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1-5. Atrées, for 10 instruments 18:00
6. Morsima-Amorsima 11:55
7. Nomos Alpha 17:55
8. Herma 8:05
1. ST/4 13:17
2. Polla Ta Dhina, for children's choir and orchestra 7:39
3. ST/10-1080262, for 10 instruments 12:15
4. Akrata, for 16 wind instruments 13:56
5. Achorripsis, for 21 instruments 5:18
Jean-Claude Bernede - Violin
Paul Boufil - Cello
Pierre Penassou - Cello
Jacques Cazauran - Double Bass
Georges Pludermacher - Piano
La Maitrise de Notre Dame - Choir/Chorus
Abbé Revert - Chorus Master
Quatuor Bernède
Instrumental Ensemble of Contemporary Music, Paris
Konstantin Simonovic - Conductor
AMG:"In few years leading up to 1962, Iannis Xenakis was preoccupied with developing a formal theory of composition such that it could be implemented on a computer. Those were early days of the digital revolution, so there were few models to follow and little access to what was then extremely expensive hardware. So, he wrote the software himself, and, in 1962, he persuaded IBM in Paris to grant him some computer time to run his programs. The results are documented in a series of compositions collected under the 'ST' banner (ST being the programming-language shorthand for 'stochastic composition'). Xenakis called his approach stochastic because it involved the rigorous application of probability functions to as many of the decision-making processes involved in composition as possible.
Of this set of pieces (ST/10, ST/4, ST/48, etc.), Atrées is the most accessible - less dry and arbitrary than its peers. For one thing, Xenakis ignored the computer output some of the time, and allowed his intuition more authority over the music. (Atrées came after the other pieces, so perhaps he was getting tired of transcribing computer data into musical scores! Though, to be fair, he would continue to use a computer as a compositional tool for much of the rest of his career.)
In any case, this work, for a mixed ensemble of winds, percussion, and strings, includes sensuous passages of sustained pitches, colored by changing instrumentation, articulation, and dynamics. The 'statistical' character that dominated the other works of the set, with dissonant intervals, irregular rhythms, and pointillistic textures, is here set into a wider-ranging context, including passages of repetitive rhythms, quasi-consonant harmonies, and other elements of musical 'normalcy.'
The five short movements can be played in any order, a fad that ran through the avant-garde circles at that time. Atrées is dedicated to the memory of Blaise Pascal, French philosopher and mathematician, who also happened to be one of the first thinkers to consider the problem of chance and probabilities. Xenakis was no doubt also inspired by Pascal's poetry.
By 1966, over a decade into his compositional career, Iannis Xenakis had written only one solo work, Herma (for piano). Nomos Alpha was an important commission for German cellist Siegfried Palm, the foremost new music performer of his day. This piece was also important for being the first manifestation of a new approach to composition that Xenakis had been developing over several years. His efforts to create an algorithm for composing music on the basis of probability (stochastic) functions resulted in a family of computer-generated works in 1962-63, including ST/10, ST/4, ST/48, Atrées, and Morsima-Amorsima (as well as parts of Eonta). Perhaps in reaction to an element of arbitrariness inherent to that approach, Xenakis turned his attention to deterministic structures again adapted from mathematics, this time group theory. He was attempting to create successions or sequences of parametric values (such as pitch, duration, dynamic level, etc.), that would be linked to each other at certain points. In this way, sections of a piece could be created on the basis of particular sequences of individual musical elements, the whole piece being a sequence of such sections. Large scale structures and events would be reflected on the smaller scale, a fractal-like notion that was ahead of its time (no one was talking of fractals in 1966). One might also think of such a musical form as being a kind of kaleidoscope in which a collection of elements are continually recombined to form new patterns.
Nomos Alpha, being for solo cello, seeks to match this concern for formal construction with the range of techniques available on the instrument. This is an uncompromising work, requiring the cellist to shift rapidly between different modes of bowing, plucking, tapping, and so on. The material is presented in kaleidoscopic fragments that atomize pretty much everything the cello is capable of. The non-linearity is striking and at approximately seventeen minutes in length, Nomos Alpha is not an easy listen. But, one might do well to note that the cello is in fact an instrument for which Xenakis has held a great deal of affection; his mother, who died when he was five, wanted him to play it. It is true that there is little nostalgia to be found in this piece, but there is an engagement with the possibilities of the instrument that is profound. For the few cellists who have attempted to perform it, the rewards have been great. For the rest of us, Nomos Alpha is remarkable for its originality of thought and for the expression of compositional ideas that lay the foundation for many of the works that follow it.
In the works of Iannis Xenakis, terms like 'form' and 'structure' are not merely metaphors for comparing a time-based art (music) to a material-based one (sculpture, architecture, etc.). Trained as an architect as well as a composer, Xenakis thought of 'structure' in literal terms and many of his works are devised to manifest a mathematical idea rather than convey a mood (although, as he might argue, numbers made audible have their own potential for a special kind of expressivity). Reaching his maturity as a composer during the 1950s, Xenakis rejected both the imperceptibility of the processes at work in the serialist music of composers like Pierre Boulez and Milton Babbitt and the arbitrariness of John Cage's emerging aleatoricism. In his works from this period, Xenakis developed a number of methods for realizing numeric principles through musical forms. These principles can be seen at work in the piece under consideration here, ST/4, composed between 1955 and 1962. Scored for string quartet, ST/4 is one of a number of pieces in Xenakis''ST' series. The title given here is actually an abbreviation of the piece's full name: ST/4-1, 080262. The ST in the title stands for 'stochastic,' the term used to describe the probability formulas that generate the tone, timbre, and timing of each musical event. The subsequent numeral 4 indicates the number of performers involved and the numeral 1 indicates that this is the first piece to use a particular generative method. The string of numbers that follow give the date of the piece's completion (February 8, 1962). Other pieces in the 'ST' series include ST/10 and ST/48, also from 1962, as well as a handful of pieces that apply similar stochastic principles but forego the unwieldy utilitarian titles (such as Morsima-Amorsima from the same year).
By the time Xenakis began composing ST/4, his generative formulas for creating structures had become complex enough and computers readily available enough that he delegated to a computer the generation of the specific note-to-note events within the larger stochastic structures delineated by his calculations. The composer thus identified the parameters within which probability calculations would be made for various musical aspects: instrumentation, pitch, note duration, timbre, attack, and others (And Xenakis was sure to make a wide variety of possibilities available, such as percussive sounds on the body of the instrument, intonational inflections, and other extended techniques). The computer was instructed to generate sound events within the parameters given; the music thus does not delineate a structure, per se, but rather laregely operates at random within a structure. The 'boundaries' of the form are not perceived, but rather are the 'space' the form contains. This seemingly mechanical process thus has a kind of organic quality in the same way that trees have a given general shape but are infinitely varied in their details of form.
During the 1960s, Greek composer Iannis Xenakis underwent a couple of major shifts in compositional technique. First, he implemented an algorithm that in 1962 saw the light as a complete computer program for generating musical data; this approach was entirely based on 'stochastics,' or probabilities. In other words, even though completely notated, his music from that period falls into the realm of indeterministic music. Soon after, though, Xenakis developed another set of tools based entirely on deterministic principles. Akrata, which was completed in 1965, falls in between, and can be seen as a transitional work. The new approach utilizes sophisticated combinatorial techniques, combining various sets of musical elements into ordered sequences. This style is evident in Akrata right from the start: single repeated notes are passed around the brass instruments, all scored in the mid-range octaves. There are no recognizable rhythms, and the effect is rather like a kaleidoscope, with the timbre, or tonal color, being the main element by which the musical architecture is delineated.
Akrata is a Greek term for 'pure,' and certainly this is unadorned music. There are no melodies to speak of, no catchy rhythmic patterns, no harmonic progressions in the usual sense. Instead, the piece proceeds on the basis of shifting densities, dynamics, and instrumental sonorities. If it is 'about' anything, Akrata is a study in building a musical structure based on ever-changing, but extremely limited, combinations of elements. The energy is created by the sharp articulations of the repeated notes as they are passed around the ensemble. The musical flow is faltering, though, as the sounds keep breaking off into silence.
Akrata also showcases Xenakis' use of 'non-sound' as a structural component - the treatment of silence as an equal to sound rather than just as an articulator of structural units (i.e., marking the ends of phrases or sections). It has a strange, austere beauty that is exemplary of the minimalist element that gained artistic prominence in the 1960s."
Chamber Music or
Chamber Music
