Comparing Style, Technique and Compositional Approach Between Works of Xenakis

‘Compare style, technique and compositional approach between an early and a late work by Xenakis.’ Xenakis was a forward thinking composer of the 20th century who progressively developed his own ideas of composition. This essay compares the style, technique and compositional approach between two pieces written by Xenakis: Metastasis (1953) and Tracees (1987). With both pieces being orchestral, comparing the pieces will show Xenakis’s true development. During his studies with Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, Xenakis was given the advice “You have the good fortune of being an architect and having studied special mathematics… Take advantage of these things. Do them in your music.”1 Following this advice, Xenakis began to incorporate his parallel interest in architecture into his musical compositions and in 1953 he produced his first published composition, Metastasis. Xenakis himself said, “Metastasis, that starting point in my life as a composer, was inspired not by music, but rather by the impression gained during the Nazi occupation of Greece.”2 When Xenakis witnessed an anti-Nazi demonstration in Athens, he listened to the sounds of the mass crowds marching, shouting slogans alongside the rumbling sounds of Nazi tanks and machine guns being fired. He could hear the sounds of each individual as part of one mass event and commented, “I shall never forget the transformation of the regular, rhythmic noise of a hundred thousand people into some fantastic disorder.”3 Xenakis used this inspiration to develop the sound masses heard in Metastasis. Xenakis states how he “used complete divisi in the strings which play large masses of pizzicati and glissandi. In other words, I do not use

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C. Fox, ‘Iannis Xenakis: sites and sounds’http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/17/iannisxenakis-huddersfield-contemporary-music (Accessed 21/11/11) 2 B. Varga, Three Questions For Sixty-Five Composers, (U.K 2011), 237 3 loc. cit.

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the term “mass” in a sociological

Bibliography: Books:     J. Harley, Xenakis: His Life In Music, (London 2005) S. Kanach, Performing Xenakis, (New York 2010) A. Ross, The Rest Is Noise (Fourth Estate), (London 2008) B. Varga, Three Questions For Sixty-Five Composers, (London 2011) Articles:   M. Rye,‘Opera and Concert Reports’, The Musical Times, 130 (1989),357-367 J. Schoner, ‘Iannis Xenakis’ Musique Stochastique’, The Musical Times, 125 (1984), 328-328 Discography:   Xenakis, Xenakis, Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris, Maurice Le Roux, (Le Chant Du Monde), LCD 278368 Xenakis, Iannis Xenakis Orchestral Works Volume 1, Orchestra Philharmonic du Luxembourg, (timpani records), 1C1057 Websites:    College St Joseph, Metastasis, http://www.stjoernee.fr/HdA_sommaire.html (Accessed 01/12/11) R. Difford, Iannis Xenakis-Composing with graphs, http://wag.myzen.co.uk/thepolytechnic/?p=239 (Accessed 30/11/11) C. Fox, ‘Iannis Xenakis: sites and sounds’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/17/iannis-xenakis-huddersfieldcontemporary-music (Accessed 21/11/11) E. Morse, ‘Iannis Xenakis’, http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/iannisxenakis/ (Accessed 21/11/11) E. Tsabary, ‘Iannis Xenais- Metastasis’ cec.sonus.ca/econtact/10_4/tsabary_treasures01.html (Accessed 01/12/11) M. Zografos, ‘Iannis Xenakis: the aesthetics of his early works’, http://www.furious.com/perfect/xenakis.html (Accessed 21/11/11)    7