't picked out all the pitch material but it really does manage to be pretty, varied, and energetic, and I really appreciate what's going on with texture, dynamics, and rhythm.

Going to slowly catch up with everything I missed before the week's through.

If you'll allow a preliminary challop, I think La Légende d'Eer is way too long for its own good.

I put both the recording Sund4r was listening to, and one by Huang and Wettstein, on the Spotify playlist, partly because it sounds intersting, partly because two of these pieces aren't on Spotify and I figured I could flesh the playlist out.

I listened to Garth Knox's recording of Embellie a couple of times - very cool through-composed work for solo viola; he really exploits the range of the oft-overlooked instrument while writing something pensive and expressive. It begins with a lyrical melody that is developed and treated in counterpoint with good use of double stops, then moves to more similar/parallel motion before the 2m mark, then we move to something like a call and response between a single voice and double stops. A folky melody enters, seemingly against a pedal. Then at the 4m mark, we move to a more active passage of more typical Xenakis string writing, with glissandi and fast virtuosic material spanning the instrument's registers; sounds like we're getting more quarter-tones here? In the last minute or two, he seems to reconcile the different textural and rhythmic ideas while also bringing in more scratch tones and increased glissando effects.

There's a broad overall progression in terms of sound and timbre,