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

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,

Curious where the title comes from - as I understand, it could mean both "embellished" and "a lull".

Anyone know of a recording of Pour les baleines?

Found one - listened a few times. It's a 2.5m miniature, written for a Greenpeace benefit. Gets through a lot of string techniques, textures, and dynamic levels in its short time - the glissandi mimic whale songs at the end. Nice minor work.

Listened to this (OOP) recording of Nekuïa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Txie4lAMk
It's fantastic! Has a cinematic quality (in the horror-film sense), with the integration of more typical sound mass and glissando textures with a focus on more melodic material, at times a bit reminiscent of Bartok, sometimes almost post-Wagnerian and sweeping in character. A lot of intense dynamics and percussive sfz attacks.

Week 24

Pour la Paix (Xenakis), SATB, 2 female spkrs, 2 male spkrs, tape (UPIC), 1981, version for SATB (32 minimum)
Serment-Orkos (Hippocrates), SATB (32 minimum), 1981
Pour Maurice, Bar, pf, 1982
Mists, pf, 1981
Lichens, 1983

A bit of everything this week

I listened to Serment-Orkos and Pour Maurice, two short vocal works, this morning. I enjoyed both but don't have a lot to say about them yet. The latter is especially cool, with manic atonal piano and the baritone jumping through registers in vocalise. The former sounds like there may be crunchy quarter-tone clusters in the choral harmonies (perhaps just dense clusters?) but has some relatively clear and simple melodic motifs. Feels like there's a centre on D at times.

I listened to Mists a few times, first Klara Kormendi's recording, then Roger Woodward's, which I vastly preferred. Harley describes the form as tripartite, with a section based on linear 'arborescences', a section based on stochastic clouds of notes, and a final section that alternates passages of these two ideas. The overall energy and dynamic and registral range come across really fluidly in Woodward's playing.

I wasn't real into Komboi, but I've never really warmed to 20th century percussion music for some reason. I guess it's a good thing I didn't try to go to conservatory, or maybe I'd have a different view on it if I was playing it for a living? I haven't made it to Embellie yet, but it's short, so I'll start there this weekend and maybe trawl through the thread for YT links and such for what I've missed.

There's a good chance you wouldn't be playing Xenakis for a living even if you did go to conservatory. :P

But, yeah, formal study can make a difference in your appreciation, although otoh X himself thought his listeners should need no special training.

I was listening to "Pour la Paix" walking home from work today! It's not very good though.

French/French based electroacoustic composers overly fond of spoken word imo.

X is usually not! Where did you find that piece?

Got it from a blog.

I found a couple things on slsk, too-- Pour la Paix and Pour les Baleines. Pour Maurice is on YT, I have that queued up.

Listening now to Embellies, which I really enjoy. It sounds like the player is playing too hard to keep in tune, which I suspect is microtonality, not pure punk rock aggression on the viola.

Lichens is much more exciting than the name implies imho

Pour Maurice using a lot of falsetto. There's also a recording on YouTube of a soprano singing it, which I'm not sure is going to be tolerable, but we'll see.

Actually nothing particularly shrill, if anything it's amusing to hear her bottom out on the low notes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVr7juBq2jg

Tom D OTM about Pour la Paix. Feels like the ending of Evangelion or something, important sounding dialogue I can almost follow sometimes separated by WTF moments. Also, in keeping with my near failure of French II in middle school, I almost wrote "Pour le Paix".

Really enjoying Nekuia. This doesn't seem so much farther out than Shostakovich or Schmidt symphonies. Why isn't this programmed?

Found Pour la paix here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKflilo45tk

It's definitely different from anything else so far in the way it's built around the spoken-word narrative by Xenakis's wife Françoise. Tom, I don't think the text is easy to follow - I used Youtube closed captions the first time I listened closely since, aside from the narrative itself being a bit rarefied and poetic and jumping around a lot in its timeline, the spoken voices are also soft compared to the electronic and choral sounds with which they are juxtaposed, are shifted around on the stereo soundstage, and are sometimes treated with effects. (Youtube captions also had trouble following the text, esp during denser passages.) The story is actually kind of beautiful, though, and the sonic treatment of the text is interesting and has a definite impact, when I come back to it on a second listen after having parsed the narrative. In the end, I just don't see myself coming back often to a piece that is so heavily text-based.

I also found Lichens exciting. A lot of energy, variety, and movement. Starts with just strings. Apparently, there's some kind of micro-heterophony going on where similar lines are being played at different tempo but it's hard to pick out. Feels like we have some clusters and glissandi here. Piece builds up with aggressive percussion and some back-and-forth with winds.

Week 25 (!)

Shaar, str, 1983
Chant des Soleils (Xenakis, after P. du Mans), SATB, children’s choir, 18 brass 6 (hn, 6 tpt, 6 trbn) or multiple, perc, 1983
Khal Perr, brass qnt, 2 perc, 1983
Tetras, str qt, 1983

I wish that Xenakis remix disc had included a version of Pour la Paix that replaced all the text with the narration from "Dead Flag Blues."

On a couple of listens (Tamayo/Luxembourg and an unlabelled recording on Youtube), Shaar seems like a good, enjoyable piece that mostly works the territory Xenakis has established in string pieces so far (clusters, glissandi, density of texture). Khal Perr (recording from Wallace Collection; Miller, John; Wallace, John; Gunton, Simon; Hathaway, Kevin; Terian, Christopher; Haggart, Robin) stands out a bit more, with more of a sense of dialogue between individual voices.

I'm a fan of string quartets but Tetras still hasn't really connected with me, for some reason. I listened to the Arditti and Jack recordings this week. It might actually be the first piece that just hasn't made that much of an impression.

Couldn't find a recording of Chant des soleils on NML, Spotify, Youtube, or iTunes.

Week 26

Thalleïn, pic, ob, cl, bn, hn, pic tpt, trbn, perc, pf, str qnt, 1984
Naama, amp hpd, 1984
Alax, 3 ens of 10 insts (fl, cl, 2 hn, trbn, hp, perc, vn, 2 vc), 1985

I just listened to Chojnacka's recording of Naama. Feels a bit different from the previous solo harpsichord pieces. More percussive stabs of clusters with a clear pulse, contrasted and then combined with passages of softer, less dense motivic material. I really like the sounds he (and she) get out of the harpsichord. Pretty intense and satisfying as a composition.

I'll return and listen more analytically but even just listening casually, the sheer energy and timbral and textural richness and variety of Thalleïn seem gripping. The sonorities are blended really well.

There's a brain-smearing quality.

Here's Chojnacka performing Naama live in 1986. Fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDGOfc--ndU

Wow, very cool. Page turn!

Love the athleticism of that.

Alax is really enjoyable, too, although, again I didn't listen that analytically. Starts out with very high violin harmonics, combines dense massed clusters with some intense percussion, a fascinating passage where brass instruments 'chant' like the voices in some of his choral pieces, some more homophonic chorale-like textures, and even some clear, simple melodic themes that work really well.

Satisfying how it picks up rhythmic energy in the final section and then comes to a clear unified conclusion

Week 27
Idmen A/Idmen B (phonemes from Hesiod: Theogony), SATB (64 minimum), 4/6 perc, 1985
Nyûyô [Setting Sun], shakuhachi, sangen, 2 koto; 1985
Horos, 1986

This is the only recording I could find of Nyûyô. Whoever uploaded it couldn't provide much info on it, even the performers, but it does seem like it matches Harley's description of the piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luUS_rg42AI

It's really beautiful and quite different for Xenakis.

Harley:

Xenakis had long been fascinated with the culture of Japan. His first visit there was in 1961, and he often returned. Early on, he noted the parallels between Noh theater and ancient Greek drama, and was much taken with the “noisy” timbres (and lack of vibrato) of the voices and instruments (Matossian 1986, 146–47). In 1985, when approached to compose for a traditional Japanese ensemble, Xenakis was happy to oblige: “‘I wanted to combine the Eastern tradition with a Western style. It is a challenge, of sorts, and I wanted to take it up’” (Langlois 1996, 7). Nyuyo (“setting sun”) is scored for shakuhachi (traditional bamboo flute) and three plucked string instruments: a sangen and two kotos. Given the composer’s own predilection for unusual timbres, playing techniques, and nonvibrato sonorities, the musical rapprochement was easier than might otherwise have been the case. In addition, the modal nature of Japanese music resembles the pitch-sieve model that Xenakis had developed, even if he has generally drawn a closer connection to the Javanese pelog. The piece draws its material from a single sieve, but in some passages the strong accents, glissandi, and breath sounds have the effect of shifting attention away from pitch to the timbres.

Proceeding in segments, the form of Nyuyo can be distinguished primarily by the alternation between passages featuring the shakuhachi and those that do not. The flute tends to play long held notes, modulated by changes of timbre or articulation. The plucked instruments propel the music with patterns of continuous pulse, sporadically adorned with characteristic sharp attacks, often in a lower or higher register. In the fourth section, the rhythmic flow is disturbed by a sparse texture of unusual sonorities. There are seven sections in this score of some ten minutes’ duration.

Essentially, Nyuyo is quite typical of this composer’s style, albeit using a novel instrumentation. For someone familiar with traditional Japanese music, what would be immediately apparent is the stiffness of the rhythms and ensemble coordination. Japanese music, while sometimes notated, is primarily an aural discipline. In ensemble playing, cues for entrances come from listening to other parts, and there is a built-in fluidity to the flow of time in the music that, while often quite subtle, is highly characteristic (Shonu 1987). Toru Takemitsu, who spent several years studying traditional Japanese music, particularly in conjunction with his large-scale work for gagaku (a large ensemble of traditional instruments), In an Autumn Garden (1973–79), has written, “The metrical system of modern European music is controlled by absolute time that is determined in a physical manner. Variations in tempo brought about by agogics, although plastic in nature, still work within a time scheme that is linear and single-layered. Rhythmic type…in which the length of each beat is different, and the practice according to which… instruments proceed in different time schemes simultaneously, do not have equivalents in Western practice” (Takemitsu 1987, 11–12).

Xenakis would no doubt have studied recordings of Japanese music, and he incorporates a number of idiomatic elements, particularly the attacks, glissando ornaments, and breath sounds of the shakuhachi. The rhythmic structure of the music, though, is typical of his own style, and even simpler than most of his other scores, no doubt to take account of the ensemble’s lack of experience outside of its traditional domain. In 1993, French flutist Cécile Daroux worked with Xenakis on a transcription of Nyuyo for flute and three guitars. The result is very successful, an indication that this peculiarly idiosyncratic mixture of Eastern and Western elements can be applied in both directions.

Horos: just listened for the first time without reading anything. Quite dramatic; at times, feels almost like there's a bit of the rhetoric of post-Romantic orchestral music and there are some clear themes and a clear pulse, although we also get gagaku-like sonorities (from quarter-tone clusters?). The conclusion is lovely.

OK, reading Harley on this one, it's fascinating. It seems to be built in part on an idea of "cellular automata":

A simple cellular automaton consists of a sequence of nodes on a line, each of which may be given a value of 1 or 0. Each node evolves in discrete time steps according to rules concerning the values of its nearest neighbors (see fig. 27). Depending on the configuration of the rules (the behavior of each of the eight neighbor combinations is arbitrary), the automaton will settle onto a homogeneous state (such as “saturated” or “empty”) or will evolve into a self-replicating pattern resembling a fractal.

He refers to one passage where a single note opens up into a much denser pattern. There's a Klangfarbenmelodie idea going on as well, which I noticed much more clearly on second listen - there are patterns of chords where the orchestration changes on each chord; it also sounds to me like pulses repeat on single notes or chords while timbres shift. (From reading, it seems like he was thinking in chordal terms more here than in other pieces; also rhythmic ostinati were important, which is evident.)

There's a score-following video on Youtube. I think I would benefit from close reading/listening with this one.

I am the Idmen (A)
They are the Idmen (B)
I am the walrus

I'm going to try to catch up tonight, or at least listen to this week's stuff. If anyone has a recording of Idmen, let us know.

Haha.

Seems like there are a couple of recordings on Youtube

https://soundcloud.com/n_l_c_c/sets/yannis-xenakis-idmen-a-and

I guess they did Idmen A + B at BBC Proms in 2003?

Yeah I opened my dumb mouth before searching. xpost