Search - Iannis Xenakis, Charles Peltz, Society for New Music :: Xenakis: Works for Piano, Vol. 4

Iannis Xenakis, Charles Peltz, Society for New Music
Xenakis: Works for Piano, Vol. 4
Genre: Classical

Track Listings (9) - Disc #1
1. Evryali (1973) for piano solo (9:51)
2. Herma (1960-61) for piano solo (7:43)
3. Mists (1980) for piano solo (12:51)
4. A.r. (1987) for piano solo (2:31)
5. Piano and instruments:
6. Dikthas (1979) for violin and piano (14:37)
7. Jane Peters, violin
8. Palimpsest (1979) for piano, six drums, winds and strings (12:41)
9. The Society for New Music conducted by Charles Peltz

This is the first time Xenakis' complete works for solo piano have been collected on a single disc. They are brilliant, virtuoso masterworks of the 20th century piano literature. Despite that most of these works are derive... more »d from Xenakis' use mathematical models in their composition, he is always concerned with the overall sound and esthetic result. Diabolically difficult to play, Xenakis himself considered Evryali "Éa kind of athletics for hands, body and brain". The score indeed appears complex, notes proliferate and spread over one to five staves. One is stunned by the sheer virtuosity, the chains of continuously chattering sixteenth notes, and the brilliance and fullness of the overall sound which embraces the extreme registers of the keyboard. Mists indeed invokes its title. It is a work of full of voluminous, opaque clouds interspersed with transparent, pointillistic nebulae; a sonic haze of subtle textures. Herma, Greek for "embryo" or "bond," refers to its use of musical cells which divide and multiply. It is a marvel of contrasting linear courses with clouds of sound varying in instensity and timbre. And the dazzling virtuosity; increasing in speed and intensity, culminating toward the end in an outburst of sound requiring the performer to produce an eveness of touch in the piano's extreme registers while playing up to 20 notes a second. Dikhthas takes advantage of the nature of its two instruments. Xenakis provides a piano part full of clusters and dense polyphonic textures and assigns the violin portamento, glissandi, harmonics and quarter-tones. A highly expressive work, it explores a colorful sonic environment with virtuoso runs for both instruments. The title Palimpsest stands for a reusable piece of parchment on which the writing has been rubbed out and something new has been written in its place. Palimpsest consists of superimposed musical layers, with layers of percussion, string and wind textures alternatively and later simultaneously added to the opening sound layer of the piano. A sort-of concerto for piano and chamber orchestra, the piano as the lead instrument pits itself against the energetic sounds of the ensemble. A.r. (Hommage ? Ravel) was commissioned by Radio France to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ravel's death. The conciseness and virtuosity of A.r. make it an ideal encore piece, and it closes the disc here.

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CD Details

All Artists: Iannis Xenakis, Charles Peltz, Society for New Music, Aki Takahashi
Title: Xenakis: Works for Piano, Vol. 4
Members Wishing: 3
Total Copies: 0
Label: Mode
Release Date: 10/19/1999
Genre: Classical
Styles: Chamber Music, Forms & Genres, Short Forms, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830), Instruments, Keyboard, Strings
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 764593008026

Synopsis

Album Description

This is the first time Xenakis' complete works for solo piano have been collected on a single disc. They are brilliant, virtuoso masterworks of the 20th century piano literature. Despite that most of these works are derived from Xenakis' use mathematical models in their composition, he is always concerned with the overall sound and esthetic result. Diabolically difficult to play, Xenakis himself considered Evryali "Éa kind of athletics for hands, body and brain". The score indeed appears complex, notes proliferate and spread over one to five staves. One is stunned by the sheer virtuosity, the chains of continuously chattering sixteenth notes, and the brilliance and fullness of the overall sound which embraces the extreme registers of the keyboard. Mists indeed invokes its title. It is a work of full of voluminous, opaque clouds interspersed with transparent, pointillistic nebulae; a sonic haze of subtle textures. Herma, Greek for "embryo" or "bond," refers to its use of musical cells which divide and multiply. It is a marvel of contrasting linear courses with clouds of sound varying in instensity and timbre. And the dazzling virtuosity; increasing in speed and intensity, culminating toward the end in an outburst of sound requiring the performer to produce an eveness of touch in the piano's extreme registers while playing up to 20 notes a second. Dikhthas takes advantage of the nature of its two instruments. Xenakis provides a piano part full of clusters and dense polyphonic textures and assigns the violin portamento, glissandi, harmonics and quarter-tones. A highly expressive work, it explores a colorful sonic environment with virtuoso runs for both instruments. The title Palimpsest stands for a reusable piece of parchment on which the writing has been rubbed out and something new has been written in its place. Palimpsest consists of superimposed musical layers, with layers of percussion, string and wind textures alternatively and later simultaneously added to the opening sound layer of the piano. A sort-of concerto for piano and chamber orchestra, the piano as the lead instrument pits itself against the energetic sounds of the ensemble. A.r. (Hommage ? Ravel) was commissioned by Radio France to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ravel's death. The conciseness and virtuosity of A.r. make it an ideal encore piece, and it closes the disc here.

CD Reviews

Wonderful piano end-of-the-world solos, all in one place

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 11/04/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Herma was first performed in Toyko by Yuji Takahashi in February 1962, and represented the stochastic methods Xenakis had pioneered utilizing the ancient-like computers of that day. It is subtitled "musique symbolique pour piano". Herma means "bond" or it can mean "embryo". The extreme pointillism is forever a fascinating maze for the listener to enter,but the process here is that this piece attempts to cohere and doesn't, so we have an endless tension,irresolvable. The Xenakis aesthetic equates sound to nature,to process,clouds,arborecences,geometric metaphors,all of which has worked quite well in his hands.Sound as a metaphor like a fixed gaze at sound, at timbre as a stationary object, yet it motions itself internally.In Xenakis we cannot say the work has an internal process from tradition,he had never worked along those lines. Herma was an early masterwork and a well thought departure from the serial tyranny of the times. When you listen to Herma, it is still linearly, there is no real texture to contemplate. Texture for Xeankis came later with Evyrali. The title means something uncontrollable, also dangerous, and here the work portrays an anger, but subjectivity doesn't quite work in Xeankis since his creations have a somewhat anoymous dimension to them. The continuous repetitions in Evyrali is spellbinding, it has that end-of-the-world feel to it, some irrational part of nature is being explored,not quite like Hitchcock's "The Birds" where the cinema screen can be thought of as a texture when you see the flocks and mobs, and gatherings of the Birds. Like wise Mists seems to be cut from the same cloth as evyrali,repetition,mindless it seems, texture bound which does maintain our interest. Texture has been a point of interest and repulsion within modernist expressions. Elliott Carter never found texture an interesting route for modernist expression,Carter has argued that texture in an of itself doesn't hold our interest,nor has it a structural potential,as linear musical thinking. I think it does if handled with some vision, as Xenakis so does with all these works. Takahashi here knows this music very well, one of the premiere performers of this music.She brings a point that her hands are mere conduits. The chamber works see the piano situated within the welter of opaque colours."

Astounding!

Pete | North America | 09/05/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love this album! Xenakis is one of the greatest and most unique composers of the 20h century. It can take a while to get into this stuff, but when you do it's deep and multi layered work."