Xenakis, Iannis

(b Braïla, ?29 May 1922). French composer of Greek parentage. He belongs to the pioneering generation of composers who revolutionized 20th-century music after World War II. With the ardour of an outsider to academic musical life, he was one of the first to replace traditional musical thinking with radical new concepts of sound composition. His musical language had a strong influence on many younger composers in and outside of Europe, but it remained singular for its uncompromising harshness and conceptual rigour.

1. Early life.

2. Architecture.

3. Musical research.

4. Works overview.

5. Early works.

6. ‘Metastaseis’.

7. Macroscopic stochastic music.

8. ‘Symbolic music’.

9. Ancient theatre and Polytopes.

10. Microscopic stochastic music.

11. ‘Morphological’ compositions.

12. Globally tempered sieves and cellular automata.

13. Electro-acoustic works.

WORKS

WRITINGS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PETER HOFFMANN

Xenakis, Iannis

1. Early life.

The eldest child of a Greek businessman, he was born in Romania, and at the age of ten was sent to a boarding school on the Greek island of Spetsai. An outsider there, he immersed himself in science and Greek literature, both of which were to become lifelong interests. His early musical experiences were various: at home he heard classical piano music played by his mother and the music of gypsy bands; on Spetsai he encountered Byzantine liturgical music and Greek folk music and dance; he also sang in the school choir (whose repertory included works of Palestrina), and absorbed classical music from the radio. Later, during World War II, a comrade in the Greek Resistance was to introduce him to the music of Bartók, Debussy and Ravel.

In Athens at 16, while preparing for the civil engineering entrance examination to the Athens Polytechnic, Xenakis took lessons in piano and music theory. He entered the Polytechnic in the autumn of 1940, but it closed following the Italian invasion of Greece in November of that year, and closed again several times during the course of the war. At first Xenakis took part in right-wing nationalist protests, but at the end of 1941 he joined the resistance of the communist-led National Liberation Front (EAM) against the German occupation (April 1941 to October 1944). He took an active part in mass demonstrations against, among other things, the German confiscation of all food supplies (which caused thousands of deaths in the winter of 1941–2) and the attempts to deport Greeks to carry out forced labour in Germany in February 1943. One photograph of this time shows Xenakis marching in the front row of a demonstration (Matossian, 1981). Later in his life, the composer was to speak of his experience of acoustic mass phenomena in these events, such as the way rhythmically regular shouts turned into chaotic screams of fear when the Nazis opened fire.

British forces arrived in Greece in mid-October 1944 to eliminate the EAM and restore the Greek monarchy; and in December of the same year, as a student in the ‘Lord Byron’ unit, Xenakis took part in street fighting against British tanks. He was seriously wounded when a shell hit him in the face. While he was in hospital, the EAM lost its political and military power, whereupon the ‘White Terror’ was unleashed on former Resistance members. In spite of his wartime experiences, Xenakis gained his diploma in February 1946. He was then conscripted into the national armed forces, where he heard for the first time of the concentration camps to which former Resistance fighters were being sent; he deserted and went into hiding. Condemned to death (his sentence was in 1951 commuted to ten years’ imprisonment) and stripped of his Greek citizenship, he managed to reach Italy with a false passport in September 1947, and illegally crossed into France in the hope of reaching the USA. However, he was forced to remain in Paris as an illegal immigrant with no material resources of any kind.

Xenakis, Iannis

2. Architecture.

To earn his living, Xenakis worked until 1959 in Le Corbusier’s studio, at first as an engineer, but gradually playing a greater part in architectural design. He designed the kindergarten on the roof of the residential block in Nantes-Rézé, parts of the government buildings in Chandigarh, India, the rhythmically articulated glass façade of the monastery of St Marie de La Tourette, near Lyons, and the greater part of the chapel there. Finally, he was responsible for the unique shape of the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Exposition Universelle, based on a sketch of Le Corbusier.

Most of his later architectural projects were intended for musical uses: a concert hall and studio for Scherchen’s musical centre in Gravesano (Ticino) in 1961 and the same for the Cité de la Musique in Paris in 1984; but the only design to be realized was the Diatope, one of his invented Polytopes. The space for a unique sound-and-light experience, it comprised a tent-like construction which was erected outside the Centre Pompidou in Paris for its opening in 1977 and later re-erected in Bonn for a Xenakis festival.

Xenakis, Iannis

3. Musical research.

In Paris, Xenakis tried to compensate for the musical education he had missed during the war through self-directed study by taking lessons with Honegger and Milhaud. He also attended Messiaen’s analysis course at the Conservatoire (1950–52). Between 1955 and 1966 Scherchen repeatedly invited him to Gravesano, where he met musicians and experts in electro-acoustics (including Max Mathews). The articles Xenakis contributed to Scherchen’s Gravesaner Blätter formed the basis for his book Formalized Music (the first edition, in French, appeared in 1963). From 1957 to 1962 he worked in Schaeffer’s Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM; until 1958, Studio d’essai de la Radio-Télévision Française), where he realized his early electro-acoustic works. Invited to Japan in 1961, he received there enduring impressions of Asian musical culture which strengthened him in his idea of ‘universal musical structures’. In 1962 Xenakis composed a group of instrumental works with the help of a computer at IBM Paris (Schmidt, 1995, Baltensperger, 1996). In order to extend his research into the nature of sound itself with the help of the computer, he founded EMAMu (Equipe de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales) in 1966, which in 1972 became CEMAMu (Centre d’Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales). From 1967 to 1972, Xenakis taught at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he also directed a Center for Mathematical and Automated Music. He was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne (1973–89), and was awarded a doctorate there for his interdisciplinary research (Arts/Sciences: alliages) in 1976.

Xenakis, Iannis

4. Works overview.

Unusually, Xenakis’s first compositions were for orchestra, a medium which enabled him to realize his conception of sound masses; only later did he turn to smaller ensembles and solo instruments. He initially preferred writing for strings because of their abundance of sound colours and ability to move seamlessly between pitches. But from the late 1960s on, he has also required woodwind and brass to play glissandos. He did not turn to the piano until he began to use ‘finite’ sets of pitches in Herma (1961).

Beginning with Nuits (1967–8), Xenakis treated the human voice like an instrument with pizzicato-like accents, consonantal and guttural articulation of abstract phonemes, and extremely demanding ranges in dynamic and pitch. At the same time he entertained an ideal of untrained, ‘peasant’ voices, especially for his musical conception of ancient theatre, in which singers also play bells, gongs, stones and so on.

His writing for percussion began in earnest first with Persephassa (1969) and then in a series of powerful, innovative works in the 1970s and 80s (for Pléïades he invented a new instrument – the ‘Six-Xen’).

Of singular importance to Xenakis’s work is the dimension of physical space. The first signs of this were in Pithoprakta (1955–6) in which the concluding unison is distributed around the string section in very high harmonics. The brass sounds are similarly treated in Eonta (1963–4), while in Terretektorh and Nomos gamma the audience is placed among the members of the orchestra who are dispersed around the performance space. Nevertheless, Xenakis subsequently concluded that the best way to control the spatial dimension was through the use of loudspeakers, as with the several hundred used in the Philips Pavilion, or in several of his later Polytopes, above all in the Diatope (1977).

Though Xenakis’s music is often extremely elaborate in detail, that detail is essentially at the service of the whole, this is particularly evident in the specific manner of the creation of the compositional algorithms ST (Free Stochastic Music) and GENDYN (Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis). Form never emerges from the development of thematic cells but from the collage-like succession or superimposition of segments that display strong internal connections, although heterogenous material is sometimes interpolated as well. The proportions of the parts and the ebb and flow of tension in a work are determined with an infallible instinct for musical dramaturgy.

Xenakis, Iannis

5. Early works.

This period includes everything before Metastaseis (1953–4), which was detached from a triptych called Anastenaria to mark the beginning of the ‘official’ output. (Anastenaria also comprised two other quite substantial works, Procession aux eaux claires and Sacrifice, inspired by northern Greek festivals of pre-Christan origin). Youthful essays in composition appear not to have survived, though among them Xenakis has mentioned the monodies Odes de Sappho (Varga, 1982). The early works have not been published (although they have been studied, by Mâche in Restagno 1988; Solomos, 1996; and Baltensperger 1997), with the exception of Zyia, which was printed and performed in 1994. These pieces reflect Xenakis’s early ambition to emulate Bartók by founding a contemporary ‘Greek’ music, and approaching the traditional musical heritage with a systematic analytical eye, without renouncing contemporary compositional techniques of Western modernism. This project was expounded in the article ‘Provlimata Ellenikis Mousikis Synthesis’ (‘Problems of Greek music composition’). The elements of Greek folk music that were adapted include the use of certain modes, parallel 4ths, the specifically northern Greek type of vocal polyphony, and the unequal additive rhythms (aksak). Xenakis’s sense of structure and ‘formalization’ reached its peak in Sacrifice, a ‘mechanism’ based upon a Messiaenesque mode de valeurs with the help of a Fibonacci series (see Fibonacci series). Fibonacci series also determine the time structures of Metastaseis, which resemble, in some respects, the rhythmic spacing of glass panels on the façade of the monastery of La Tourette (cf Baltensperger, 1996, p.303).

Xenakis, Iannis

6. ‘Metastaseis’.

Most of the fundamental musical problems, as he perceived them, were confronted by Xenakis in Metastaseis. In effect, he laid the foundation here for his entire musical career with the concept of ‘sound composition’, described in the essay ‘Les Métastassis’: ‘The sonorities of the orchestra are building materials, like brick, stone and wood … The subtle structures of orchestral sound masses represent a reality that promises much’. In the same essay Xenakis translates the Greek metastaseis as ‘transformations’, referring to the continuous evolution of massive glissando structures on the one hand and the discontinuous transpositions and permutations of pitches on the other. The concept of ‘transformation’ – in a strictly mathematical sense the interrelations between musical structures (where structure is to be understood as a set of relationships between musical parameters) – is central to Xenakis’s thought. Its manifestations include transformations of geometrical figures (group theory), scales (sieve theory), melodic outlines (random paths), polyphonic structures (arborescences), spectral screens (granular synthesis) and wave forms (stochastic synthesis).

Xenakis's plotting of the massed glissandos of Metastaseis on ruled millimeter graph paper reflects his basic concept of a musical ‘space-time’: with pitch on the y axis ‘ordinate’, and time on the x axis, a two-dimensional space is created in which potentially time-independent musical structures can be contained in a temporal setting. As in Einstein’s theory of relativity, time becomes a mere dimension in a homogeneous, isotropic space, not distinguished in any way from the dimension of pitch. (This is very important for the later geometrical transformations of such structures as arborescences).

For the composition of the middle section of Metastaseis Xenakis developed a highly idiosyncratic dodecaphonic technique. In his space-time concept, the pitches are associated with ‘differential’ durations from the Fibonacci series. Pitch manipulation within 12-tone rows is determined by the systematic use of mathematical permutations of row segments; the transposition of rows through rotation; and the concept of the ‘diastematic series’ based on the six interval classes rather than the 12 pitch classes. Metastaseis is the first work in which Xenakis constructed ruled surfaces in a two-dimensional projection. These surfaces may be understood as straight line paths bent along curved trajectories. Besides their use in later works (such as Syrmos and Stratégie), they define the unique shape of the Philips Pavilion, conceived by Xenakis as the setting for Varèse’s Poème électronique, and Le Corbusier’s picture projections for the Brussels Exposition Universelle of 1958.

Xenakis, Iannis

7. Macroscopic stochastic music.

In his article ‘La crise de la musique sérielle’ (1994), Xenakis rejected serial method as unsuitable for his compositional objectives. At the same time, like the serialists, he followed Messiaen’s example in retaining the independent structuring of individual musical parameters. This manifesto was, in fact, less of a polemic against serialism and more the renunciation of traditional polyphonic part writing, in order to establish the complete independence of sound events within sound masses. This independence is the theoretical precondition for the applicability of the kinetic theory of gases to musical composition. (According to this theory, the temperature of a gas derives from the independent movement of its molecules.) Xenakis focussed his compositional process upon the large-scale features – such as outline, density or temperature – of whole ‘clouds’ of sounds, like the pizzicato-glissando clouds in Pithoprakta, and their alteration in time. By means of stochastic distribution functions the macroscopic properties of the mass are linked to its microscopic structure: each sound-particle of the score is precisely defined, yet contributes to the overall sound impression in its own individual way.

In Achorripsis (1956–7) Xenakis formalized his stochastic method to a point where it could be automated by means of a computer programme, with the help of which he was able to generate the family of ST compositions in 1962. In addition, he experimented with ‘injecting memory into the stochastic method’ (Varga, 1982): by means of transitional probabilities (the Markov chain), he established a dynamic equilibrium between musical ‘states’ and then disrupted it, following a predetermined plan (e.g. in Syrmos, Analogique A and B). Stochastics were also used to create sound textures employed in the musical ‘games’ Duel (1959) and Stratégie (1962), using a mathematical game theory developed for the simulation of situations of military or economic conflict (Schmidt, 1995); for the presentation of unordered pitch sets in Herma (1961); for the piano solo of Eonta (1963–4); and for the gigantic glissando fields of Nomos gamma (1967–8). Such ideas continue to play a part in Xenakis’s most recent music, though no longer necessarily applied with precise calculation.

Xenakis, Iannis

8. ‘Symbolic music’.

Stochastic music may have led to the control of sound masses, yet the determination of the notes themselves had no other foundation than the application of the kinetic theory of gases to musical objects. In this crisis of fundamentals, Xenakis turned to logic and sets – much as mathematicians had around 1900 (Eichert, 1994). The goal of this project, entitled ‘Symbolic Music’, was the foundation of a musical high-level calculus in which the concrete dimensions (i.e. the musical parameters) are abstracted and rendered into algebraic forms. Only after this process are they given a musical interpretation. This ‘syntactic’ treatment of musical structures entailed emptying them of any significance normally attributed by musical tradition. The abstract formalism underlying the manipulation of pitch sets in Herma, for example, was subsequently extended to the investigation of the regular proportions of complex scales (sieves), by imposing a group structure on the sets (the set of whole numbers). In Nomos alpha (1966) and Nomos gamma (1968) regular proportions (symmetries) are also explored in two and three dimensions with the help of geometrical transformation groups, which guide the sound-constellations in time or in a multiple counterpoint. Unlike Messiaen’s modes, which establish symmetries within the octave, sieves explore asymmetrical scales which reject octave equivalence and generate seemingly chaotic structures. The analysis and synthesis of the sieves was later automated by a computer programme (given in Formalized Music). During the 1960s and 70s, Xenakis’s preference was for sieves constructed of microintervals (some as small as eighth-tones). ‘Tempered’ sieves appeared later with the pelog-like scale of Jonchaies (1977), Aïs (1980) and Shaar (1983), and applied to other musical parameters as well, especially to duration.

Xenakis, Iannis

9. Ancient theatre and Polytopes.

Instead of composing operas, Xenakis developed his own vision of a ‘synthesis of the arts’ on the basis of ancient drama, as in his Oresteïa (1965–6), to which were later added Kassandra (1987) and La déesse Athéna (1992) to complete Aeschylus’ trilogy. In his programmatic text ‘Notes sur la musique du théâtre antique’ he expounds the idea of an ‘abstract general singing’, which derives from the formalization of structures ‘invariant in space and time’ (Arts/Sciences: alliages); this includes, then, both Xenakis’s conception of recitation in the ancient theatre and his experience of the same in Japanese kabuki and nō. (The flexible pitches of Asian music may also have caused the softening of rigid glissandos into the elegant, curved lines which were later to join together in the branching structures of arborescences.)

One particular motivation for bringing the arts together in an organized ‘manifoldness’ was Xenakis’s perception of their underlying common ‘funda-mental’ structures, such as the abstract structure of total order. In his Polytopes (Revault d’Allonnes, 1975) as well as music Xenakis organized ‘clouds’ of light sources, the movement of laser-beams in space and the rhythm of electronic lightning flashes, at first by mechanical means, later using computer programmes. In addition to the few projects that were realized, such as the Diatope, there are others which remain utopias. These include a net of sound and light spread out above Paris, and the use of intercontinental satellite technology to illuminate the dark side of the moon or to generate an artificial Northern Lights. (The second idea had been planned for the bicentennial of the USA.) (Musique – Architecture, pp.181–91; Arts/Sciences: alliages, pp.11–18).

Xenakis, Iannis

10. Microscopic stochastic music.

At Bloomington, Xenakis used a computer to realize his particular idea of sound synthesis, which consisted of stochastically manipulating the electric sound signal directed towards the loudspeakers. Once again this experiment was documented (‘New Proposals in Microsound Structure’, Formalized Music): ‘We can imagine the [sound] pressure variations produced by a particle capriciously moving in a non-determinate way around positions of equilibrium along the sound-wave ordinate’. Here the macroscopic aspect of probabilities (the law of large numbers, which levels out the probability fluctuations on the large scale) is replaced by the microscopic aspect (the dramatic accumulation of probability fluctuations in time): instead of the behaviour of the whole cloud, the object of attention now is the random path of a single particle inside the cloud.

Until the 1990s, Xenakis produced little electro-acoustic music with the aid of these theories, but he used the idea of random paths for the creation of capricious pitch movements in works such as Mikka (1971) and Mikka S, partly by transferring computer printouts of synthesized sounds directly into a continuous sequence of glissando curves. In Cendrées (1973) and N’shima the glissando curves are broken up to achieve a unique expressive effect, especially for the human voice, while other structures result from the technique of ‘polygonal variation’, by which a melodic contour, represented in two-dimensional pitch-time space by an open polygon, is incessantly reshaped, each vertex of the polygon being subjected to separate random displacement (e.g. in Jonchaies and Ikhoor). Such random paths represent the most general way of defining continuous melodic lines or chains of randomly plotted notes, as in some sections of Mists (1981).

Xenakis, Iannis

11. ‘Morphological’ compositions.

Having initially rejected linear polyphony in his stochastic experiments, in the 1970s Xenakis tried instead to modify it by designing complex, coherent linear structures, or ‘arborescences’, beginning with Evryali (1973). Keyboard instruments, with their discrete pitches, seem in particular to have challenged his imagination in relation to the idea of a coherent continuity. The piano concerto Erikhthon (1974) for instance, in which the orchestra plays some of the piano’s arborescences as glissando chains, might be interpreted in this context as a dialectical treatise on continuity and discontinuity in music. Arborescences are regarded by Xenakis as a ‘general extension of the polyphonic principle’ (see his commentary on Gmeeoorh, 1974). They describe a ‘branching’ in time, a multiple fanning-out of a single voice into a ‘thicket’ of many voices: the four orthodox serial transformations – transposition, inversion, retrograde and retrograde inversion – are embedded in a generalized geometric transformation group, which also embraces rotation in space and time, enlargement and reduction. In effect, ‘elastic’ geometric transformations mediate between different expressions of one and the same underlying abstract branching structure.

The organic form of arborescences is an extension of the interest in ‘natural’ forms that Xenakis had already shown in Terretektorh (1966), Nomos gamma (1967–8) and Synaphaï (1969). He invented the computer system UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu) to automate the design of these natural forms and extend them to the area of sound synthesis (‘microcomposition’). His search for a universal theory of form is documented in the article ‘L’univers est une spirale’.

Xenakis, Iannis

12. Globally tempered sieves and cellular automata.

In the 1980s and 90s sieve structures became the ‘solution to half the problems in composition’ (‘A propos de Jonchaies’, 1988). Xenakis inclined towards writing extended ‘sound-veils’ (Robindore, 1996), by taking sieved melodic lines, and compressing and stretching them, superimposing them in an asychronous way, or generating a kind of ‘sound-halo’ around them (‘A propos de Jonchaies’). An alternative to layering is a global definition of sieves with respect to time, aided by ‘cellular automata’ (e.g. in Horos) which expand the development of sound in time by means of deterministic chaos (Hoffmann, 1994). Xenakis associates the flow of time with a general conception of current and turbulence (for instance, Roáï means ‘floods’). While his works for ensemble (e.g. Thalleïn and Jalons) display a mobile manner in realizing the most varied sonic ideas – from trills and extended oscillations to funeral march-like sections – the compositions for large orchestra since Ata (1987) tend towards gigantic ‘amalgamated’ clusters in an increasingly monolithic style. Their mixing of inharmonic, dense spectra to generate a complex amalgam of sound colours is much like his approach to electro-acoustic sound synthesis. Even the string quartets of this period (Tetora, 1990; Ergma, 1994) exhibit such a tendency.

Xenakis, Iannis

13. Electro-acoustic works.

Although Xenakis has produced substantially less electro-acoustic music than music for instruments he has researched intensively in the area since the start of his career. Taken as a whole his tape output suggests a time-loop-like evolution of a single mighty sound stream, endlessly differentiated internally. In particular he has explored the dense spectra of noise-like sounds, rich in partials, which appear similar to sounds emanating from acoustic mass phenomena. Stochastic distributions determined the montage of early electro-acoustic pieces, the density of the acoustic events controlled by means of multiple mixing of concrète sound-sources (Di Scipio, 1995; Delalande, 1997). Such sources have included instrumental sounds, often with extended playing techniques (e.g. exaggerated bow-pressure, playing right up against the bridge, the use of additional col legno noise, wind multiphonics) as in Persépolis (written for the 1971 Polytope) and Hibiki Hana Ma (for the 1970 Osaka World Fair). La légende d’Eer (1977), the singular 46-minute sound-universe for the Diatope, technically the most advanced of the Polytopes, is, like Persépolis, a maelstrom of gradually swelling sound which has a palpable physical effect on the listener. Up to eight independent tracks allow the mixing of diverse channels during a performance.

Another way Xenakis has generated complex sounds from rich, transitory spectra is with the combination of many short pulses or ‘sound grains’; such ‘granular synthesis’ was realized with analogue equipment in Analogique B (1958–9). He also attempted its implementation on the computer (Leprince-Ringuet in Gerhards, 1981, p.53) but the technique was developed further by others.

The multi-track superimposition of already complex sounds is also the basic idea of graphic synthesis with the UPIC system. As a first step wave forms are either designed freely by hand or sampled from complex sound-sources. As a second step, dozens of pitch curves are defined, in order to turn these waves into simultaneous sound, by means of a battery of oscillators. Most recently, by means of Xenakis’s own computer programme GENDYN (1991) and his Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis algorithm, up to 16 time-variant sound tracks may be synthesized in parallel. The algorithm covers the entire range between constant and chaotically fluctuating spectra, i.e. between the ‘frozen’ musical note and complex noise. It thus represents a refinement of the explorations of stochastic synthesis with the computer which Xenakis began 20 years ago.

Xenakis, Iannis

WORKS

orchestral

choral

other vocal

chamber

solo instrumental

tape

some works exist in one or more revised realizations

Xenakis, Iannis

WRITINGS

Untitled analysis of Metastaseis, in C.E. Le Corbusier: Modulor 2 (Boulogne, 1955, 2/1983; Eng. trans., 1958), 341–4

‘I simerines tasis tis gallikis moussikis’ [Current tendencies in French music], Epitheorissi technis [Athens], no.6 (1955), 466–70

‘Provlimata ellinikis moussikis’ [Problems of Greek music], Epitheorissi technis [Athens], no.9 (1955), 185–9; Ger. trans. in A. Baltensperger: Iannis Xenakis und die Stochastische Musik: Komposition im Spannungsfeld von Architektur und Mathematik (Zürich, 1997)

‘Der “Modulor”’, Gravesaner Blätter, no.9 (1957), 2–5 [incl. Eng. trans.]

‘Architecture’, in C.E. Le Corbusier: Le poème électronique (Paris, 1958), 9; Eng. trans. as ‘Le Corbusier’s Electronic Poem’ in Gravesaner Blätter, no.9 (1957), 51–4

with L.C. Kalff: ‘The Philips Pavilion and The Electronic Poem’, Arts and Architecture, no.11 (1958), 23

‘Les Métastassis’, unpubd typescript, before 1959, D-DSim

‘La musique stochastique: éléments sur les procédés probabilistes de composition musicale’, Revue d’esthétique, no.14 (1961); Eng. trans. in Gravesaner Blätter, no.18 (1960), 84–105; no.19 (1960), 140–50; no.21 (1961), 113–21; no.22 (1961), 144–5

‘Stochastic Music’, Music East and West: Tokyo 1961, 134–40

‘Un cas: la musique stochastique’, Musica-disques, no.102 (1962), 11

‘Debussy a sformalizowanie muzyki’, Ruch muzyczny, vi/16 (1962), 7

‘Wer ist Iannis Xenakis/Who is Iannis Xenakis’, Gravesaner Blätter, nos.23–4 (1962), 185–6

‘Musiques formelles’, ReM, nos. 253–4 (1963); repr. as Musiques formelles (Paris, 1981); Eng. trans. as Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (Bloomington, IN, 1971, enlarged 2/1992)

‘Schaeffer, Pierre’, MGG1

‘Intuition or Rationalism in the Techniques of Contemporary Musical Composition’, Berlin Confrontation: Künstler in Berlin (Berlin, 1965), 15–18

‘Tribune libre’, Gravesaner Blätter, no.26 (1965), 5

‘Motsägelsen musik och maskin’, Nutida musik, ix/5–6 (1965–6), 23

‘Notice sur Orestie’, Sigma, no.3 (1966), 6; rev. as ‘Arcaiotha kai sugcronh mousikh’ [Antiquity and contemporary music], Deltio kritikis diskografias, nos.18–19 (1976), 377–82

‘Structures hors-temps’, The Musics of Asia: Manila 1966, 152–73 [summary in EthM, xi (1967), 107–13]

‘Ad libitum …’, World of Music, ix/1 (1967), 17–19

‘La musique et les ordinateurs’, Quinzaine littéraire (March 1968), 23–6

‘Xenakis, Iannis’, MGG1

‘Une note’, ReM, nos. 265–6 (1969), 51

‘Structures universelles de la pensée musicale’, Liberté et organisation dans le monde actuel (Paris, 1969), 173–80

‘Musique et programmation’, ITC (Ingénieurs, Techniciens et Cadres) actualités, no.2 (1970), 55–7

‘Short Answers to Difficult Questions’, Composer [USA], ii/2 (1970), 39

Untitled essay, PNM, ix/2 (1970–71), 130

‘Les dossiers de l’E.m.a.mu’, Colloquio artes, xiii/5 (1971), 40–48

‘Free Stochastic Music from the Computer’, Cybernetics, Arts, and Ideas, ed. J. Reichardt (London, 1971)

Musique, Architecture (Tournai, 1971, enlarged 2/1976; Eng. trans., forthcoming)

Preface to M. Gagnard: L’initiation musicale des jeunes (Paris, 1971), 9–11

‘Den kosmika värtdsstaden’, Nutida musik, xv/3 (1971–2), 13–14

‘Om “Terretektorh”’, Nutida musik, xv/2 (1971–2), 47

Untitled essay, Ferienkurse ’74: Darmstadt 1974, ed. E. Thomas, 16–18

‘Propos impromptu’, Courrier musical de France, no.48 (1974), 130–33

‘Iannis Xenakis: aftoviografiko’ [Xenakis: an autobiography], Deltio kritikis diskografias, nos.18–19 (1976), 374–6

Opening Address, Computer Music Conference V: Evanston, IL, 1978

‘Centre Georges Pompidou: geste de lumière et de son’, Le Diatope-Xenakis (Paris, 1978), ‘Epistimoniki skepsi kai moussiki’ [Scientific thought and music], Rotonta, no.4 (1978), 380–95

Untitled essay, in I. and G. Bogdanoff: L’effet science-fiction (Paris, 1979), 283–6

Arts/Sciences: alliages (Paris, 1979; Eng. trans., 1985, as Arts – Sciences, Alloys: the Thesis Defense of Iannis Xenakis)

‘Brief an Karl Amadeus Hartmann’, Karl Amadeus Hartmann und die Musica Viva, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 19 June – 29 Aug 1980, ed. R. Wagner, M. Attenkofer and H. Hell (Munich, 1980), 337 [exhibition catalogue]

‘Migrazioni nella composizione musicale’, Musica e elaboratore, ed. A. Vidolin (Venice, 1980)

‘Dialexh’ [Conference], Symbossio: synchroni tecni kai paradossi (Athens, 1981), 195–206

‘Homage to Béla Bartók’, Tempo, no.136 (1981), 5

‘Il faut que ça change’, Le matin (26 Jan 1981)

‘Le temps en musique’, Spirales, no.10 (1981), 9–11

‘La composition musicale est à la fois dépendante et indépendante de l’évolution technologique des systèmes analogiques ou numériques’, Conférences des journées d’études: Festival International du Son (Paris, 1982), 137–55

‘Il pensiero musicale’, Spirali, no.41 (1982), 44–5

‘Polytopes’, in J.-P Leonardini, M. Collin and J. Markovits: Festival d’automne à Paris 1972–1982 (Paris, 1982), 218

‘Science et technologie, instruments de création’, Recherche et technologie: Paris 1982 (Paris, 1982)

‘Perspectives de la musique contemporaine’, Echos, no.1 (1983), 47

‘Un exemple enviable’, ReM, nos.372–4 (1984), 67

‘Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Georges Auric, Discours prononcés dans la séance publique tenue par l’Académie des Beaux-Arts, no.6 (1984), 13–19

‘Un plaidoyer pour l’avant-garde?’, Nouvel observateur, nos. 19–25 (1984), 97

‘La source de l’expérience humaine’, Le monde (13 Sept 1984)

‘Les conditions actuelles de la composition’, France Forum, nos.223–4 (1985), 10–12

‘Le monde en harmonie’, Silences, no.1 (1985), 91–4

‘Briefauszug an Hermann Scherchen’, Hermann Scherchen Musiker, ed. H. Pauli and D. Wunsche (Berlin, 1986), 95

‘Hermann Scherchen’, Monde de la musique, no.89 (1986), 91

‘Ouvrir les fenêtres sur l’inédit’, 20ème siècle: images de la musique française, ed. J.-P. Derrien (Paris, 1986), 160–62

‘Mykenae alpha’, PNM, xxv/1–2 (1987), 12–15

‘Xenakis on Xenakis’, PNM, xxv/1–2 (1987), 16–63

‘A propos de Jonchaies’, Entretemps, no.6 (1988), 133–7

Untitled essay, Edgard Varèse 1883–1965: Dokumente zu Leben und Werk, ed. H. de la Motte-Haber and K. Angermann (Frankfurt, 1990), 79–80

‘Originality in Musical Composition’, Technology’s Challenge for Mankind (Tokyo, 1990), 17–24

‘Sieves’, PNM, xxviii/1 (1990), 58–78; partial repr. in Kéleütha (Paris, 1994), 75–87

‘UPIC Sketch for Voyage absolu des Unari vers Andromède, 1989, PNM, xxviii/2 (1990), 119, 135

‘More Thorough Stochastic Music’, Computer Music Conference: Montreal 1991, 517–18

Untitled essay, PNM, xxxi/2 (1993), 135 [on John Cage]

Kéleütha (Paris, 1994) [incl. ‘La crise de la musique sérielle’, 39–43; ‘Lettre à Hermann Scherchen’, 44–5; ‘Théorie des probabilités et composition musicale’; ‘Eléments sur les procédés probabilistes (stochastiques) de composition musicale’, 46–53; ‘La voie de la recherche et de la question’, 67–74; ‘Culture et créativité’, 129–32; ‘Des universes du son’, 112–20; ‘Entre Charybde et Scylla’, 88–93; ‘Les chemins de la composition musicale’, 15–38; ‘Musique et originalité’, 106–11; ‘Pour l’innovation culturelle’, 133–5; ‘L’univers est une spirale’, 136–8; ‘Condition du musicien’, 121–8; ‘Cribles’, 75–87; ‘Sur le temps’, 94–105]

Musique et originalité (Paris, 1996) [collection of essays]

‘Determinacy and Indeterminacy’, Organised Sound, i (1996), 143–55

INTERVIEWS

B.A. Varga: Beszélgetèsek Iannis Xenakisszal (Budapest, 1982; Eng. trans., 1996, as Conversations with Iannis Xenakis)

M. Feldman: ‘A Conversation on Music’, Res, no.15 (1988), 177–81

E. Restagno: ‘Un’autobiografia dell’autore raccontata de Enzo Restagno’, Xenakis (Turin, 1988), 3–70

M. Harley: ‘Musique, espace et spatialisation’, Circuits, v/2 (1994), 9–20

P. Szendy: ‘Ici et là: entretien avec Iannis Xenakis’, Cahiers de l’IRCAM, no.5 (1994), 107–13

F. Delalande: Il faut être constamment un immigré: entretiens avec Xenakis (Paris, 1997)

Xenakis, Iannis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

whole issues of periodicals

ReM, no.257 (1963)

Nutida musik, x/5 (1966–7)

L’arc, no.51 (1972)

Nutida musik, xxviii/3 (1984–5)

MusikTexte, no.13 (1986)

Iannis Xenakis, Musik-Konzepte, nos.54–5 (1987)

Entretemps, no.6 (1988), esp. 57–143

Circuit, v/2 (1994)

Muzyka, no.3 (1998; forthcoming)

general studies

D. Charles: La pensée de Xenakis (Paris, 1970)

D. Halperin: L’oeuvre musicale de Iannis Xenakis (Jerusalem, 1975) [in Hebrew]

O. Revault d’Allonnes: Xenakis: Polytopes (Paris, 1975)

J. Ruohomki: Ylesiä pürteitä Iannis Xenakisen musiikillisesta ajattulesta metodeista ja teoksista (Helsinki, 1977)

M. Sato: Iannis Xenakis: sûgaku ni yori sakkyoku [Musical composition by mathematics] (MA diss., Tokyo U. of Fine Arts and Music, 1978)

H. Gerhards, ed.: Regards sur Iannis Xenakis (Paris, 1981) [incl. homages by M. Kundera, O. Messiaen and S. Ozawa]

N. Matossian: Iannis Xenakis (Paris, 1981; Eng. trans., 1984)

J. Vermeil: ‘Les demeures Xenakis’, Silences, no.1 (1985), 201–06

P.-A. Castanet: ‘L’organon, ou Les outils mathématiques de la création musicale’, Cahiers du CIREM, nos.1–2 (1986), 33–44

H. Lohner: ‘Xenakis and the UPIC’, Computer Music Journal, x/4 (1986), 42–7

P.-E. Gontcharov: Les percussions chez Xenakis (diss., U. of Paris IV-Sorbonne, 1988)

E. Restagno, ed.: Xenakis (Turin, 1988)

S.A. Joseph: The Stochastic Music of Iannis Xenakis: an Examination of his Theory and Practice (diss., New York U., n.d.)

A. Orcalli: Le hasard se calcule: una tesi di Iannis Xenakis (Padua, 1990)

F.-B. Mache: ‘De Nekuia à Dox Orkh, dix années de création’, Musica, Festival de Strasbourg (1991)

P. Oswalt: ‘Polytope von Iannis Xenakis’, Arch+, no.107 (1991), 50–54

A. Baltensperger: “‘Art” und “Science”’, NZM, Jg.153, no.5 (1992), 27–34

B. Gibson: Xenakis: organisation sonore, techniques d’écriture, orchestration (Paris, 1992)

N. Papoutsopoulos: ‘To Politopo ton Mykinon tou Ianni Xenaki’ [The Polytope de Mycènes by Xenakis], Sima [Athens], no.7 (1992), 46–7

G. Marino, M.-H. Serra and J.-M. Raczinski: ‘The UPIC System: Origins and Innovations’, PNM, xxxi/1 (1993), 258–69

M.-H. Serra: ‘Stochastic Composition and Stochastic Timbre: GENDY3 by Iannis Xenakis’, PNM, xxxi/1 (1993), 236–57

M. Solomos: A propos des premières oeuvres (1953–69) de I. Xenakis: pour une approche historique de l’émergence de phénomène du son (diss., U. of Paris IV, 1993)

S. di Biasi: Musica e matematica negli anni 50–60: Iannis Xenakis (Bologna, 1994)

R. Eichert: Iannis Xenakis und die mathematische Grundlagenforschung (Saarbrücken, 1994)

M.A. Harley: ‘Spatial Sound Movement in the Instrumental Music of Iannis Xenakis’, Interface: Journal of New Music Research, xxiii (1994), 291–314

P. Hoffmann: Amalgam aus Kunst und Wissenschaft: naturwissenschaftliches Denken im Werk von Iannis Xenakis (Frankfurt, 1994)

H. de la Motte-Haber: ‘Musikalische Architektur und architektonische Musik’, Neue Berlinische Musikzeitung, viii/1 (1994), suppl., 3–10

M. Solomos: ‘Les trois sonorités xenakiennes’, Circuits, v/2 (1994), 21–39

A. Di Scipio: ‘Da Concret PH a GENDY 301: modelli compositivi nella musica elettroacustica di Xenakis’, Sonus, xiv (1995), 61–92

C. Schmidt: Komposition und Spiel: zu Iannis Xenakis (Cologne, 1995)

A. Baltensperger: Iannis Xenakis und die Stochastische Musik: Komposition im Spannungsfeld von Architektur und Mathematik (Berne, 1996)

R. Frisius: ‘Xenakis und das Schlagzeug’, NZM, Jg.157, no.6 (1996), 14–18

M. Iliescu: Musical et extramusical: eléments de pensée spatiale dans l’oeuvre de Iannis Xenakis (diss., U. of Paris I, 1996)

M. Solomos: Iannis Xenakis (Mercuès, 1996)

B. Robindore: ‘Eskhaté Ereuna: Extending the Limits of Musical Thought’, Computer Music Journal, xx/4 (1996), 11–16

R.J. Squibbs: Analytical Approach to the Music of Iannis Xenakis: Issues in the Recent Music (Ann Arbor, 1996)

P. Hoffmann: ‘L’espace abstrait dans la musique de Iannis Xenakis’, L’espace: musique – philosophie: Paris 1997, 141–52

M. Iliescu: ‘Connotations socio-politiques de la conception massique de Xenakis’, L’espace: musique – philosophie: Paris 1997, 265–77

P. Hoffmann: Music out of Nothing? The Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis: a Rigorous Approach to Algorithmic Composition by Iannis Xenakis (diss., Technische U., Berlin, forthcoming)

M. Solomos: Du project bartókien au son: l’évolution du jeune Xenakis (forthcoming)

M. Solomos, ed.: Proceedings of the 1st International Xenakis Congress, Centre de Documentation de Musique Contemporaine, Paris, 1999 (forthcoming)

particular works

N. Kay: ‘Xenakis’s “Pithoprakta”’, Tempo, no.80 (1967), 21–5

T. Souster: ‘Xenakis’ “Nuits”’, Tempo, no.85 (1968), 5–18

K. Stone: ‘Xenakis: “Metastaseis, Pithoprakta, Eonta”’, MQ, liv (1968), 387–95

F. Vandenbogaerde: ‘Analyse de “Nomos alpha”’, Mathématiques et sciences humaines, no.24 (1968), 35–50

D. Sevrette: Etude statistique sur ‘Herma’ de Xenakis (Paris, 1973)

T. DeLio: ‘I. Xenakis’ “Nomos Alpha”: the Dialectic of Structure and Materials’, JMT, xxiv (1980), 63–86; repr. in Contiguous Lines, ed. T. DeLio (Lanham, MD, 1985), 3–30

J. Vriend: ‘“Nomos alpha”: Analysis and Comments’, Interface: Journal of New Music Research, x (1981), 15–82

P. Gervasoni: ‘“Idmem-Pléïades”’, Diapason-Harmonie, no.384 (1983)

T. DeLio: Structure and Strategy: Iannis Xenakis’ ‘Linaia-Agon’ (Maryland, 1985)

J. Papadatos: Werkanalyse zu Iannis Xenakis’ ‘Jonchaies’ (Examensarbeit, Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Düsseldorf, 1985)

D.W. Yoken: Iannis Xenakis’ ‘Psappha’: a Performance Analysis (San Diego, 1985)

P.-A. Castanet: ‘“Mists”, oeuvre pour piano de Iannis Xenakis: de l’écoute à l’analyse, les chemins convergents d’une rencontre’, Analyse musicale, no.5 (1986), 65–75

J.-R. Julien: ‘“Nuits” de Iannis Xenakis: éléments d’une analyse’, Education musicale, no.325 (1986), 5–9; no.326 (1986), 9–12

O. Revault d’Allonnes: ‘“Thalleïn” de Xenakis’, InHarmoniques, no.1 (1986), 189–95

T. DeLio: ‘Structure and Strategy: Iannis Xenakis’ “Linaia Agon”’ Interface: Journal of New Music Research, xvi (1987)

J. Williams: ‘Iannis Xenakis: “Persephassa” an Introduction’, Percussive Notes (1987), 9–13

E.R. Flint: An Investigation of Real Time as Evidenced by the Structural and Formal Multiplicities in Iannis Xenakis’ ‘Psappha’ (diss., U. of Maryland, College Park, 1989)

C. Prost: ‘Nuits: première transposition de la démarche de Iannis Xenakis du domaine instrumental au domaine vocal’, Analyse musicale, no.15 (1989), 64–70

M. Malt: Trois aspects de formalisation dans ‘Achorripsis’ de Iannis Xenakis (Paris, 1991)

F. Jodelet: ‘Psappha’, Percussions, no.20 (1992), 9–15

J.-M. Thil: ‘“A Hélène” de I. Xenakis’, Education musicale, no.391 (1992), 5–6

J.M. Cubillas Morales: Iannis Xenakis, ‘Nomos Alpha’: una aproximacion inicial hacia el analisis de un encuentro, en el siglo XX, entre la musica y la matematica (Teoria de Grupos) (Valparaiso, 1993)

B. Larkin: ‘Analyse pour jouer “Psappha”’, Percussions, no.29 (1993), 7–11

M. Solomos: ‘“Persephassa” durée, geste et rythme’, Percussions, no.33 (1994), 11–19

J.-M. Chouvel: ‘A propos de “L’île de Gorée” de Iannis Xenakis’, Terres des signes, no.1 (1995), 169–73