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

I swear I'll get back to this soon. I'm almost done catching up with my 2021 playlist.

Can't find a recording of Koïranoï either?

The hour-long Les Bacchantes d' Euripide seems to still be unrecorded so we're going to focus on a lot of shorter works for

Week 35

Sea-Nymphs (phonemes from W. Shakespeare: The Tempest), SATB (24 minimum), 1994
Ergma, str qt, 1994
Mnamas Xapin Witoldowi Lutoslavskiemu [In Memory of Witold Lutosławski], 2 hn, 2 tpt, 1994
S 709, 2-track Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis, 1994
Ioolkos, 1995
Kaï, fl, cl, bn, tpt, trbn, vn, va, vc, db, 1995

The version of Sea-Nymphs by the BBC singers here is fantastic. I haven't focused much on the text but it's got a lot of energy, textural variation, and what sound like amazing beating effects from (I think?) quarter-tone harmonies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KsRb8CxnWE

Ergma also really enjoyable. I listened to the JACK quartet's recording a couple of times. It just grinds away for eight minutes, consistently slow and loud, with the strings usually playing crunchy clusters together in homorhythm (but not in parallel motion); players are mostly playing double stops of major sevenths or minor ninths. Might appeal to doom metal fans?

À la mémoire de Witold Lutoslawski: I listened to the recording from this album I have had a copy of for a while: https://moderecords.com/catalog/056xenakis/ . I've heard it before ofc but not in a while. It's pretty interesting, really seems to make the most out of three and half minutes, using very dense counterpoint between trumpet-horn pairs. Unlike the other two pieces, dissonance is less of a focus. There are actually a lot of clear, perfect intervals, approached with neighbouring dissonances. Relatively static dynamically and very even and steady in its rhythm, it's somewhat reminiscent of early polyphonic music, which makes sense for a memorial piece.

Ioolkos: just listened to it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNM4_8chRU4

A good, bracing one. Starts out fff and stays there for seven minutes, with counterpoint between the sections of the huge orchestra, generally harmonized in dense clusters. (I might have guessed they were in quarter-tones but Harley says they're chromatic. The extent of the dissonance is probably just coming from the density of the harmony.) I'm enjoying these compact statements.

I think the title is Ioolkos rather than Loolkos but the video is labelled as the latter.

S.709: another dynamic stochastic synthesis piece, seven minutes long. This one doesn't seem to aspire to a clear sectional form or linear narrative development; the sounds are being constantly modulated. There is a lot of variety and activity and it holds my interest but hasn't moved me very deeply beyond that. Incidentally, it is a pleasant, even gentle listen on the Electronic Music CD through my audio interface and monitor speakers but blew my ears out on a YouTube stream on my phone through cheap headphones.

We're near the end and have probably no more than 70m left of music. I'm splitting it up over the next two weeks. Somehow I missed Kaï last week so I'm adding it here.

Week 36

Voile, str, 1995
Kaï, fl, cl, bn, tpt, trbn, vn, va, vc, db, 1995
Kuïlenn, fl, 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bn, 2 hn, 1995
Hunem-Iduhey, vn, vc, 1996
Ittidra, str sextet, 1996

Voile is pretty well-crafted and satisfying. The strings play dense block chords (a 40-note sieve, apparently), then arpeggiate them, then expand on the pitch material through various textures of block chords, glissandi, arpeggios, and counterpoint, ultimately ending with large chordal statements.

oof, this has been going on 36 weeks? I'm sorry to keep missing this.

BTW I appear to have accidentally timed my trip to Paris (May 2021) at the same time the Radio France orchestra is having a Xenakis weekend!

(I intentionally timed my trip to coincide with performances of Fin De Partie by Kurtag at the Opera Ganier!).

Are these late works a little more austere than the earlier, more famous ones (sorry if that has been mentioned before)?

I can't find online versions of:
Kaï, fl, cl, bn, tpt, trbn, vn, va, vc, db, 1995
Kuïlenn, fl, 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bn, 2 hn, 1995

Yes, "austere" is probably fair. I haven't found those yet either. I did listen to three recordings of Hunem-Iduhey this morning, by Deforce/Aerts, Michell/Kanka, and Project SIS (live video). The relative dryness and clarity of Michell/Kanka made the lines very easy to pick out. Project SIS had great live energy. It's a compact 3m piece with a very steady pulse, moving between passages where one player sustains a longer note while the other plays a melodic line and passages where they play together. Again, satisfying and well-crafted.

V cool re Paris btw

I listened to Ittidra ("Arditti" backwards) twice this morning. It's interesting and seems of a piece with many of these other late pieces. Consistently fff, with the string mostly playing together in dense chromatic vertical harmonies. Has the grinding, churning quality that I've got from a few of these pieces.

And we've reached the end of our journey. Last week of this, unless recordings of some of the other pieces turn up.

Week 37

Sea-Change, 1997
O-Mega, perc solo, chbr orch, 1997
Roscobeck, vc, db, 1996
Zythos, trbn, 6 perc, 1996

I've listened to Sea-Change and O-Mega a couple of times each, the Steven Schick/ICE recording of O-Mega and this Proms recording of Sea-Change on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ocz2glNC8
Both seem a bit unfinished at first blush. Might want to read more and return to them.

Listened to Roscobeck a few times over the last couple of days and I like it a lot. Seems more substantial. Similar to Hunem-Iduhey in that it's a string duo but it's longer and for cello/double bass, which obviously makes a big difference in terms of sonority. The two players are often playing together homorhythmically or close; sounds like both are playing double-stops at times. A lot of close intervals, which can result in a muddy grind in that register, although X also pushes them both to the top of their registers as well. Pulse seems steady. Again, satisfyingly crafted.

Zythos is really nice. I listened to the recording by Benny Sluchin/Steven Schick/Red Fish Blue Fish. Steady rhythm again, and a beautiful variety of percussion and trombone timbres.

Revisiting Sea-Change (without much reading), I don't know how I ever heard it as "unfinished". It's dramatic and accomplishes a lot in its five and a half minutes (in the Proms performance). There's a tense dialogue/conflict between melodic lines in the brass and wind sections over ominous clusters that develops and reaches an unresolved, lonely-sounding conclusion.

And returning to O-Mega, again, I get a lot more out of it, both from the Steven Schick/ICE recording and what looks like a student performance from Stony Brook University from 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAOnH9Afn98

The percussionist keeps loud, powerful rhythmic material going continuously, beginning and ending the piece solo. The sections of the chamber orchestra pass harmonic and melodic material around between each other, ending, as Harley notes, with a chorale in the brass before a full ensemble phrase leading into the final solo percussion material. (I actually liked this last bit better in the SBU performance!)

And I think that's it for me, ending with iirc the last piece Xenakis ever wrote!

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/electroacoustic-works

I just finished listening to Bohor from this box set and it is so much more immediate and immersive than the two other versions I've heard (EMF and Recollection GRM). Those sound distant and tinny by comparison. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the set.

o__O. Saving that.

https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/electroacoustic-works🕸🕸

I just finished listening to Bohor from this box set and it is so much more immediate and immersive than the two other versions I've heard (EMF and Recollection GRM). Those sound distant and tinny by comparison. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the set.

Yes. My bandcamp download came with a PDF of the LP set booklet.

Yes. My bandcamp download came with a PDF of the LP set booklet.

I was going to Paris for a few days next week and someone has just pointed out this is happening while I'm there:

https://philharmoniedeparis.fr/fr/activite/exposition/24162-revolutions-xenakis

Huzzah!

I’m in Paris when Radio France is doing their weekend Xenakis festival. Have tickets to the two orchestral concerts of the series cause no American orchestra ever does.

Also seeing Kurtag’s Fin de Partie at the Opera Garnier.

Yes, it's the centenary of the big guy's birth this year... not that you'd ever hear about that in the UK of course.

Wow!

Went to the Oresteia at Oslo City Hall last week; my second time attending this work in this city, the first being iirc in the 90s with the master attending.

1) Generally good stuff under the baton of Christian Eggen, who really should get some sort of international recognition for his relentless work in the space between repertoire curiosity and tradition;

2)the scary Eumenide parts could do with being a bit louder and scarier for my taste;

3) the Kassandra – and this is by some distance my least favourite part of the work per se – totally smashed it, surpassing every recording and/or youtube rehearsal thingy I've heard. Seth Carico, I've now googled her name as being. Damn. Going outside afterwards, I heard random audience members holler Kassandra-like lines into the night, not kidding.

btw: I fell off the main course of this thread at least a couple of times for various personal reasons, last around the middle of 2021 it seems. The thread is an astonishing trove of reactions, knowledge, lore, musings, etc. There is no doubt I'll pick up the entire project at some time and pretend I was there with you. Sincere thanks, Sund4r; missing pom.

Oh it was my pleasure, glad you enjoyed it. The live experience sounds great. I finally got around to buying the Apex 2CD set with the Ensemble Intercontemporain on disc 1 (Phlegra, Jalons, etc) and all the harpsichord pieces by Chojnacka on disc 2. Love having all those harpsichord pieces in one place - a great listen.