Reynolds Xenakis

Xenakis:... Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death...
Author(s): Roger Reynolds

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Winter, 2003), pp. 4-64
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25164506 .
Accessed: 10/12/2012 14:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Perspectives of New Music is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Perspectives
of New Music.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.72.228 on Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:05:43 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
XENAKIS:
... Tireless Renewal at Every
Instant, at Every Death ...
Roger Reynolds
wasA man of keen intellect, with a sardonic, bird-of-prey

was by turns imperious or vulnerable, impish or
Xenakis character. He
implacably unforgiving, which is to say that?as is true of any complex
being?he both represented himself and was represented by others in dis
concertingly varied ways. From the early sixties until his death, I had the
privilege of knowing him; we spent informal, personal time together, and
also shared encounters in public, professional settings. And itwas this
contact which led me to undertake the present project.
The of Xenakis's education were as uncommon as
components they
were formatively decisive: a grounding in Greek philosophy and in the
fixities and portentous conflicts of their ancient tragedies (modulated by
. . .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death . . . 5
themore humanely intricateworlds of Shakespeare in English); thorough

training in engineering at the Athens Polytech (and a passionate appren
ticeship with its application as architecture in the studio of Le Corbusier);
and an autodidacte possession of the phenomenon ofmusic. Music inhis
life (architecture also) served as an arena inwhich spiritual, aesthetic, and
scientific currents intermingled in less categorically abridged form, in
ways that suited the restless inclusivity of his mind.
During the 1950s, he manifested jointly in architecture (the Philips
Pavilion) and music (Metastasis) an inextricably interwoven world of
resource and inference. This conjunction was a signal illustration of the
rare composite of forces which intersected in him: objective and math
ematically principled knowledge conjoined with a raw emotional direct
ness that could be at times alarming.
In the early stages of his compositional career, he was still living
through the transmutation of engineering into music. This realignment
was articulated, in part, through thewriting of articles which argued the
application of certain mathematical principles to musical opportunities.
In these applications, elevated aesthetic goals were served through start
lingly novel manifestations. Although the intent of his articles was to illu
minate, even elicit art of ambitious and demanding character, they
proved impenetrably daunting to all but the smallest minority of the
artistic community. Their existence, first as occasional contributions to
Hermann Scherchen's Gravesaner Bl?tter, later in collected and aug
mented form asMusiques Formelles, sent a message to the musical world
as bewildering as itwas unprecedented.
In the absence of the yet-to-be-assembled (and then incontestable)
evidence of his life's work, Xenakis's early decades as a composer were
shadowed by almost universal incomprehension, whether on the part of
admirers or detractors. He assumed in his audience (readers or listeners)
a breadth, depth, seriousness, and peregrination of mind of which very
few beyond himself were capable. As a result, his written statements
(articles, program notes and the like) often deflected more than enlight
ened their readers. And matters did not improve greatly as published
interviews and monographs began to accumulate. At first, perhaps a bit
unrealistic in his expectation that references to Greek antiquity, logic and
stochastic principles would serve to enhance his listeners' experience, he
little by little eschewed comment, in program notes, of more than the
most rudimentary sort (the identification of a text, an indication of a
title's intended resonances). He quite understandably preferred an audi
tor's direct grappling with sound patterns and the mental and emotional
responses they aroused. All the more so given the often irrelevant and
6 Perspectives of New Music
frequently ungenerous reactions thatwere elicited when he revealed the

ideas that had in fact propelled his musical offerings.
Over the last decade of his life,Xenakis's output became, from a tech
nical perspective, increasingly, and by the end (one thinks of the 1996
string sextet, Ittidra) almost ultimately reductive: howling, fortissimo
blocks, immobilized screams. This to the consternation of many who had
been staunch supporters. Was
his the seeming essentialization?an
increasingly literal primitivism?which overtakes the laterworks a delib
erate adjustment in creative course on his part? Or was it a result of the
progressive neurophysiological circumstances that eventually claimed his
life?A definitive response to such queries is beyond reach, but their exist
ence further complicates the picture which the musical world held (and
holds yet) of this unprecedented figure.
Although the body of musical work that Xenakis bequeathed this
world is as unparalleled and inimitable as that of any musical creator we
have known, it is not the whole of his legacy. The music was accompa
nied by (and also attracted) a detailed and wide-ranging body of written
explanation. Some of this textual record is didactic, explicit, and objective
while some is interactive, inferential, and subjective. My purpose in this
document is to posit the existence of a number of categories which his
writing addresses, often in penetrating and persuasive fashion. I have
selected passages which could fairly be called "non-technical." No for
mulas, charts, tables, or are included. with
graphs My categories begin
PHILOSOPHY / DEATH AND REBIRTH, move through COMPO
SITION / COMPOSERS, ARCHITECTURE, and REPETITION /
RENEWAL, among others, and end with CULTURE / EDUCATION.
Their ordering is not primarily chronological, but aims at evolving revela
tion. The are almost all because his
categories composites, capacious
mentality seems to have been so inevitably, even obsessively integrative.
The categories are numerous without pretending to be exhaustive. They
identify and portray some ofwhat I knew in him, what I hear in his work.
Ideally, anyone interested in Xenakis's music, after spending time with
this assemblage inwhich he articulates his own views, will find themusic
yet more rewarding: not demystified, surely, but freshly, if sometimes
obliquely, lit. I read and then re-read what I felt to be important English
language sources. The list is not complete and is shaped to a significant
degree by my interactions with him. That is to say, I have used sources to
which I heard him refer, some inwhich I took part myself. This personal,
idiosyncratic surveywas undertaken very shortly after he died, in associa
tion with an obituary I wrote for Leonardo magazine, and?always?
within the landscape of memories of interactions with him over four
decades.
. . .Tireless Renewal at Every . . .
Instant, at Every Death 7
As I read, I marked passages inwhich his voice could be heard,

sought
passages which contained self-sufficient points, epigrammatic insights.
Extracting, then, the totality of these passages, I set about placing them
first into plausible groups, later arranging these groups of quotations
(categories) themselves. The excerpts out ofwhich thewhole is fashioned
are deliberately at or near the 200-word level.Within each of the 15 cat
egories, the selected extracts are ordered so as to make a kind of argu
ment. The Xenakis excerpts form the
body of the text. I have added
linking commentary, as necessary, in an indented column to the right.
One can ignore this, or consult it when one's sense of
continuity is
unproductively disturbed. The eight sources are identified at the end.
This document is a composition of sorts, in tribute.My hope is that, as a
result of contact with these materials, his work may come yet closer to
those who already care about it, and, more importantly, that some who
have not yet found theirway into his incomparable world will be drawn
towards it.
CATEGORIES:
1. PHILOSOPHY / DEATH AND REBIRTH

2. ART/MUSIC
3. PROBABILITY / DISORDER
4. RULES / RESTRICTION
5. INTUITION / REVELATION / LOVE
6. COMPOSER/ COMPOSITION
7. ARCHITECTURE
8. SOURCES / MATERIALS
9. TIME / REFERENCES
10.MASS / SILENCE
11.REPETITION / RENEWAL
12. CODES / NOTATION
13. EXCLUSIONS / CRITIQUES
14. COMPUTERS /AUTOMATION
15. CULTURE / EDUCATION
1. Philosophy / Death and Rebirth
Without, I think,feeling a districtingfiliality to history,

Xenakis
aware of and nourished
was, nevertheless, habitually by the authority
of early and original thought. Large, comprehensive ideas often

underlay and lent authority to what he did. His citations in this
regard are radical (as in aof or proceeding from the root") and auda
cious. Here is an electrifying charge from the introduction to Formal
ized Music.
Philosophy (in the etymological sense)

Thrust towards truth, revelation. Quest in everything, interrogation,
harsh criticism, active knowledge through creativity. [FM viii]
Yet, while driven, hewas inveterately

fatalistic.
Change?for there is no rest?the couple death and birth lead the

Universe, by duplication, the copy more or less conforming. The "more
or less" makes the difference between a pendular, cyclic Universe, strictly
determined, and a nondeterministic Universe, absolutely unpredictable.
Unpredictability in thought obviously has no limits. On a first approach
itwould correspond to birth from nothingness, but also disappearance,
death into nothingness. At the moment, the Universe seems to be mid
way between these two chasms, something which could have been the
subject of another study.
Honing his point in a more pertinent way, he sets the bar highfor
composers. One registers, in passing, the energy and intellectual
resource required not or write such
simply to say things, but to live
them out for almost half a century.
This study would deal with the profound necessity formusical composi
tion to be perpetually original?philosophically, technically, aesthetically.
[CT 92]
Living metaphoricallyunder thesword ofsucha compactwith oneself,

he yet maintained a he did,
personal certainty about what and could
not countenance the possibility error.
of
Here iswhat he wrote to the eminentphilanthropistPaul Fromm (in

1963) upon learning that an article he had submitted to Perspec
tives of New Music would be reviewed by external referees.
It is out of the question that I shall submit my writing to the censor

ship of professional referees, this sort of censorship was not understood
at the start. Iwas to have complete freedom to develop my ideas. I would
never have accepted, being a professional referee myself. Your argument
wrongs the full principle of responsibility for creative work and thought.
. . .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death . . . 9
I would not know how to give way on this point. My lifeup to now has
been a bitter struggle against compromise and untruth and I was quite
conscious of my actions and their consequences. [X 166]
But he was, not without on the impact that

of course, perspective
out?or not?could have. The question was, rather, which
speaking
are suited to sharing?
aspects of one's ways
Years ago, I was explaining the theoretical aspect of what I was doing,
and people thought, "Well, he is very bright; he is all technical and no
feelings." Music is not only rules or mathematics. Forget it. I thought
you cannot prove anything by saying, "That's high," "That's beautiful,"
or whatever, the aesthetic things. But when you speak about theories,
that's much easier. During all the years that I taught at the University, at
Indiana, it was about principles, not about music itself. Because I
thought that itwas more important for the young people, and formyself
also, to understand the mechanisms of composition. So, I think thatwas
the problem; itwas my fault. I never write anymore [sic] program notes
about techniques,, finished. So, the critics sometimes don't know what to
write, you see, because they have to hear and write. [Neu (Smith)]
a individual composer has to say in regard to

Beyond whatever given
his or her own work, what are the broader consequences an inher
of
ited, very gradually accreting set of assumptions, many unexamined,
some, to all out
intents and purposes, of conscious reach?
The actual state of knowledge [now] seems to be the manifestation of

the evolution of the universe since, let us say, some fifteen billion years.
By that, I mean that knowledge is a secretion of the history of humanity,
produced by this great lapse of time. Assuming that hypothesis, all that
which our individual or collective brain hatches as ideas, theories or
know-how, is but the output of itsmental structures, formed by the his
tory of the innumerable movements of its cultures, in its anthropomor
phic transformations, in the evolution of the earth, in that of the solar
system, in that of the universe. If this is so, then we face a frightening,
fundamental doubt as to the "true objectivity" of our knowledge and
know-how. For if,with bio-technologies already developing, one were to
transform these mental structures (our own) and their heredity, therefore
the rules for the functioning of the brain based on certain premises today,
on or of and so on . . . , if one were to succeed in
logic systems logic,
modifying them, one would gain, as ifby a sort of miracle, another vision
of our universe, a vision which would be built upon theories and know
ledge that are beyond the realm of our present thought. [FMR261]
So, it isnot simply"perpetual originality"frontphilosophical, techni

cal, and aestheticperspectivesthat isdesirable (theseare all culturally
conventional), butmoving beyond the channeling influenceof evolu
tion bymeans of thediscontinuities (and hence thepotentialfor leaps)
?/mutation.
Let us pursue this thought. Humanity is, I believe, already on this path.
Today, humanity, it seems to me, has already taken the first step in a new
phase of its evolution, inwhich not only the mutations of the brain, but
also the creation of a universe very different from that which presently
surrounds us, has begun. Humanity, or generalizing, the species which
may follow it,will accomplish this process. Music is but a path among
others for man, for his species, first to imagine and then, aftermany,
many generations, to entail [sic] this existing universe into another one,
one created fully by man. Indeed, ifman, his species, is the image of his
universe, then man, by virtue of the principle of creation from nothing
ness and disappearance into nothingness (which we are forced to set),
could redefine his universe in harmony with his creative essence, such as
an environment he could bestow on himself.
. . . if it is incumbent on music to serve as a medium for the confronta
tion of philosophic or scientific ideas on the being, its evolution, and

their appearances, it is essential that the composer at least give some seri
ous thought to these types of inquiry. [FMR261]
While even more ambitious than that in

speculation, spectacularly
which one is expected
might routinely engage, of the musician, there
are nevertheless limits. Some restraint on
clarity and exhaustiveness
is, in fact, desirable.
There must remain always a small color of mystery, or not understand

ing, in every piece of art. So, the pure musicians, poor musicians?the
pure ones also?try to do their best, that's all, mastering ideas and tech
nology, the technique, let's say, of their own time. Also discovering new
things, which is important. Something that remains in the past is dead, I
think. A culture that doesn't invent is finished. It's a sign of vitality. So,
this iswhy it's important today to have these branches of the sciences in
the music schools, because they are part of music itself, of the thought.
What ismusic? Who can tellme what ismusic? Please. Raise your hand.
[Neu (Applebaum)]
. . .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death . . .
2. Art / Music
Xenakis believed in both the high status and the robustnessof the
towards art making.
impulse
Art, and above all,music has a fundamental function, which is to catalyze

the sublimation that it can bring about through all means of expression.
It must aim through fixations which are landmarks to draw towards a
total exaltation inwhich the individual mingles, losing his consciousness
in a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect. If a work of art suc
ceeds in this undertaking for even a single moment, it attains its goal.
This tremendous truth is not made of objects, emotions, or sensations; it
is beyond these, as Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is beyond music. This
iswhy art can lead to realms that religion still occupies for some people.
[FMI]
Although the artistes inescapable responsibilityis to innovate and
the acts undertaken or her
integrate, by him from within an individ
uals now unexpectedly reverberate across other times as well.
Ideas move on, but artistic fact remains. It's one of history's lessons, as
Marx himself noted with regard to antique art.Approximately, he said or
asked how is it that, at the rim of civilization and western culture in spite
of slave societies, etc., works were created which still affect us today? It's
a miracle inherent to artistic fact. . . [A 58]
must be consistencies, across time

And, if this is so, there constancies
and circumstance. Some of this can be articulated, some cannot be.
It's true that almost all my writings refer to questions which can be
demonstrated and expressed in a language which everyone understands,
be ithere [in France], in Japan, inAmerica, even by the Eskimos. On the
other hand, the part which cannot be expressed, can be said only by art
itself, by music itself or by the architecture or visual expressions them
selves, and even then, I don't know if there are many things one can say,
aside from "I like that" or "I don't like that" or "that's beautiful" or
"that's or "that's or "that's fantastic," etc.
ugly" revolting" "interesting,"
It's true that we fall back into aesthetic or psychological problems, but
what can be said about construction or sonorities, etc., without using a
technical or analogical or proportional or architectural language? What
can be said?
There is no language which could encompass these questions aside
from the questions themselves which deal with construction, structures,
rules and laws. But . . . there is else in music, in any music,

something
even in the "ugliest" music. But, this "something" is neither distinguish
able nor discernable; it is "unspeakable." It's the traitswhich are not
describable. It is the art-object which must express them.
The closes back upon one sees that however

argument itself, and
exalted one's view of art is, whatever success one achieve in
might
defining it, itsmost precious quality remains "unspeakable."
I can speak of structures. . . . But I can neither question nor speak of

something's value when it is not immediately perceptible on a structural
level. ... I calculate either with computers or "by hand," but amidst all
that, there is still a stylewhich comes through, independent of these cal
culations ... [A 18-9]
How does an evident aesthetic are its

"style," consistency, arise? What
components? what wthe way to the musical
expression of intelligence?
I shall not say, like Aristotle, that the mean path is the best, for in
music?as in politics?the middle means compromise. Rather lucidity
and harshness of critical thought?in other words, action, reflection, and
self-transformation by the sounds themselves?is the path to follow. Thus
when scientific and mathematical thought serve music, or any human
creative activity, it should amalgamate dialectally with intuition. Man is
one, indivisible, and total. He thinks with his belly and feels with his
mind. I would like to propose what, to my mind, covers the terms
"music":
1. It is a sort of comportment necessary forwhoever thinks it and

makes it.
2. It is an individual pleroma, a realization.
3. It is a fixing in sound of imagined virtualities (cosmological, philo

. . . ,
sophical, arguments).
4. It is normative, that is, unconsciously it is a model for being or for

doing by sympathetic drive.
5. It is catalytic: itsmere presence permits internal psychic or mental
transformations in the same way as the crystal ball of the hypnotist.
6. It is the gratuitous play of a child.
. . .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death ... 13
7. It is amystical (but atheistic) asceticism. Consequently expressions

of sadness, joy, love, and dramatic situations are only very limited
particular instances. [FM 181]
To make music means to human sonic means.
express intelligence by
This is intelligence in its broadest sense, which includes not only the per
egrinations of pure logic but also the "logic" of emotions and of intu
ition. The technics set forth [in Formalized Music], although often
rigorous in their internal structure, leave many openings through which
the most complex and mysterious factors of the intelligence may pene
trate. These technics carry on steadily between two age-old poles, which
are unified by modern science and philosophy: determinism and fatality
on the one hand, and freewill and unconditioned choice on the other.
Between the two poles actual everyday lifegoes on, partly fatalistic, partly
modifiable, with the whole gamut of interp?n?trations and interpreta
tions.
In reality, formalization and axiomatization constitute a procedural
guide, better suited to modern thought. They permit, at the outset, the
placing of sonic art on a more universal plane. Once more it can be con
sidered on the same level as the stars, the numbers, and the riches of the
human brain, as itwas in the great periods of the ancient civilizations.
[FM 178]
But the most elevated, even
disconcertingly Olympian expectation of
musical art does not preclude its being grounded in graspable and
enduring principles. This is clear in XenakisJs writings. Formalized

Music includes an . .
exploration of.
The effort to make "art" while "geometrizing," that is, by giving rea
soned support less perishable than the impulse of themoment, and hence
more serious, more worthy of the fierce fight which the human intelli
gence wages in all the other domains?all those efforts have led to a sort
of abstraction and formalization of the musical compositional act. This
abstraction and formalization has as have other an
found, many sciences,
unexpected and, I think, fertile support in certain areas of mathematics.

It is not so much the inevitable use of mathematics that characterizes the
attitude of these experiments, as the overriding need to consider sound
and music as a vast potential reservoir inwhich knowledge of the laws of
thought and the structured creations of thought may find a completely
new medium of materialization, i.e., of communication.
For this purpose the qualification "beautiful" or "ugly" makes no sense

for sound, nor for the music that derives from it; the quality of
intelligence carried by the sounds must be the true criterion of the valid
ityof a particular music.
Here Xenakis echoes more explicitly V?rese3s attentiveness to

philoso
pher Hoene Wronsky's memorable dictum: music is "the corporealiza
"
tion of the intelligence that is in sounds.
This does not prevent the utilization of sounds defined as pleasant or

beautiful according to the fashion of themoment, not even their study in
their own right, which may enrich symbolization and algebration. Effi
cacy'is in itself a sign of intelligence. [FM ix]
There is, then, an intersection of perspectives: the proper purposes of

art, the strategiesofformalization bywhich sound is organized into
music, and the nature of sound as a medium which has inherent prop
erties apart from its use in composed structures. Although Xenakis is
associated largely with the second of these?he, indeed, argued (in cat
egory 1) that the "principles" bywhich music was formalized were
more to understand (as well as easier)?he had
important significant
things to say about all three.
3. Probability / Disorder
In this section, pragmatic considerations emerge. If mathematical

certitude is to enter the composer's world, in which ways? Xenakis's
"harsh criticism" (ofwhich more will be heard in category13) was
frequently trained upon theHelmholtz/Fourier that com
assumption
sounds can be and
plex adequately represented by appropriately placed
weighted sets of sine tone components. Xenakis this received
challenged
perspective (as he also rejected digital sampling rates lower than
100,000Hz, in spite of theaccepted standards). Probabilistic adjust

ment seemed to him an attractive?and an
of disorderly phenomena
to sound synthesis. His
appealingly contrarian?approach hope, here,
as elsewhere, was the results.
discovery of previously unsuspected
Sound synthesis almost everywhere is based on additive synthesis?

Fourier?with sinewaves as the fundamental things, although you can do
that also with square waves, at least in mathematics, which is easier for
the computer. It's possible to obtain interesting sound synthesis patterns
by using directly probability functions (interlocked or simple ones), and I
discovered in the 70s . . . that there are some specific values of probabili
ties, especially the logistic relation to barriers.When you have a probabil
ity function and you accumulate the values, then you might get out of
the limits of hearing or of the computer. So, you have to put whatever
you find in a closed situation: these are the barriers. When something
tries to get out, it hits the barrier (this is a theoretical word), and it is
brought inside.When you have a bullet in a cannon, this iswhat happens:
it is forced to get out, it doesn't go out in a nice way, tranquil way, but it
is a boat all the time on the cannon's inner sides. This is a mirror, you
see, where themovements are regulated by elastic jumps from one side to
the other. ... So ifyou have such barriers in your probabilities, then an
interesting phenomenon happens, which is to transform your probability
function into something which ismore regular for the eye, that is not like
a noise but more like a sound. The difference between a noise and a
sound is its periodicity. (This is a difference which is an aspect all over the
universe. It's not only music-inspired. Music is in the universe and the
universe is in themusic.) [Neu (Hertzog)]
The management isposited as a alter

of disorderly energies plausible
native not only from a phenomenalistic but also from a
perceptual,
even biological (!) perspective.
The mind and especially the ear [are] very sensitive to the order or dis
order of phenomena. The laws of perception and judgment are probably
in a geometrical or logarithmic relation to the laws of excitation. We do
not know much about this, and we shall again confine ourselves to exam
ining general entities and to tracing an overall orientation of the poetic
processes of a very general kind of music, without giving figures, moduli,
or determinisms. We are still optimistic enough to think that the inter
and action of abstract can cut bio
dependent experiment hypotheses
logically into the living conflict between ignorance and reality (if there is
any reality). [FM 62-3]
Now Xenakis begins discussing the origins of stochastic music?and its
compositional application in, e.g., the musical works Analogique A

andB.
The arguments which we shall pursue apply equally well to pure con
cepts and to those resulting from perception or sensory events, and we
may take the attitude of the craftsman or the listener.
We have already . . . acknowledged the concepts of order and disorder
in the homogeneous superficial distribution of grains.
We shall examine closely the concept of order, for . . . density and
topography are rather palpably simplified embodiments of this fleeting
and many-sided concept of disorder.
When we speak or order or disorder we imply first of all "objects" or

"elements." Then, and this is already more complex, we define the very
"elements" which we wish to study and fromwhich we wish to construct
order or disorder, and their scale in relation to ours. Finally we qualify
and endeavor to measure this order or disorder. [FM 60]
And what isan example ofsucha component"object"?How would it

from traditional notions ofbasicmusical materials?
differ
When there are a few sounds, or more precisely, a few pitches to con
trol, it is easy to proceed in an arbitrary or intuitivemanner, directly. But,
when it's a question of a great quantity of sounds, well, there itwould be
handy to borrow from other domains. When I look at a small number of
individuals, I see them as individuals; I see their relationships, their char
acteristics, and their relations to space and time, their own physiogno
mies, etc. But if there is a crowd, I can no longer distinguish the
individuals, because they are too numerous. On the contrary,what I can
see are the aspects, the characteristics of the crowd. [A 33-4]
New Proposal inMicrocomposition Based on Probability Distributions
We shall raise [(even welcome) the conflict between the received and
the stochastic perspectives] and by doing so we hope to open a new path
in microsound synthesis research?one that without pretending to be
able to simulate already known sounds, will nevertheless launch music, its
psychophysiology, and acoustics in a direction that is quite interesting
and unexpected.
Instead of starting from the unit element concept and its tireless itera
tion and from the increasing irregular superposition of such iterated unit
we can start from a disorder and then introduce means
elements, concept
that would increase or reduce it. This is like saying that we take the
inverse road: We do not wish to construct a complex sound edifice by
= sine or other
using discontinuous unit elements (bricks functions); we
wish to construct sounds with continuous variations that are not made
out of unit elements. This method would use stochastic variations of the
sound pressure directly.We can imagine the pressure variations produced
by a particle capriciously moving around equilibrium positions along the
pressure ordinate in a non-deterministic way. Therefore we can imagine
the use of any "random walk" or multiple combinations of them. [FM
246]
The "random or "Brownian movement"
walk" (named after botanist
Robert Brown (1773-1858)) refersto zigzag, irregularmovement
which occurs in colloidal suspensions,independent of external influ

ences.It isa mathematically convenientsourcefor thekind of initial,
disorderlychange thatXenakis thenwishes to constrain inprincipled
ways.
There is an advantage in defining chance as an aesthetic law, as a nor

mal philosophy. Chance is the limit of the notion of evolving symmetry
Symmetry tends to asymmetry, which in this sense is equivalent to the
negation of traditionally inherited behavioral frameworks. The negation
not only operates on details, but most importantly on the composition of
structures, hence tendencies in painting, sculpture, architecture, and
other realms of thought. For example, in architecture, plans worked out
with the aid of regulating diagrams are rendered more complex and
dynamic by exceptional events. Everything happens as if there were one
to-one oscillations between symmetry, order, rationality, and asymmetry,
disorder, irrationality in the reactions between the epochs of civilizations.
Note, in thefollowing, theadmirable way thatXenakis3s philosophical

insinuate themselves into the operational stances that he
predilections
adopts.
At the beginning of a transformation towards asymmetry, exceptional

events are introduced into the symmetry and act as aesthetic stimuli.
When these exceptional events multiply and become the general case, a
jump into a higher level occurs. The level is one of disorder, which, at
least in the arts and in the expressions of artists, proclaims itself as engen
dered by the complex, vast, and rich vision of the brutal encounters of
modern life. Forms such as abstract and decorative art and action paint
ing bear witness to this fact. Consequently chance, bywhose side we walk
in all our daily occupations, is nothing but an extreme case of this
controlled disorder (that which signifies the richness or poverty of the
connections between events and which engenders the dependence or
independence of transformations); and by virtue of the negation, it con
versely enjoys all the benevolent characteristics of an artistic regulator. It
is a regulator also of sonic events, their appearance, and their life.But it is
here that the iron logic of the laws of chance intervenes; this chance can
not be created without total submission to its own laws. [FM 25]
I am haunted by theprospect ofan encounterbetween

Xenakis (whose
work was embedded in the inextricably contingent domains of archi
tectureormusic) withJacksonPollack (whosemedium seemed totally
contained,as itwere, inhis mind within his body).
4. Rules / Restriction
There exists in all the artswhat we may call rationalism in the etymologi
cal sense: the search for proportion. The artist has always called upon it
out of necessity.The rules of construction have varied widely over the cen
turies, but there have always been rules in every epoch because of the
of making oneself understood. . . .
necessity
. . .The
rules of Christian hymnography, of harmony, and of counter
point in the various ages have allowed artists to construct and to make
themselves understood by those who have adopted the same
constraints?through traditions, through collective taste or imitation, or
resonance. . . .
through sympathetic
Now everything that is rule or repeated constraint is part of themental
... A musical work can be
machine. analyzed as a multitude of mental
machines. A melodic theme in a symphony is a mold, a mental machine,
in the same way as its structure is. These mental machines are something
very restrictive and deterministic, and sometimes very vague and indeci
sive. In the last few years we have seen that this idea of mechanism is
really a very general one. It flows through every area of human know
. . .
ledge and action, from strict logic to artisticmanifestations.
Just as thewheel was once one of the greatest products of human intel
ligence, a mechanism which allowed one to travel farther and fasterwith
more so is the computer, which allows the transformation
luggage, today
ofman's ideas. . . . ifpeople's minds are in general ready to recognize the
usefulness of geometry in the plastic arts (architecture, painting, etc.),
they have only one more stream to cross to be able to conceive of using
more non-visual mathematics and machines as aids to musical
abstract,
composition, which ismore abstract than the plastic arts. [FM 132]
to music, Xenakis argues that the component "mental

Returning
machines" that shape it are not only physiological (as is the case with
curves which acu
the Fletcher-Munson display how human auditory
as the
ity alters frequency of the signal varies) but also tool dependent.
(How do we actually produce thesoundswhich carry themusic?)
It is . . . natural to think that the disruptions inmusic in the last 60

years tend to prove once that music and its "rules" are socio
again
cultural and historical conditionings, and hence modifiable. These condi
tions seem to be based roughly on a. the absolute limits of our senses and
their deforming power (e.g. Fletcher contours); b. our canvas of mental
structures, some of which were [already discussed] (ordering, groups,
c. the means of sound instruments, electro
etc.); production (orchestral
acoustic sound storage and transformation convert

synthesis, analogue
ers). Ifwe modify any one of these three points, our socio-cultural condi
tioning will also tend to change in spite of an obvious inertia inherent in
a sort of "entropy" of the social facts. [FM 243]
And thefocus of his effort, noted above, is on the restrictive or bound
ing mechanisms that the composer adopts. Both the nature of categori
cal constraint (Whichdimensions of theglobal picture are selected
for
control?or and also the degree
influence?) of restriction that is
enforced matter. (How coarse or is the pattern

refined of controls?)
[As can be followed in detail from the analysis of Achorpisism Formal

izedMusic] the distributions entered [into matrices] are not always rigor
ously defined. They really depend, for a given [variable], on the number
of rows or columns. The greater the number of rows or columns, the
more rigorous is the definition. This is the law of large numbers. But this
indeterminism allows freewill if the artistic inspiration wishes it. It is a . .
.door that is
open to the subjectivism of the composer . . . [FM 31]
... a
great liberty of choice is given the composer [in shaping a work
such asAchorpisis]. The restrictions are more of a general canalizing kind,
rather then preemptory. The theory and the calculation define the ten
dencies of the sonic entity, but they do not constitute a slavery.Math
ematical formulae are thus tamed and subjugated by musical thought.
[FM 34]
In the case of pressure-time space a square,

periodic (where triangular,
or sine wave can be formed) the sound wave repeats itself identically and
systematically. But if the variation is not periodic, itwill adopt curves pos
sessing just about any sinuosity. We could imagine that this curve is
drawn by a floating point moving on a plane, without ever retracing its
neither in nor in pressure-time . . .
steps, pitch-time space space
These paths will obviously depend on the laws which will set themov
ing point inmotion. Periodic functions are very strict laws which corre
spond to melodies or equally to boring sounds. Probability theories and
theirmathematical combinations can, on the contrary, produce very free
paths which never repeat themselves and which correspond to much
richer melodies and sounds. The only thing is, these probabilistic treks
can take on any value. Consequently, they can make the moving point
surpass the weakest limits of the ear. In other words, in the case of the
pressure-time space, there could be pressures equal to those of the
atomic bomb! Therefore it is necessary to limit untimely growth, these
20 PerspectivesofNew Music
colossal probabilistic energies! It's exactly the same case with a bullet
which is channeled by a gun barrel while it ricochets off the barrel's inner
wall. [A 37-8]
The claim that probabilistic variegation could be a source of experien

tial richness is at the very least debatable. It seems evident, rather,
that unpredictable peregrination cannot be assumed to have any
perceptual/cognitive value, let alone special merit.

A case in point occurred for me while working on
Odyssey at Ircam
in the early 1980s. Intrigued by the behavior of two strange attract
ors, theH?non and the Lorentz, I committed considerable time to the
exploration of how their beguiling characteristicswould actually

sound as the variables were altered. Finding a passage that
defining
was not only but aesthetically was arduous in the
"faithful" acceptable
extreme. I came to realize that one can not assume that an interesting
category of behavior?an attractive "mental machine"?will then

a
reliably produce interesting results. In the absence of guarantor that
attractive concepts reliably generate attractive manifestations, how is
one to
proceed?
[Here is a] starting point for a utilization of the theory and calculus of

. . .
probabilities inmusical composition.
1. We can control continuous transformations of large sets of granular

continuous sounds. . . .
and/or
2. A transformation may be explosive when deviations from themean

suddenly become exceptional.
3. We can likewise confront highly improbable events with average
events.
4. Very rarefied sonic atmospheres may be fashioned and controlled

with the aid of formulae such as Poisson's. Thus, even music for a
solo instrument can be composed with stochastic methods.
These laws . . . . . . the advent of being and How

govern becoming.
ever, itmust be understood that they are not an end in themselves, but
marvelous tools of construction and logical lifelines. [FM 16]
Xenakis's line of argument here relates to his favored metaphor of the

shell propelled a cannon barrel: the energy and structured
from integ
rityof thedriving impulse ismodified by thenature of the boundary
conditions which are to bear.
brought
It is, however, conceptually novel to that these boundaries

recognize
may assert themselves either or vari
by constraining by unleashing
ability.
5. Intuition / Revelation / Love
Now, as the reliability of interdependencybetweenprocedural rigor

and artistic merit is appraised, the tone becomes irritable; action is
required.
It would seem that there is no aesthetics <?>

correspondence: entropy.
These two entities are linked in quite an independent manner at each
occasion. This statement still leaves some respite for the free will of the
composer even if this freewill is buried under the rubbish of culture and
civilization and is only a shadow . . .
The great obstacle to a too hasty generalization is chiefly one of logical
order; for an object is only an object as a function of its definition, and
there is, especially in art, a near-infinity of definitions and hence a near
infinityof entropies, for the notion of entropy is an epiphenomenon of
the definition. Which of these is valid? The ear, the eye, and the brain
unravel sometimes inextricable situations with what is called intuition,
taste, and intelligence. Two definitions with two different entropies can
be perceived as identical, but it is also true that the set of definitions of an
object has its own degree of disorder. We are not concerned here with
investigating such a difficult, complex, and unexplored situation, but
simplywith looking over the possibilities that connect realms of contem
porary thought promise, with a view to action. [FM 77]
. .
And when, of necessity, one begins to act, one
finds again that.
The sonic result is not guaranteed a priori by calculation. Intuition and

experience must always play their part in guiding, deciding, and testing.
[FM 81]
Again and again thereisan explicitrejection of the implication that

objective process, mathematical is a guarantor
rigor, of artistic merit.
Status is now given to the realm

of intuition by elevating inference
and revelation. What of the dimension of "mystery" referred to ear
lier?
In the artistic realm there is revelation. In philosophy, in knowledge,

it's the same thing. Yes, revelation is absolutely indispensable. It's one of
man's crutches. He has two crutches: revelation and inference. And in
the artistic realm, both are valid. In the scientific domain, there is one
which takes precedence over the other, and that is inference. [A 33]
Let us plunge now into the fundamental system on which art rests.Art
has something in the nature of an inferential mechanism, which consti
tutes the ground on which move all the theories of mathematical sci
ences, physics, and those of living beings. Indeed, the games of
proportions reducible to games of numbers and metrics in architecture,
literature, music, painting, theater, dance and so on?games of continu
ity, of proximity, in- or outside-of time, of topologic essence?are all
made on the terrain of the inference, in the strict logical sense. Besides
this terrain exists the experimental mode that challenges or confirms the
theories created by the sciences, including mathematics. . . .Now, the
arts are also governed, in a manner stillmore rich and complex, by the
experimental mode. Indeed there are not, and without a doubt will never
be, objective criteria for absolute and eternal truths of validity of a work
of art, just as no scientific "truth" is definite.
There would seem to be caveats to this almost

important off-handed
extension of the argument, and an invocation of "validity" in the
realm art too in a sense, however,
of goes far. "Truth," metaphoric has,
already beenmemorably evoked (firstentry,category2) in specifying
thefunction art: "a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect."
of
But in addition to these two modes of activity?inferential and experimen

tal?art lives in a third, that of immediate revelation that isneither inferential
nor experimental. The revelation of beauty ismade at once, directly, to the
person ignorant of art just as to the connoisseur. Revelation makes the force
of art and, it seems, its superiorityover the sciences because, living in the two
dimensions of the inferentialand experimental, art possesses this third possi
bility, themost mysterious of all, the one thatmakes the objects of art escape
any aesthetic science all thewhile indulging in the caresses of the inferential
and the experimental.
But on the other hand, art cannot live only by means of revelation. Art
must have, as shown us by the history of art of all times and all civilizations?
indeed, it has an imperious need of?organization (including that of
randomness), therefore of inference and of its confirmation, therefore of its
experimental truth. [MCT 174^5]
.. .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death ... 23
Xenakis an location (the

Again, surprises by including unexpected
random) on the scale
of organization.
When I look at the starry sky, I love it in a certain way because I know
it in a certain way; but if I must know the successive stages of astro
physics, well, that may happen without love. Love would here be sur
passed by a kind of revelation which is beyond this epiphenomenon
called love. Consequently, I can handle the concepts of things themselves
without being in direct possession of them, under the condition that I
may conceive of them and feel them fromwithin in some way. . . All . this
means is that even if I am incapable of dominating a certain phenome
non, I am capable of obtaining a truthwhich is inherent to the conceived
or observed phenomenon, thanks to a kind of immediate revelation.
Henceforth, I will accept and use this, in and as itself.When I tape record
a sound which I find interesting, I don't know exactly what is in this
sound. I perceive things which interestme and I use them. Therefore, I
cannot love the things within this sound which are so refined that I can
not totally perceive them. I am not consciously nor unconsciously
capable of naming them, but I accept the whole, in itself, since I am
attracted by that. [A 32-3]
The continuing oscillation between indebtedness to an established

source and the bedrock to
of authority necessity of license threatens
become vertiginous.
6. Composer / Composition
what is a composer?
Athinker and plastic artist who expresses himself through sound

beings. These two realms probably cover his entire being. [FMR255]
Parmenides' ... in no way indicates reference to any

"Being" any god.
He simply says that it's "the notion of Being." He speaks only of being,
of being as existence, not an active being. This iswhy he doesn't put the
notion of being in the infinitive.As contradictory as Parmenides' direc
tion may seem in relation to reality, I think it is one of the revelatory
. . . [A
sparks among the conflicts of human thinking 35]
Parmenides was able to go to the heart of the question of change by

. . .He discovered the principle of the excluded middle and
denying it
logical tautology, and this created such a dazzlement that he used them
as a means of cutting out, in the evanescent change of senses, the notion
of Being, of thatwhich is, one, motionless, filling the universe, without
birth and indestructible; the not-Being, not existing, circumscribed, and
spherical... [FM 202-3]
Parmenides (born c. 515 BC) asserted that thingseitherexist or they

no
do not, and, hence, that?there being possibility of intermediate
can be no He and other Eleatic
stages?there change. philosophers
used paradoxes to argue that common-sense notions of reality
were
unacceptable.
Xenakis now carries the themes of "objects" and the inherent quali
further, thensupercedesthemwithmagma.
ties ofsound itself
... in the musical domain the words "composition" and "composer"

mean to put things together; therefore pre-existing things which are
defined in a certain manner. . . .
already
... A
large part of Formalized Music is, in fact, based on [strategies for
determining the] organization of given sound objects, but another part (the
last chapter) startsfrom a sort of global perception. If I say global percep
tion, Imean where there are no molecules (objects which the composer puts
to create more or less evolved but a magma of possible
together organisms)
punctual states (discontinuous pressure values), within which he is capable of

. . . I've
coming up with forms following criteria he himself must invent.
been eager to speak about discontinuous things . . .
when we speak ofmusic
history, either past or present, this is equally the easiest,most direct, and rich
est approach possible. We aremore familiar,more at ease with discontinuous
rather than continuous thingswhen dealing with perceptions aswell as judg
ments, but this in no way excludes undefined or undefinable things. [A 89]
It is crucial to recognize that one ofXenakis's primary contributions

to music?he was explicit about this in our conversations?was to rec
accept, and utilize the continuous variability of musical

ognize,
dimensions.Thus, not onlypitchglissandi, but continual redefinition
in the domains of time, performance technique, space, density, loud
ness, even the underlying stochastic variability of textural features
(macro) or thepressurefluctuations defining sound itself(micro) are
all understoodand exercisedas infinitelymutable media.
We can control not entropy but something which looks like it ... It
a
depends on the technique that is used. You might, for instance, at given
moment produce sounds with probabilities. In that case, you have to deal
with the problem of entropy, that is, how much coordination or how
much determinism you have to include. You can startwith something
which has a high entropy value and then go to a much narrower [range]
in rhythm, in pitch wealth and things like that?the evolution of the
timbre in itself in the tiny notes, or the tiny sounds [in themicrostructure
of the sound]. I am especially considering the East Asian way of produc
ing sound, with small glissandi, for instance, with the biwa in Japan, or
chant in India. That is in order to enhance the phenomenon of sound.
You don't have just notes, pitch versus time with some envelope, you
have more than that. . . .
The regular, deterministic (periodic) exposure of ideas was replaced

(after the war, especially) by a more general thought inwhich things are
not so much, or not at all, according to traditional rules, and inwhich
everything is scattered, like what you have in the domain of physics or
everyday life. Neu
[ (Kronengold ) ]
The challenge is to create music, starting, in so far as it is possible,

from a minimum number of premises but which would be "interesting"
from a contemporary aesthetical sensitivity,without borrowing or getting
in known . . .
trapped paths.
[One possibility would be the] attempt, as objective as possible, of cre
ating an automated art, without any human interference except at the
start, only in order to give the initial impulse and a few premises . . .
[FMR295]
But, beneath technicalprocedures and philosophical desirabilities, it

individual character?either as it arises
is, ultimately, from within
or is others?which directs the course of
acquired by example from
one's life. Though Xenakis's own character was so
itself powerfully
formed and continuously assertive that it may have precluded exten
sive comment, he did not this matter in his writ
neglect altogether
ings. On occasion he was autobiographically candid regarding his
own models and ideals.
Van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime, then he died.
Today there is a huge?in Amsterdam?exhibition of his work, and prices
of his paintings are fantastic. He would have been a fantastically richman
in his lifetime, but he didn't care for that. That is a kind of model of the
artist. . . .
[The artist] works because he's there. He doesn't care for posterity.
Maybe this is a kind of romantic statement, but I think this is a calling.
It's like the asceticists, the people who went to the desert to live with
God, by themselves; they didn't care about earthly prosperity. . . .
At the beginning, I was so much admiring Bach and Beethoven that I
said, "I must learn composition to understand, because I like thatmusic
(and Brahms also)," but then I said, "No. They did that, they are perfect,
I cannot imitate them." Then I said, "Well, maybe I will try
something
different." . . .
You have to be very relaxed and free . . . because as soon as you say,
"Ah, that iswhat I want to do," you are trapped, you see? You don't see
a ladder anywhere. It's a kind of game, a strategy that one has to
play
with himself, during all his lifetime.One is aware ofthat, but after awhile,
when you start looking at the past (or other people
doing things), then
you have an understanding that you could not have when you were
young, because you had not that experience. . . When . you produce
something, ask "Is it interesting or not?" With very sharp eyes, you say,
"Yes," or "No?maybe." [Neu (Hertzog)]
When I was young I was reading Plato. Because I was not satisfiedwith
the society inwhich I was living, and I thought that Plato was
interesting
in that aspect. He proposed a kind of government thatwas by wise peo
the equality men
ple. And also, between and women, because at that time
I liked to be in love with girls who had some personality. And Plato tries
to prove thatwomen are also important for society, it's a "set theoretical"
demonstration?closed ballot system.
And then [against] the Germans, when they invaded Greece, I was
driven by a kind of nationalism, chauvinism (which was a good thing at
that time), and I entered a kind of rightist organization. Then I found
that they didn't saymuch, because I kept being unsatisfied with society.
So I followed the Communists, who were much more accurate in that
direction, especially with Marx (a kind of nineteenth century Plato). But
then, before the war finished, I decided to do music, because even with
Communism, I was not satisfied. And I promised myself as soon as the
war was over to come to the States, because I had relatives here, and to
study archaeology, philosophy, physics, mathematics and music also.
Only these five things.
I wanted to go to the States, but then I stopped in Paris and I
remained there, doing music, but itwas very difficult. I was interviewed
by Le Corbusier, and that was a very important thing. I didn't care for
architecture, but Le Corbusier was interesting because he was searching
for things thatwere very close to what I tried; not what I tried, but the
way I tried to do music, composition. And so, after awhile, we worked on

several projects in architecture, like the Couvent de la Tourette and some
other things in Chandigarh, in India, and so forth. It's important ifyou
can have two fundamental research domains because one reflects on the
other one. It's rich in at least the early stages of your life; afterwards?I
don't know. [Neu (Hertzog)]
Early in Formalized Music, Xenakis lays out the chronology of opera

tionswhich compositionentailsfor him. This listing,not surprisingly,
attends only to the objectifiableprocedures, not mentioning even by
implicationall ofthatwhich lies beyondthespecifiable,thatwhich he
so cites as crucial to an art that would "draw towards total
frequently
"
exaltation. It is regrettable that there exists so little comment upon
the ways that such non-quantifiable criteria were woven into his cre
ative ways.
At a conferenceorganized byThanassis Rikakis at Delphi inGreece

(July 1992), there was an
evening-long discussion between Xenakis,
Fran?ois-Bernard M?che, Paul Lansky, and myself. Here is a ques

tion I put to him. His answer was, I think, the most state
revealing
ment I ever heard from him regarding "that which lies beyond
"
specifiable procedures.
. . . to an . . . there's the
Referring image outside of music concept of
"
"necessary force, that is to say that an officer who is attempting to
use
bring order can as much as is no more, so
only force required and
that it doesn't ever fade over into violence or excess. Now . . .
arbitrary
one of the traps that is
opened by the computer music field isn't actually
related to the computer but rather to itsmeans of dissemination which
is to say amplification and loudspeakers.... I think that one
ofthephe
nomenalistic aspects of your music which is sogripping to many listen
ers is its exists whether
intensity. That intensity the music is
instrumental or electronic. And however powerful the music may be as
a it never seems to me . . . without
physical experience, justification.
much what I hear in the name
Whereas, of of computer music sounds
likeunjustifiable or unnecessaryforce, and I wonder ifyou have any
thoughts about that and in particular whether you have any thoughts
on how you manage to make such
force justifiable?
I think that this part of music composition is something that is above

understanding. My strategy is the following: Consciousness is like
somebody that is above a hole in the ground. Under the hole, under
ground, there are all your kinds of ideas. Intuitions, habits, and so on.
It's your self.You are watching your hole and you expect some interest
ing ideas or things to come up: forms, shapes. Now, you have to be there
very attentive, and when something comes out, you decide if it'sworth
while or not. If it'sworthwhile, you try to be nice with that form. If not,
you take your stick [demonstrates] [and beat it] back into the hole. This
strategy is very difficult because you have to foresee what that form that
you like?if it's not narcissistic because it's yourself?you have to foresee
if it is bearing things that could explode later on ifyou cultivate it.And
there, nobody can help you. You are by yourself alone in the dark sky
which has no galaxies, nothing. [Delphi]
Here now is a virtual prescription in relation to how Xenakis com
posed.
FUNDAMENTAL PHASES OF A MUSICAL WORK
1. Initial conceptions (intuitions, provisional or definitive data);
2.Definition of the sonic entities and of their symbolism communicable

with the limits of possible means (sounds of musical instruments, elec
tronic sets of ordered sonic or contin
sounds, noises, elements, granular
uous formations, etc.);
3 .Definition of the transformations which these sonic entities must

undergo in the course of the composition (macrocomposition: general
choice of logical framework, i.e., of the elementary algebraic operations
and the setting up of relations between entities, sets, and their symbols as
defined in 2.); and the arrangements of these operations in lexicographic
time with the aid of succession and simultaneity);
4Microcomposition (choice and detailed fixing of the functional or sto

chastic relations of the elements of 2.), i.e., algebra outside-time, and
algebra in-time;
5.Sequential programming of 3. and 4. (the schema zn? pattern of the

work in its entirety);
6.Implementation of calculations^ verifications, feedbacks, and defini

tive modifications of the sequential program;
7.Final symbolic result of the programming (setting out the music on

paper in traditional notation, numerical expressions, graphs, or other
means of solfeggio);
8.Sonic realization of the program (direct orchestral performance,

manipulations of the type of electromagnetic music, computerized con
struction of the sonic entities and their transformations).
The order of this list is not really rigid. Permutations are possible in the
course of the working out of a composition. Most of the time these
phases are unconscious and defective. However, this list does establish
ideas and allows speculation about the future. [FM 22]
7. Architecture
It appears that the realization that he could manifest proportion and

other potential in the realms both architecture and music came to
of
Xenakis onlyin his earlythirties,but thephilosophicaland procedural
interp?n?trationof thesetwodisciplines, bothapproachedfrom non
conforming backgrounds, proved decisive.
I found that the problems in architecture were the same as inmusic.

One thing I learned from architecture which is different from the way
musicians work is to consider the overall shape of the composition, the
way you see a building or a town. Instead of starting from a detail, like a
theme, and building up the whole thing with rules, you have the whole
inmind and think about the details and the elements and, of course, the
proportions. That was a useful mode of thinking. I was young and I was
not formed, so I thought that the best way to attack the problem was
from both ends, detail and general. [X 69]
In some instances
the parallels were easily seen and
capitalized upon;
nevertheless, architecture did present idiosyncratic and in some sense
larger issues than music.
I believe that centralization (which I prefer to call a "densification") of

human dwellings and relations is, first of all, a historical necessity which
we can find in all examples of urban construction and human dwellings as
well as in human relations, in culture, all over. What makes it even more
necessary today is the pellicular invasion of planetary space by dispersed
citieswhich destroys the environment. Actually, there are two tendencies:
one of densification-toward-compaction (a greater densification); and the
other is a centrifugal tendency which prefers to reintroduce rural habits

in themiddle of green nature, where possible. If this is not possible, then
. . .
theymust be created by artificialmeans. Actually, these two tenden
cies struggle against one another. If fact, the saturation (or compaction)
tendency iswinning out... [A 51]
Planning in architecture often involves?beyondproportion and the

functional foresight required by construction time as well as the
unforeseeable effects of very large scale?markedly less certainty than
could be assumed in an individual compositionalproject.
[In considering the city of the future] we are faced with two problems:
the problem of organization, and then, a deeper problem ... of social
structure. When I say organization, it's obvious that a city like
[Chandigarh], which must comprise millions of individuals and at a five
thousand meter altitude, cannot be entirely conceived in advance . . .
[But] it is possible to give the framework (meaning the container) and
not define or determine the contents. This would allow a freedom suffi
ciently great so that the contents could develop progressively. It must be
understood that this sort of city could not be put up in five or even ten
years, but could take up to twenty or thirtyyears to construct. Therefore,
it's not the city itselfwhich would be designed in advance . . . but the
"container"; in other words, the fundamental structure which must be
built. . .[A 55]
one on the in particu

If reflects experience ofXenakis's music, and,
lar, considers the categorical specification entailed in the matrixed
nature ofa work such as Achoripsis (covered in thefirst chapter of
Formalized Music,), one realizes how forcefully and the
consistently
idea of "containers" emerges.
With Le Corbusier I discovered architecture: being an engineer, I

could do calculations as well, so I was doing both. This is quite rare in
the domain of architecture and music. Everything started coming
together and I also asked musical and philosophical questions. What I
could not realize because of lack of tuition and because of circumstances,
I was realizing by myself and putting together the past that I had been
[sic] all that time. Well I think thatwas natural; itwas the influence of the
ancient Greek civilisation, especially of Plato. [X 55]
yearsyounger thanLe Corbusier (born 1887), and

Though thirty-five
on any sense
without comparable standing grounds, Xenakis's fierce of
honor led him into disputes with his collaborator?not, it would seem,
on aesthetic but rather ethical grounds. His characterization is

upon
sharply critical.
I have been with Le Corbusier for ten years and likeme there are two
or three other colleagues, and in his last volumes of
complete works there
is not a single mention of our names; it is Le Corbusier who designs and
we who do not exist. He works only half an hour on
plans and the rest of
the time he is concerned with personal publicity, exhibitions, etc. . . . and
in the afternoon he never comes to the studio. All the responsibility of
thework falls on our shoulders both design and sometimes execution, he
and takes credit. . . .
only signs
I am not vain, nor in a hurry to possess an illusion called glory, or
money, but it is a much deeper thing. I have confidence in justice in all its
forms.When I was young, for it I battled blow by blow, not hesitating to
risk everything. When I do architecture I give myself profoundly for it
and also music ... [X 120]
Tet the offense that he took in relation to some aspects

ofLe Corbusier's
behavior did not blind Xenakis to the respect that his senior col
league's achievement merited.
. . .I'm to do architecture whenever I can. ... in relation

always ready
to Le Corbusier, I don't know if there are many other architects who
have achieved what I consider to be artistic expression. Independent of
an architect's or urbanist's subjacent ideas, this is
something very com
... Le Corbusier
plex which comes from different sources and directions.
can be criticized on a lot of points . . . but I believe he was one of the
greatest architects of our time. There are not thirty-six of them today,
perhaps there isn't even one. [A 58]
The subjectof architecture?whether from the perspectives of engineer,

collaborator,or urban and
design Utopian planner?aroused
engaged Xenakis, and his deep attraction to it upon more
depended
than proportion. Even in the course of an extended discussion
of the
outside-time [cf., category 9] basis of Byzantine monody, he invokes
the word "architecture." In fact, it would appear that, any time that
abstract, not yet instantiated criteria move towards larger purpose?
as structure
begins offering up actual experience?Xenakis's orienta
tion shifts towards the more integrative and tangible realm 0/archi
tecture. And, course, architecture, also, entails time.
of
I am motivated to present this architecture [a perspective on the

"ritarded" process ofmusicological research], which is linked to antiquity
and doubtless to other cultures, because it is an elegant and livelywitness

to what I have tried to define as an outside-time category, algebra, or
structure of music, as opposed to its other two categories, in-time and
temporal. It has often been said (by Stravinsky,Messiaen, and others)
that inmusic time is everything.Those who express this view forget the
basic structures on which such as or
personal languages, "pre- post
Webernian" serial music, rest, however simplified theymay be. In order
to understand the universal past and present, as well as prepare the
future, it is necessary to distinguish structures, architectures, and sound
organisms from their temporal manifestations. It is therefore necessary to
take "snapshots," tomake a series of veritable tomographies over time, to
compare them and bring to light their relations and architectures, and
vice versa. . . .
In thisway, time could be considered as a blank blackboard, on which

symbols and relationships, architectures and abstract organisms are
inscribed. The clash between organisms and architectures and instanta
neous immediate reality gives rise to the primordial quality of the living
consciousness. [FM 192]
8. Sources / Materials
From a pragmatic
vantage point, what is it that sparks the imagina
tion, the way towards an intimate with

illuminating absorption
actual creative entanglements, involvements which supplant the
breadth and generality of larger beliefs, allegiances, cultural conven
tions? The range of useful provocations was broad for
unusually
Xenakis, but he had lessfocused to say about what,
things explicitly,
a work.
ignited particular
an
One generative spark is inferable: indelible autobiographical
on an Athenian
memory of conflict night (cf., category 10, first and
second entries). He also describes another instance in relation to an
initial encounter music
with unknown ofmemorable character.
One initial approach would be, overall, like seeing a wall. And some
times the wall has nice scratches or things like that that the composer
enters. He says, "Well, thatmight be interesting." This iswhat happened
to me when I heard for the first time Bartok, played by people like
Yehudi Menuhin and Louis Ketner, the pianist. I didn't know Bartok at
the time and I thought itwas like a "wall" of sounds. And the public was
very furious; they didn't like it at all and they were booing. I was not
booing?respecting the people that played it?and also because I caught
a glimpse of interest in that. . . .So, this happens always. You cannot
dominate the material that you are hearing, listening, or seeing?same

thing for painting, or even architecture?you do that step by step.[Neu
(Kronengold)]
Novel experience necessitating adjustment and discovery is always
can
prized. But Xenakis rarely resist the urge togeneralize. There is
an incessant, almost oscillation between the materializing
respiratory
element and the liberating abstraction, and one is bemused to note
that even praise for "the faculty of condensation" does not, after all,
an arrival at concrete, but rather at an abstrac
applaud something
tion!
[If one takes as a given] the proposition that music is a sociocultural

phenomenon subordinated to a given instant in history . . . one can dis
tinguish parts that are more invariant than others and thus formmaterials
of hardness and consistency, resulting from diverse epochs of civiliza
tions, materials that move in space, created, hurled, and driven by cur
rents of ideas, clashing, influencing, annihilating, and fecundating each
other.
But of what essence are these materials made? This essence is the intel
ligence of man solidified in a way: intelligence that seeks, questions,
infers, reveals, and foresees at all levels. Music and the arts in general
seem necessarily to be a solidification, a materialization of this intelli
. . .
gence.
Talent is ... a kind of qualification, a gradation of the vigor and rich
ness of intelligence. For intelligence is, fundamentally, the result, the
expression of billions of exchanges, of reactions, of transformations of
energy in the cells of the brain and the body. . . .

. . . [the]
faculty of condensation toward abstraction is of a profound
nature that to music no doubt more than to other arts. Conse
belongs
quently, it seems that a new kind of musician is necessary, that of the

artist-conceiver of free and abstract new toward
forms, tending compli
cations and generalizations on several levels of sound organization.
[MCT 172-3]
An artist-conceiver such as Xenakis detects adumbrations ofform in
the domains of scientific speculation, but he recognizes that he must
then gain command resource
of such potential through the balancing
intuition and reason. the almost
of Perhaps surprisingly, given
processes one encounters in his music, it
inordinately un-predictable
turns out more renewal?is out as
that?repetition, generally singled
"
a
key resource. As with any "mental machine, however, the resulting
effect of iterations is dependent upon the way they are used. He
characterizes the alternative uses elements as con

of repetition?unit
structive building blocks out of which structures are devised versus rep
etitionas a given, with shaping imposedas a result of injectingnon
conformingdisruptions?these alternativeforms of repetitiondefine
the range a "instrument" at which the composer per
of metaphoric
as he creates his music.
forms
In every domain of human activity, form exists as a sort of froth. I have

noticed some figures, some forms, which belong to either the domain of
abstract speculation (such as mathematics, logic), or to more concrete
speculation (such as physics, treating either atomic or subatomic phe
nomena), or to geometrical expressions of genetics (such as chemical
molecular reactions). Yet these figures, these forms which belong to so
many dissimilar domains also have fascinating similarities and diversifica
tions and can enlighten other domains such as artistic activities. [A 63-4]
At each reproduction of any entity, the entropy of the entity increases

according to a certain delta?that is, the information describing the
entity degrades partially at each renewal, irretrievably. It becomes the job
of the composer to master, with intuition and reason at the same time,
the doses of these entropy-deltas circulating through all the micro
macro-intermediate levels of the musical composition. In other words,
one establishes an entire range between two poles?determinism^ which
to strict and indeterminism, which
corresponds periodicity, corresponds
to constant renewal?that is, periodicity in the large sense. This is the
true keyboard ofmusical composition . . .
To show to what extent this duality (that is, the entity and negation of
the entity by varied reproductions at each step) is important, I put forward
. . . the
following question in the specific case of sound synthesis by com
and converter: how can one obtain a
puter digital-to-analog rich, living,
unheard-of-sound? Does one start from an and its repro
previously entity
ductions and inject probabilistic variations, creating greater and greater
deviations from the initial entity,which tend toward a stronger negation?
Or, on the contrary, should one start from an absolute negation?in other
words a Brownian curve containing absolutely no germ whatsoever of an
entity?and inject more or less varied reproductions of fragments of this
curve, so as to or an unheard-of,
engender progressively explosively, rich,
sound? . . .These are two and . . .
living pathways, opposite symmetrical
[MCT 180-1]
So, however sound materials themselves are arrived at, the composer
faces (at least)two prospects (and, by extension, others in relation to
form): the additive assembly from known sub-elements of the result
one seeks, or the a source behavior, the

securing of of highly diversified
chaotic energies of which are then bounded in such a way as to bring
about "unheard of, rich, living sound." The latter argument, persua
sive in its novelty, turned out to be less productive than Xenakis had
hoped at the (micro) level ofsound synthesis.

While stochasticprocesses
produced startling sorts of continuity and at the
dis-continuity,
macro levels of sectional delimitation and overall form, it was not
until the rather late Gendy 3 (1991) that one could actually hear
convincing evidence of the micro-level application of such perspective,
an application whichproduced thesortof local variabilitywhich chal
lenges the richness of natural (or additively synthesized) timbres.
But assuming sound material a way
itself and ofguiding the pro
ideals its containers at various hierarchical levels, there is
portional of
still the out-side time organization resource which must occur
ofpitch
at a stage.
preliminary compositional
Start with the problem of scales. . . . any selection of points on a line

can be called a scale. The line or the points can refer to pitches or time or
whatever: discrete. Then the structure that is basic for what you are
going to do, as it used to be everywhere inmusic, and in other domains
too. How to construct the scale is fundamental; it is also rewarding
because ifyou discover that it is some form of periodicity, you are linked
suddenly with all the scientificworld that is there, waiting for you. [Neu
(Pelz-Sherman)]
In Byzantine music the principle of iteration [along with] juxtaposition

of the system [the ancient rules of consonance, dissonance, and asso
leads to scales ... a method of scales. It
nance] very clearly constructing
is a sort of iterative operator, which starts from the lower category of
tetrachords and their derivatives, the pentachord and the octochord, and
builds a chain of more in the same manner as
up complex organisms,
on genes. . . .The
chromosomes based Byzantines defined the system as
the simple multiple repetition of two, several, or all the notes of a scale.
"Scale" here means a succession of notes that is already organized, such
as the tetrachord or its derivatives. . . . [FM 188]
But . . . outside-time structure could not be satisfied with a compart
mentalized hierarchy. It was necessary to have free circulation between

the notes and their subdivisions, between the kinds of tetrachords,
between the genera, between the systems, and between the echoi?hence
the need for a sketch of the in-time structure . . .There exist operative
signs which allow alterations, transpositions, modulations, and other
transformations (metabolae). . . . [FM 190]
Composers don't think about scales any more; very rare, that. I am
perhaps the only one, with Messiaen. When you write a melodic pat
tern?let's say that you work in a semi-tone
well-tempered scale?you
think that all the notes are available. Then you don't think about the
scale anymore. [Neu (Pelz-Sherman)]
In the 1980s,Karen and I had the opportunityto spend a week with

Marie-Luce and Fran?ois-Bernard M?che in the house that Xenakis
had on the southern-most
designed for them island of the Cyclades,
Amorgos. This four-unit assemblage offree-standing structures with

curved walls?slashed occasionally by rectilinear fenestrations?is sited
on a inaccessible coast, facing theAegean. One can not
rugged, easily
evoke with words the impact?emotionally moving, intellectually stir
time spent in and around this structure
ring?of composite (Examples
1 and 2). Sufficeit to say,here, that,whenXenakis offeredtodesign a
desert home for us, we were delighted. In due time, some preliminary
drawings arrived, and to our amazement (and amusement), he had

used a three-dimensional projection of the letter "R" as a
formal
seed?complete with a small, vertically assertive fountain decreed by
this letter's upper loop.
Thus, outside the realm ofmusic, more direct image-structure corre

to him. One imagines that there must have been
spondences appealed
or
gestural imagistic correlates to the music which remain unrevealed.
An example of this can be glimpsed in the outrageous, high-register
mockery of his treatment of "Happy Birthday" in a tribute to Toru
Takemitsu's sixtieth It is savagely comedie, not the
birthday. abjuring
tune itself,but overlayingitwith shrill
glissandi in harsh, though
good
natured, derisiveness.
I even drew two plans for the church [of La Tourette]. One was Aztec;
itwas fantastic, pagan but unacceptable to the priests because it separated
the altar too much from themonks. I had placed the altar very high up; it
was farmore beautiful than the present one but the monks refused so I
drew a second design with the chapel in the form of a grand piano, the
organization of light and so on as it is now.
. . . [La
Tourette] was an occasion forme to express thoughts and acts of
faith repulsed by modern life . . . [The] monastery was forme a point of
condensation, of historic knowledge and Platonic "reminiscences," of
epochs lived at other times (cf.,Examples 3-4). [X 68]
In concluding this commentaryon SOURCES / MATERIALS, we

return to the intersection music.
of architecture with Families of
*w?
*
mam
EXAMPLE 1: VIEW OF THE M?CHE HOUSE, AMORGOS ( PHOTO I R.

REYNOLDS)
are assembled so as to create

straight lines continuously curved surfaces.
And their sonic parallels?string glissandi?evoke related surfaces in
sound.
If glissandi are long and sufficiently interlaced, we obtain sonic spaces

of continuous evolution. It is possible to produce ruled surfaces by draw
ing the glissandi as straight lines. I performed this experiment with
Metastasis (thiswork had its premiere in 1955 at Donaueschingen). Sev
eral years later,when the architect Le Corbusier, whose collaborator I
was, asked me to suggest a design for the architecture of the Philips Pavil
ion in Brussels, my inspiration was pin-pointed by the experiment with
Metastasis. Thus I believe that on this occasion music and architecture
found an intimate connection. Examples I 1-5 indicate the causal chain
of ideas which ledme to formulate the architecture of the Philips Pavilion
from the score ofMetastasis. [FM 10]
EXAMPLE 2: VIEW FROM INSIDE THE MAIN BUILDING, SHOWING M?CHE

HOUSE FENESTRATIONS ( PHOTO I R. REYNOLDS)
TW?
H
^^Hir^?lg
EXAMPLE 3: VIEW OF LA TOURETTE SHOWING "WAVING GLASS"

PROPORTIONALITIES (PHOTO K. REYNOLDS)
.fei
EXAMPLE 4: VIEW OF LA TOURETTE SHOWING "WAVING GLASS"

PROPORTIONALITIES (PHOTO K. REYNOLDS)
. , .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death ... 41
EXAMPLE 5: METASTASIS SCORE, MEASURES 309-17 (PAGE 2,

FORMALIZED MUSIC)
The depth of significanceof thisformative, interdisciplinaryintersec

tion isfurther revealed in an unusually candid extractfrom a 1955
letter toHermann Scherchen.
I am sending you a copy ofMetastaseis, the new score. I have modified

it according to your indications, I hope it ismore legible and will repel
you less. I thank you for the support you have had the kindness to give
me. I have already seen Pierre Henry and begun to initiate myself into
the secrets of "musique concr?te." For the moment I am trying to
understand the direction and the medium besides the new possibilities
open to the imagination. I would not like to startwith a set purpose and
to interpret the modern conceptions of my instrumental music into
mechanized music. It is very difficult to stay on the right track since cur
rents of all kinds lure themind along different paths.
You are right in tellingme thatMetastaseis has a conception of material
differentfrom that ofWebern for instance. And I believe that I am prefig
uring the tendency of my futurework in the group of the musique con
cr?te. [X 80]
Any theory or solution given on one level can be assigned to the solu
tion of problems on another level. Thus the solutions inmacrocomposi
tion on the Families level (programmed stochastic mechanisms) can
engender simpler and more powerful new perspectives in the shaping of
microsounds than the usual trigonometric (periodic) functions can.
Therefore, in considering clouds of points and their distribution over a
pressure-time plane, we can bypass the heavy harmonic analyses and syn
theses and create sounds that have never before existed. Only then will
sound synthesis by computers and digital-to-analogue converters find its
true position, free of the rooted but ineffectual tradition of electronic,
concrete, and instrumental music that makes use of Fourier synthesis
despite the failure of this theory. [FMvii]
9. Time / References
What is time for themusician? What is the flux of time which passes invis
ibly and impalpable? In truth,we seize it only with the help of perceptive
reference-events, thus indirectly, and under the condition that these
reference-events be inscribed somewhere and do not disappear without
leaving a trace. Itwould suffice that they exist in our brain, our memory. It
is fundamental that the phenomena-references leave a trace inmy memory,
for if not, theywould not exist. Indeed, the underlying postulate is that
"
-?-? ;; ;
^:^*^4~-\.-: ;:-Ui^fji^ ;;:^"a^^ };M
EXAMPLE 6: GRAPHIC SKETCH FOR METASTASIS, MEASURES 309-17

(PAGE 3, FORMALIZED MUSIC)
time, in the sense of an impalpable, Heraclitian flux, has signification only in

relation to the person who observes, to me. Otherwise, itwould be mean
ingless. Even assuming the hypothesis of an objective fluxof time, indepen
dent from me, its apprehension by a human subject, thus by me, must be
subject to the phenomena-reference of the flux, first perceived, then
inscribed inmy memory. Moreover, this inscriptionmust satisfy the condi
tion that it be in a manner which iswell-circumscribed, well detached, indi
vidualized, without possible confusion. But that does not suffice to
transform a phenomenon that has left traces inme into a referential phe
nomenon. In order that this trace-image of the phenomenon become a ref
erence mark, the notion of anteriority is necessary. But this notion seems to
be circular and as impenetrable as the immediate notion of flux. It is a syn
onym.
Let us alter our point of view, ifonly slightly.When events or phenom
ena are synchronie, or rather, if all imaginable events were synchronie,
universal time would be abolished, for anteriority would disappear. By
the same token, if events were absolutely smooth, without beginning or

end, and even without modifications or "perceptible" internal roughness,
time would likewise find itself abolished. It seems that the notion of sep
aration, of bypassing, of difference, of discontinuity, which are strongly
interrelated, are prerequisite to the notion of anteriority. In order for
anteriority to exist, it is necessary to be able to distinguish entities, which
would then make it possible to "go" from one to the other. A smooth
EXAMPLE 7: COMPLETED STRUCTURE, PHILIPS PAVILION (PAGE 11,

FORMALIZED MUSIC)
continuum abolishes time, or rather time, in a smooth continuum, is

illegible, inapproachable. [FMR262]
At the means We discover once

least, separability non-synchronization.
again the notion of anteriority. It merges with the notion of temporal

ordering. The ordering anteriority admits no holes, no empty spaces. It is
necessary for one separable entity to be continuous with the next, other
wise, one is subject to a confusion of time. Two chains of contiguous
events without a common link can be indifferently synchronous or
anterior in relation to each other, time is once again abolished in the tem
poral relation of each of the universes represented by the two chains.
[FMR263]
However abstract, even his thought may become,

metaphysical,
Xenakis tends to redirect it, in the end, towards musical application.
In the preceding he prepares an
passage, exploration of sieve theory,
itselfa component of hisfinal theoretical (and rousingly visceral)
achievement,Gendy 3 (1991) for computergenerated sound. (This
work?its title ismore properly "Gen Dy"?is a crucible for the elasti
cally bounded process he called "general dynamic stochastic
synthesis. ") Here, both the microstructure of the sound and also the
larger-scale convolutions of
contour (which serves to evoke phrase,
and so on) have a common source.
period,
About phrasing and things like that, they have to be part of the math
ematics. If you[, as a listener, hear] phrasings, I didn't do anything at all,
which means that it is, as Meyer-Eppler distinguished fiftyyears or so
before, the tiny things that you are conscious of after awhile. This is the
interest of probability functions, because although you do not control
them point by point, they have an average evolution, a very tiny one,
which goes into that domain: the liveness of the sound. I think [whatever
listener because that's an feature of it. It's not pro
hears] that, important
duced by any kind of pianissimo or something like that, the evolution of
pitch and so on. It's directly taken from the result of the probability func
tions with the parameters that I [imposed]. [Delphi]
The role of time in Xenakis's work has been too little remarked. It is
on many levels: requiring or mathematical
significant philosophical
criteriafor thedivision of the compositionaltask itself;thedemarca
tion offormal structure as well as the intermediate, level;
phrase-like
and thedefinition of the local rhythmsthemselves(whethersingular
streams or coincident,
polyphonic clashings.) Here he is,for example,
a novel set distinctions in relation to compositional
enumerating of
process.
I propose to make a distinction inmusical architectures or categories

between outside-time, in-time, and temporal. A given pitch scale, for
example, is an outside-time architecture, for no horizontal or vertical
combination of its elements can alter it. The event in itself, that is, its
actual occurrence, belongs to the temporal category. Finally, a melody or
a chord on a given scale is produced by relating the outside-time cat
egory to the temporal category. Both are realizations in-time of outside
time constructions. [FM 183]
By "outside time" I mean the domain in which time plays no role

whatsoever. For example, the pitch intervals of thewhite piano keys form
a structure that is in the outside-time domain. On the other hand, a
melodic pattern based on the piano keys lies in the time domain, because
[the] temporal order [of their soundings] matters. [MCT 178]
And, finally, in this category, a laconical tribute to the essential status
of time in musical experience.
Most musical analysis and construction may be based on: 1. The study
of an entity, the sonic event, which . . .groups three characteristics, pitch,
intensity, and duration, and which possess a structure outside-time-,2. The
study of another simpler entity, time, which possess a temporal structure-,
and, 3. The between the structure outside-time and the
correspondence
structure: the structure in-time.
temporal
. . . have to think about the small medium and
you scale, scale, larger
scales, of course, having inmind that what is interesting is the kind of
time that a music could produce for the listener. Because this is the
stream, especially of music. If there is not such a thing, then you are
more or less asleep. Interest is broken. [Neu (Kronengold)]
10. Mass /Silence
Athens?an anti-Nazi demonstration?hundreds of thousands of people

chanting a slogan which reproduces itself like a gigantic rhythm. Then
combat with the enemy. The rhythm bursts into an enormous chaos of
sharp sounds; the whistling of bullets; the crackling of machine guns.
The sounds begin to disperse. Slowly silence falls back on the town.
Taken uniquely from an aural point of view and detached from any other
aspect these events made out of a large number of individual sounds are
not separately perceptible, but reunite them again and a new sound is
formed which may be perceived in its entirety. It is the same case with the
song of the cicadas or the sound of hail or rain, the crashing of waves on
the cliffs, the hiss of waves on shingle. [X 58]
The formative imprinting of suchmetaphoric and empathetic link

ages would be difficult to overestimate. The preceding passage shows
how profoundly intertwined in Xenakis^s work are emotion, experi
ence, and poetic extrapolation. One might, however, possess all of this
as a individual climate and make no link?be unable to
motivating
conceive a connection?either to methods mathemati
of for achieving
cal control of large sound masses or, once this was managed, for
instantiating them musically.
These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this
multitude of sounds, seen as a totality, is a new sonic event. This mass
event is articulated and forms a plastic mold of time, which itself follows
aleatory and stochastic law. If one then wishes to form a large mass of
point-notes, such as string pizzicati, one must know these mathematical
laws,which, in any case, are no more than a tight and concise expression
of chain [sic] of logical reasoning. Everyone has observed the sonic phe
nomena [sic] of a political crowd of dozens or hundreds of thousands of
people. The human river shouts a slogan in a uniform rhythm. Then
another slogan springs from the head of the demonstration; it spreads
towards the tail, replacing the first.A wave of transition thus passes from
the head to the tail. The clamor fills the city, and the inhibiting force of
voice and rhythm reaches a climax. It is an event of great power and
beauty in its ferocity. Then the impact between the demonstrators and
the enemy occurs. The perfect rhythm of the last slogan breaks up in a
huge cluster of chaotic shouts, which also spreads to the tail. Imagine, in
addition, the reports of dozens of machine guns and the whistle of bul
lets adding their punctuations to this total disorder. The crowd is then
rapidly dispersed, and after the sonic and visual hell follows a detonating
calm, full of despair, dust, and death. The statistical laws of these events,
separated from their political or moral context, are the same as those of
the cicadas or the rain. They are the laws of the passage from complete
order to total disorder in a continuous or manner. are sto
explosive They
chastic laws. [FM 9]
Moving now the more

to objective terrain of probability theory,
Xenakis on its into the musical
placesspecial emphasis importation
realm, claiming it, in fact, as a major new resource that merits com
parison with other, epoch-making developments. But its legitimacy is

to science, not art.
tethered, of course,
In 1954,1 introduced probability theory and calculus inmusical com

position in order to control sound masses both in their invention and in
their evolution. This inaugurated an entirely new path in music, more
global than polyphony, serialism, or, in general, "discrete" music. From
hence came stochastic music. I will come back to that. But the notion of
entropy, as formulated by Boltzmann or Shannon [Shannon, C. and
Weaver, W., The Mathematical Theory ofCommunication (Urbana: Uni
versity of Illinois Press, 1949)], became fundamental. Indeed, much like
a god, a composer may create the reversibility of the phenomena of
masses, and apparently invert Eddington's "arrow of time." [Eddington,
The Nature of thePhysical World (New York: Macmillan, 1929)] Today, I
use probability distributions either in computer generated sound synthe
sis on a micro or macroscopic scale, or in instrumental compositions.
[FMR255]
[Using probability,] we can control continuous transformations of

large sets of granular and/or continuous sounds. In fact, densities, dura
tions, registers, speeds, etc., can all be subjected to the law of large num
bers with the necessary approximations. We can therefore with the aid of
means and deviations shape these sets and make them evolve in different
directions. The best known is thatwhich goes from order to disorder, or
vice versa, and which introduces the concept of entropy.We can conceive
of other continuous transformations: for example, a set of
plucked
sounds into a set of arco or in electro
transforming continuously sounds,
the passage from one sonic substance to another, assur
magnetic music,
ing thus an organic connection between the two substances. To illustrate

this idea, I recall the Greek sophism about baldness: "How many hairs
must one remove from a hairy skull in order tomake it bald?" [FM 16]
This curious illustration of connectivity leads Xenakis into the realm
of sophisms and impressions. As he carries forward the theme of con

trolled transformation,he mentions the disconcerting effectof the
It would
"mathematical character" of his musical "experiments."
have been to know what features the music to
interesting of appeared
him to display the influence ofmathematics; the abridgement of
continuities as well as the decreeing even
expected of unexpected,
unreasonable insistence might have been so understood.
Here [is] one of the great problems that have haunted human intelli
gence since antiquity: continuous or discontinuous transformation. The
sophisms of movement (e.g., Achilles and the tortoise) or of definition
(e.g., baldness), especially the latter, are resolved by statistical definition;
that is to say by stochastics. One may produce continuity with either con
tinuous or discontinuous elements. A multitude of short glissandi on

strings can give the impression of continuity, and so can a multitude of
pizzicati. Passages from a discontinuous state to a continuous state are
controllable with the aid of probability theory. For some time now I have
been conducting . . . fascinating experiments in instrumental works; but
themathematical character of thismusic has frightened musicians and has
made the approach especially difficult. [FM 9]
It is, again, to note the contrast between Xenakis's direct

intriguing
espousal of experiment in musical works with Varese's rejection of the
implication that there could be any doubt or provisionally associated
with his completed creative projects.
For a macroscopic phenomenon it is the massed total result which

counts, and each time a phenomenon is to be observed the scale relation
ships between observer and phenomenon must first be established. Thus
ifwe observe galactic masses, we must decide whether it is themovement
of the whole mass, the movement of a single star, or the molecular con
stitution of a minute on a star that interests us. . . .
region
The same thing holds true for complex aswell as quite simple sounds. It
would be a waste of effort to attempt to account analytically or graphically
for the characteristics of complex sounds when they are to be used in an
electromagnetic composition. For the manipulation of these sounds
methods are necessary.
macroscopic
Inversely, and this iswhat particularly interests us here, to work like

architects on the sonic material in order to construct complex sounds and
evolutions of these entities means that we must use methods
macroscopic
of analysis and construction. Microsounds and elementary grains have no
importance on the scale which we have chosen. Only groups of grains
and the characteristics of these groups have any meaning. Naturally in
very particular cases, the single grain will be reestablished in all its glory.
[FM 49-50]
one a
Perspectival shiftsgive by turns global (macro) account atten
tive to collections or a more local one in which
of elements, detailed,
isolated elements can be central. Xenakis takes distinctions of scale
further by implicatingperception itself,and bynoting thefact that
we confer to some degree. I note that a rare mention?
particularity
albeit in passing?of rests sets up thefinal entry in this category.
Consider rare events within an ensemble of other events . . .Certainly

you'll find the rare events isolated. But ifyou conceive of the ensemble of
events globally, the rare events will appear on a background within a
much more complex environment. Logically, itwould be a question of

surrounding a sonic event with rests to the left, to the right; but this is
not fundamental. It's a question of scale which corresponds to the degree
of attention you pay to this event, therefore, to the degree of prominence
you choose to give it and which is a decision based on aesthetic order.
But neither in the universe nor in time is there anything unique, "either
in nature" or in human thinking. This means that, on the contrary, an
event's periodicity (in the broadest sense) and its recurrence unto itselfor
within its environment is absolutely natural and [it is] even unthinkable
[that it could be] otherwise. [A 94]
Silence is banal. [A 95]
11. Repetition / Renewal
The probable, the "absolutelynatural" periodicity of events cited at

one
the close of category 10, introduces of the most surprising of
Xenakis's theoretical emphases.
The principle of repetition and of more or less faithful duplication is

general and aids the comprehension of music at all its levels, from the
to the macroscopic. On the microscopic level, for
microscopic example,
the ear not only detects faithful repetitions in the form of timbre but also
takes into account their densities in the form of pitch. On the macro
scopic level, canons, variations, and so on are equally immersed in this
principle of renewal. Each event, wherever it occurs, is in a sense unique,
separable, and not exactly reproducible because of the loss (even when it
is almost negligible) in the fidelity of a possible duplication. This could
be because of the time that has elapsed between two reproductions. But
with a sufficient "approximation," they can "appear" identical (within
the zone of approximation), forming equivalence classesm which the indi
viduals are separable in general while merging in particular cases. The
absence of repetition in the pressure-time curve is heard as noise, there
fore as an extreme entity. [MCT 179]
When [one says] repetition, it is "thinking again about the same

thing." This iswhat I think of as themeaning of "repetition." . . When
.
it is twice the same thing, I say,well, he could have done it a little differ
ent so that again my attention is caught, and my interest also. I think it's
the laziness of the composer. And you see, for instance, forme, the most
interesting percussion system in traditional music is, or used to be, music
from India. They had so much variation, tiny variations, for the same
things when they were repeated, that you are called, you are driven by
that music. . . .
There is, certainly, a nuance here. Xenakis does not mean by repeti
tion exact replication.
Periodicity is necessary, but the periodicity is not absolutely the same.

How much it should be different, that's a matter of your sensitivity, that
is, of the composer's point of view, of the performer's. But it has to be
something steady that you repeat, of course, without staying in it, repeat
ing the same thing for twenty-four hours like Satie did, or La Monte
Young, afterwards. I think it's interesting from another point of view:
psychological. You get bored and you want to kill the pianist, [laughs]
But musically, it'smeaningless, I think. [Delphi]
Still, return, are as

reproduction, recognized fundamental.
We see towhat extent music is everywhere steeped in time: (a) time in

the form of impalpable flux or (b) time it its frozen form, outside time,
made possible by memory. Time is the blackboard on which are inscribed
phenomena and their relations outside the time of the universe where we
live. Relations imply architectural structures; rules. And, can one imagine
a rule without repetition? Certainly not.
In fact, as a seems to a
embracing repetition subject give him slightly
perverse And the equating of uniqueness with death is a pro
pleasure.
vocative consideration in relation to Xenakis as an individual
human being.
Besides, a single event in an absolute eternity of time and space would

make no sense. And yet, each event, like each individual on earth, is
unique. But this uniqueness is the equivalent of death which lies inwait
at at moment. the of an event, its
every step, every Now, repetition
reproduction as faithfully as possible, corresponds to the struggle against

disappearance, against nothingness. As if the entire universe fought des
perately to hang on to existence, to being, by its own tireless renewal at
every instant, at every death. [CT 91]
12. Codes / Notation
Because Xenakis's emergence as a composer and,

of significance,
his realization and acceptance career
indeed, of this path, occurred
only when he was in his mid-thirties, he was particularly conscious of

the disadvantages and also potential benefits of his outsider circum
stance. an or an architect is accustomed to the
Evidently, engineer
display of information,ofrelationshipsin a more comprehensive
and
economical way than is the musician, whom a very substantial
for
level of contextual framing (tuning conventions
systems, staves, of
instrumental performance techniques, tempo, meter, rhythm, and so
on) is notationally assumed the outset. Only the particular use
from
ofalready establishedconventionsremains in need ofspecification
for
the musician.
My advantage over other composers was that I could design. It was

much easier forme to use a graphic approach to music than the classical
notation with which I had never been able to see everything at the same
time, as you do on a graph. To organize the material I had to use Proba
bilityTheory, a fantastic and general way to approach the problem. [X 92]
I must insist here on some facts that trouble many people and that are
used by others as false guides. We are all acquainted with the traditional
notation, perfected by thousands of years of effort, and which goes back to
Ancient Greece. Here [in the chapter "Towards a Philosophy ofMusic" at
the close of the original edition of Formalized Music] we have just repre
sented sounds by two new methods: algebraically by a collection of num
bers, and geometrically (or graphically by sketches).
These three types of notation are nothing more than three codes, and
indeed there isno more reason to be dismayed by a page of figures than by
a fullmusical score, just as there is no reason to be totemically amazed by a
nicely elaborated graph. Each code has its advantages and disadvantages,
and the code of classical music notation is very refined and precise, a syn
thesis of the other two. It is absurd to think of giving an instrumentalist
who knows only notes a diagram to decipher (I am neglecting here certain
forms of regression?pseudomystics and mystifiers) or pages covered with
numerical notation delivered directly by a computer (unless a special coder
is added to it,which would translate the binary results into musical nota
tion). But theoretically all music can be transcribed into these three codes
at the same time . . We . must not lose sight of the fact that these three
codes are only visual symbols of an auditory reality, itself considered as a
symbol.
There is reason to
question, surely, why Xenakis skates so rapidly over the
possible merits of graphic strategies

for musical communication
so because
("pseudomystics and mystifiers"). Particularly of the impres
sive evocative force that his own examples (cf. pp. 212-4 (Example 8),
EXAMPLE 8: DIAGRAMATIC SKETCHES IN CIRCUMSTANCES OF GREAT
COMPLEXITY (PAGE 214, FORMALIZED MUSIC)
Formalized Music) evince. This seems an uncharacteristic turning

away from his normal fondness for revelatory reversals ofperspective.
13. Exclusions / Critiques
From the outset (cfi categoryI,first entry),Xenakis has calledfor the

critical examination
of assumptions. He asserts it as a basic tenet of
the artist's life. But
this facet ofXenakis's own career was, I think?
and perhaps for understandable reasons?less completely realized
than were the philosophical or theoretical foundations. Sometimes a
critique consists of no more than an unsupported barb, tossed off on

the way to elsewhere (as with the "mystifiers" just sited). At others it
can be extensive and But and detailed
carefully argued. systematic
argument is a demanding commitment. Perhaps his music itself
served as the most indelible commentary.
This category begins with a rather genial admonishment, a
point
towards the source what is to as the "electronic"
ing of often referred
flatness of non-acoustic sounds.
All natural or instrumental sounds are composed of small surface ele

ments filled with grains which fluctuate around a mean frequency and
intensity.The same holds for density. This statement is fundamental, and
it is very likely that the failure of electronic music to create new timbres,
aside from the inadequacy of the serialmethod, is largely due to the fixity
of the grains, which form structures like packets of spaghetti.
Topographie fixityof the grains is a very particular case, the most gen
eral case being mobility and the statistical distribution of grains around
positions of equilibrium. [FM 52]
Now a sample ofa somewhatmorefully developed critique. It is at

first addressed to thefailings of aspects of late twentieth-century
music, and is then, by extension, directed at musicological research.
Here again, Xenakis places early and original thought/phenomena
on a (He also salutes, in passing, the originality
privileged plane. of
polyphony.)
[An examination of the structure of Byzantine music] can contribute

to an infinitely better understanding of ancient music, occidental plain
chant, non-European musical traditions, and the dialectics of recent
European music, with itswrong turns and dead-ends. It can also serve to
foresee and construct the future from a view commanding the remote
landscapes of the past as well as the electronic future. [FM 186]
Lack of understanding of ancient music, of both Byzantine and

Gregorian origin, is doubtless caused by the blindness resulting from the
growth of polyphony, a highly original invention of the barbarous and
uncultivated Occident following the schism of the churches. The passing
ofmany centuries and the disappearance of the Byzantine state have sanc
tioned this neglect and this severance. Thus the effort to feel a "har
monic" language that ismuch more refined and complex than that of the
syntonon diatonic and its scales in octaves is perhaps beyond the usual
ability of aWestern music specialist, even though the music of our own
day may have been able to liberate him partly from the overwhelming
dominance of diatonic thinking. . . .The height of error is to be found in
the transcriptions of Byzantine melodies intoWestern notation using the
tempered system. Thus, thousands of transcribed melodies are com
. . . the real criticism one must level at the
pletely wrong! Byzantinists is
that in remaining aloof from the great musical tradition of the eastern
church, they have ignored the existence of this abstract and sensual archi
tecture, both complex and remarkably interlocking (harmonious), this
developed remnant and genuine achievement of the Hellenic tradition.
In thisway they have retarded the progress of musicological research in
the areas of:
antiquity
plainchant
folkmusic of European lands, notably the East
musical cultures and civilizations of other continents.
better understanding of the musical evolution ofWestern Europe

from themiddle ages up to themodern period
the syntactical prospects for tomorrow's music, enrichment, and its

survival. [FM 191-2]
so as not to appear, on balance, too

Perhaps imperious, Xenakis quite
notes the overriding import of the artist's assertion of prefer
properly
ences.
...in no way do I exclude other musical approaches and I reallywish

[that I would not be accused] of being an imperialist for what I have
done. . . .
. . . it's my task to one over another. . . .

[Still] prefer thing
. . . It's
absolutely normal. [A 97-8]
Two a to "cat
brief objections follow, including tantalizing reference
"
egories of the mind.
I do not think that any attempt to consider music like a language can
be successful. The sub-structure of music is much closer to the sub
structure of space and time. Music is purer, much closer to the categories
of themind. [X 89]
Identifications of music with message, with communication, and with

are schematizations whose is towards absurdities and
language tendency
desiccations. [FM 180]
It is serialism upon which Xenakis concentrated his mid-career ire.

At the most essential level, it seems to have been aroused by the oblivi
ousness to outside-time structure in the domain ofpitch.
In tonal music there is a scale which gives an ordering; the scale is

everything. In serial music you have a scale which has become neutral,
indifferent, there is no particular selection, no structure, no difference.
So you have to compensate that lack of basic structure with something
different and this iswith time ordering and the combinations of notes of
the series. This iswhy at the beginning itwas so polyphonic in essence.
But Webern sensed that he needed a structure which would be more
important than the tone row and he tried to do that instinctively to com
pensate for the lack of structure by introducing micro-structures of pitch
intervals. This is the meaning of the symmetries; it is a compensating
movement_[X 88-9]
Webern also gave attention to a more conventional issue: simulating

tonalfunction in thearchitecture ofmovement design.He usedfields
offixed-octavepitch collectionsto lend distinctive character toformal
sections. Xenakis does not mention this, although it isprobably a more
perceptually forceful stratagem than are internal row symmetries,

as Webern used them. But Xenakis presses his attack on
particularly
serialism here in more specific terms.
[Serial organization]
1. Concentrates chiefly on frequency, intensity and timbre.

2. Frequency dominates the other components which only intervene
secondarily and arbitrarily.
3. Duration is still less organized and only appears in traditional form.
4. The effort of organization rests uniquely on the frequencies and

translates itselfby a linear arrangement of 12 tones.
5. With the exclusion of harmonic control the linear polyphony of the

Renaissance constitutes the frame upon which form is elaborated.
The form, in the last analysis, is only the ensemble of multilinear
"manipulations" of the fundamental series.
The and geometric side present in all music becomes pre
quantitative
with the school in Vienna. . . .
ponderant
He now towards a
deflects his objections regarding serial practice
defense of, and argument for his own probabilistic view. This extract
isfrom the very early article, "The Crisis of Serial Music," in the
Gravesaner Bl?tter, No. 1, 1955]
Linear polyphony by its present complexity destroys itself.What one

hears is in reality no more than a heap of notes in various registers. The
enormous complexity prevents the hearer from following the criss
crossing of lines and has as a macroscopic effect an irrational and fortu
itous dispersal of notes across the whole range of the sound spectrum.
There is consequently a contradiction between the linear polyphonic sys
tem and the heard resultwhich is surface, mass.
This inherent contradiction will disappear as soon as the independence
of notes becomes complete. With the linear combinations and their poly
phonic superpositions no longer operating, thatwhich counts will be the
statistic mean of isolated states of transformation of components in a
given moment. The macroscopic effect could then be controlled by the
average of movements of the objects chosen by us. There results from it
the introduction of the notion of probability implied elsewhere in this

actual case of the combinatory calculus. [X 85-6]
more
Returning explicitly to the "pseudomystics" from category 12, he
now identifies two objectionable trends.
.
. . .the intuitionists . . may be broadly divided into two groups:
1. The "graphists," who exalt the graphic symbol above the sound of
themusic and make a kind of fetish of it. In this group it is the fash
ionable thing not to write notes, but to create any sort of design.
The "music" is judged according to the beauty of the drawing. . . .
2. Those who add a spectacle in the form of extra-musical scenic

action to accompany the musical . . .
performance.
no means
However, Xenakis himself was by above combining certain
extra-musical resources with his music. The Pavilion
composed Philips
and subsequent polytopes did so; there are numerous theatrical projects
(The Oresteia (1963-6), Kraanerg (1968), Pers?polis (1971), even
La d'EerJ; and he also went so as to sanction the presence
legende far
of live bulls at thepremiere ?/Taurhiphanie (1987-8)
The two groups share a romantic attitude. They believe in immediate

action and are not much concerned about its control the mind. . . .
by
I shall not say, like Aristotle, that the mean path is the best, for in
music?as in politics?the middle means compromise. Rather lucidity
and harshness of critical thought?in other words, action, reflection, and
self-transformation by the sounds themselves?is the path to follow.
Thus, when scientific and mathematical thought serve music, or any
human creative activity, it should amalgamate dialectically with intuition.
Man is one, indivisible, and total. He thinkswith his belly and feelswith
his mind. [FM 180-1]
14. Computers /Automation
Ah, the computer. ... I think that the computer brought something
which is basically different fromwhat the instrumental, traditional music
had. That is, the way to go to the tiniest unit of information, that is, to
the bit that ismaking the sound. But the sound, what is it? It is not just
one event, itmight be thewhole music, a Beethoven Symphony; forme,
it's "the sound." The tiniest sound is already a complicated, complex?
could be?complex thing that necessitates all sorts of operations to pro

duce it. And the computer gives us this possibility which did not exist
before.
Therefore, composing music has many layers. One more with compu
ters,which is the fundamental, ground level, let's say.And then sounds,
more or less complicated, and the chaining of the sounds, how you line
them up and how you transform them, then polyphony, kind of, orches
tration, the architecture of the piece. So from the tiny bit to, not an hour
?it's too long?let's say thirtyminutes of music: it's a whole bridge of
thought that you need to know to produce music today. Difficult, of
course. [Delphi]
... I don't need to trywith

computers to imitate this sound that exists
already. You don't need that.
What is interesting is to explore other paths
or ways or sounds or even evolutions of sounds that have never been
done or realized, and that is the interesting point. You are like [Fridtjof]
Nansen [1861-1930] who tried to find the North Pole?and I think he
died. [Delphi]
The following are several of the advantages of using electronic com

puters inmusical composition:
1. The long laborious calculation made by hand is reduced to noth

ing
2. Freed from tedious calculations the composer is able to devote

himself to the general problems that the new musical form poses
and to explore the nooks and crannies of this formwhile modifying
the values of the input data. For example, he may test all instru
mental combinations from soloists to chamber orchestras, to large
orchestras. With the aid of electronic computers the composer
becomes a sort of pilot: he presses the buttons, introduces
coordinates, and supervises the controls of a cosmic vessel sailing in
the space of sound, across sonic constellations and galaxies that he
could formerly glimpse only as a distant dream. . . .
It is, literally, the case that what was, say, before the 1960s, restricted
to theprovince of imagination has beengradually becomingviable as
?> a more mundane
shared experience: dream reality. On level,
however, the magnitude of compatibility and longevity issues in the
realm stan
technological (software, hardware, storage, compression
dards) were greatly underestimated the beginning, and
from they
have exerteda significantdrag on earlyflights offancy.
. . .Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death 59...
3. The program, i.e., the list of sequential operations that constitute

the new musical form, is an objective manifestation of this form.
The program may consequently be dispatched to any point on the
earth that possess computers of the appropriate type, and may be
exploited by any composer pilot.
4. Because of certain uncertainties introduced in the program, the
composer-pilot can instill his own personality in the sonic result he
obtains. [FM 144]
It is, regrettably, necessary to admit that

this expansive vision (from
1976) remains, as remote real

twenty-five years later, virtually from
as it was then. We have learned in this realm as in no other, per
ity
how are the distinctions between undeniable,
haps, important
theoretical potential on the one hand and reliable access
operationally
on the other. . .
The definition of a scientific automaton which came about in the twen

ties [sic] thanks toWiener and cybernetics . . . can be summarized in the
following manner: An automaton is a network of causes and effects,
meaning a temporal chain of events, eventually coupled or multicoupled
with certain liberties. An automaton can be closed. It suffices to plug in
energy and itworks cyclically. It can be relatively open, complete with
data entries and external actions . . . time new data entries are
Every
given, an automaton can produce different results, despite the internal

rigorwhich defines it. [A 67]
The final point is the most crucial: the intersection of opportunity and
limitation. Musicians, working collaboratively with scientists (as
Xenakis did at hisCEMAMu facility inParis) must be able todefine
the chains the variability entries so that
of eventuation, of data
autonomously generated results?and their variability?become gen
uinely useful in art itself.
15. Culture / Education
Thefinal categorybeginswith a glimpse ofXenakis's early composi

tional ideals. They are more attuned to Bartok and Kodaly than one
would assume from his mature emphases (both theoreticallyand
These thoughts were written about a work cello and
musically). for
on the occasion a radio broadcast in 1953.
piano, of Belgian
My great passion is a marriage between Western music and the folk

music of my own country. This marriage should be made from a basis of
equality so that the combination can be a dialectic and biological synthe

sis and not merely juxtaposed. The instrumentation imitates the string
instruments like the lyre and lute. [X 51]
Xenakis continued to be responsive to the that non

implications
Western resources had for his music. Writing about a theatrical expe
rience in Kyoto, he reported to his wife, Fran?oise,
for example,
that. . .
The issue monotonous for a . . .

phrases forth, European slowly
ascending then descending, modulating the texts and sometimes termi

nating inmelismas, very close to the cadences of Byzantine psalmodies,
to punctuate the severe nudity of this recitative. ... A frail little girl of
twelve to thirteen years in a red and white blouse and a robe belted in
. . .
greyish blue with embroidery of gold and silver picks up the fan
placed on the ground and launches her thin voice, rough and sharp,
without vibrato, during short moments. This economy of means consti
tutes the strength of traditional Japanese art, gives it its particular physi
. . .
ognomy.
The tempered system has facilitated the dawning of vast mobile forms
to the detriment of infinitesimal elements which elaborate, step by step,
inmicrostructures. It is possible that one sees far and wide, thanks to the
temperament, but one loses the immediate vision of closeness, of the
view. Here, to my mind, resides the counterthesis of
microscopic Japa
nese art and the lesson which one may draw from it. [X 146]
And, although he was susceptible to influence from particular sources

external to the Western tradition, he also sought inter-cultural imper
atives which might have rendered cross-cultural borrowings irrelevant.
Supposing I had lost my memory, how could I extrapolate the prin

ciples of composition frommusic? What are the basic and necessary rules
upon which music is founded, not merely compositional techniques
deriving from particular traditions and cultures, but the underlying rules
which all forms of music have in common? [X 148]
One important instance of such creative generality emerged in the
form of a novel interfacewhich he and his CEMAMu associates

designed.
To thinkmusic as a composer, as a craftsman and as a creator, it is first

necessary to notation, music and even an instru
study solf?ge, theory,
ment over a long time. And since, in addition, musical creation is consid
ered superfluous, very few people are able to attain it.Thus the individual
and the society are deprived of the formidable power of free imagination
thatmusical composition offers them.We are able to tear down this iron
curtain, thanks to the technology of computers and their peripherals. The
. . .The
system that has succeeded at this tour-de-force is theUPIC prin
ciple is the following: on a special drawing board one traces designs with
an electromagnetic ball-point pen. These designs are read by the mini
computer to which the table is connected. The designs are interpreted,
according to the designs of the user, as pressure curves, dynamic enve
lopes, scores in the time-pitch domain, and so on. The computer calcu
lates graphic command data, and the result ... is heard immediately on
the loudspeaker . . . [MCT 184-6]
The realization of UPIC (l'Unit? Polygogique Informatique de

CEMAMu [1977]) was also, in some regards, an answer to the mis
match of ideals in relation to reality mentioned in category 14. There
has not yet been sufficient refinement of and exercise of this marvel
construct to allow a I think. As
ously inventive definitive assessment,
not occurred inXenakis's work, his insistence on perspec
infrequently
tival audacity (here, the conceit that not only the ongoing behavior
over time of sounds, but their very spectral identity and vari
possible
ability,must, in effect,be a product ofgraphic input) created inflexi
bilities thatwere difficult to overcome,and at timesdebilitating in
their effects.
Although the UPIC systemallows the importation of digitized

sound sources not the one, in this case,
product ofgraphic specification,
must choose a waveform period from the digitized source. And this,
again, has the effectof relegating the normal plasticity of timbric
to an irritatingly immobile status. The spontaneity possible
profile
data a hand-held the system's
through entering with stylus, and
capacity for translating and remapping one's evolving designs, on the
other hand, is engaging, immediate, and musically effective.
[On the UPIC system] one may create banks ofwaveforms, envelopes,
and graphic scores. One may mix, delete, and realize many of the opera
tions of a traditional electronic music studio by nothing more than point
ing with the electromagnetic pen to various parts of the table that are
sensitized like keys or buttons of an ordinary electronic device. Children
may draw a fish or a house and listen towhat they have made and correct
it. They can learn, progressively through designing, to think musical
composition without being tormented by solf?ge or by incomplete mas
tery of a musical instrument. But as they are led to construct rhythms,
scales, and more complex things, they are also forced to combine
arithmetic and forms: music. From whence comes an inter
geometric
. . .
disciplinary pedagogy through playing.
The drawing of connections between the diagrammatic representation

ofdata, theuse of line todepict in evidentways ("a fish or a house"),
and thetransferof thisinformation from thevisual world into that of
sound isperilous.Although it is temptingto speculate that significant
order in one modality might be transduced into another with reward
ing results, experience suggests that this is not reliably so. And tofur
ther imply that a more easily managed input interface (compare the
UPIC to a violin) could assure a more trouble-free route to compar
able aesthetic satisfaction would surely be misguided. The prospect of
skilled artists who were also technically sophisticated is an exciting one.
But the realization of such educational goals is?as has been men
tioned above in relation to dreams and attractive as
reality?more
concept than plausible in realization.
What emerges from all this is that formusic and the visual arts of tomor
row itwill be necessary to form artists in several disciplines at the same
such as mathematics, acoustics, electron
time, physics, computer science,
ics, and the theoretical history of music or the visual arts. They will need
fundamental knowledge of a theory of forms and of their transforma
tions, whether in paleontology, genetics, or astrophysics.
My problem is not to challenge the listener, no, no. To challenge
myself, yes. And that is themost difficult thing, to understand, to do, and
not to be driven or absorbed by your success, by the thought of a possible
success or of money out of your music. That's very I
making important.
think that at the conservatories, whatever, or the painting schools, or
even the architectural schools, that's not clearly enough stated. [Delphi]
But the touchstone of this evolution will lie in the training of a large
number, of masses, as artist-creators from the start of kindergarten
right
all theway through the present national education in the same way as the
massive training in the scientific disciplines in the high schools. [MCT
187]
Again, Xenakis positsa visionaryprospectwhichwould certainlyhave

Both theUPIC itselfand theemphasesheplaces upon
profound effects.
exposure to and use in relation to
early of fundamental training
form, acoustics, mathematics, and computers?among
other subjects?
remind us that thesefactors now enter the lives of the most innovatively
a
inclined young musicians only at few, scattered graduate programs
or institutes?and,
normally, not until they are already 25 or 30.
to be the sort
If there is offundamental change that Xenakis argues
must not only possess
for here, the artist-creator specialized expertise in
a number not now seen as essential to the musi
significant offields
cian's training, but?perhaps more habituated

significantly?an
taste for and innovation need to be
inquiry, skepticism, aspiration,
inculcated into their minds before more and
narrowly manifested
conventional patterns become too well-established. How are those who
would foster these ideals toproceed?How is theforce of themusical
experience?inevitably embedded in an inclusive cultural setting?to
be offered as enticement or revelation in a way that does not tie its
particular manner, its conventions, to musical essence?

inevitably
himself was
Xenakis not content in the
belief that science and technol
ogywere sufficient
allies in thepursuit ofa higherand more universal
model art.
of
As it has thus far developed, European music is ill-suited to providing

theworld with a field of expression on a planetary scale, as a universality,
and risks isolating and severing itself from historical necessities. We must
open our eyes and try to build bridges towards other cultures, as well as
towards the immediate future ofmusical thought, before we perish suffo
cating from electronic technology, either at the instrumental level or at
the level of composition by computers. [FM 194]
References
A: Xenakis, Iannis. 1985. Arts-Sciences: Alloys: The Thesis Defense of Iannis

Xenakis Before Olivier Messiaen, Michel Ragon, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes,
Michel Serres, and Bernard Teyss?dre (translated by Sharon Kanach). New
York: Pendragon Press.
CT: Xenakis, Iannis. 1989. "Concerning Time." Perspectives ofNew

Music 27, no. 1 (Winter): 84-93.
Delphi: "Xenakis, Reynolds, Lansky, and M?che Discuss Computer

Music," moderated by Thanassis Rikakis, transcribed by Karen Reynolds.
Available at:
http ://www. rogerreynolds. com/xenakis 1.html.
FM: Xenakis, Iannis. 1971. Formalized Music. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
FMR: Xenakis, Iannis. 1992. Formalized Music (Revised). Stuyvestant,
NY: Pendragon Press.
MCT: Xenakis, Iannis. 1985. "Music Composition Treks." In Composers

and the Computer, ed. Curtis Roads. Los Altos, California: William
Kaufmann.
Neu: Xenakis, Iannis, and graduate students at UCSD's Music Depart

ment. 1990. "A Conversation," edited and transcribed by Karen (with
Roger) Reynolds. Neuma Records.
X: Matossian, Nouritza. 1986. Xenakis. London: Kahn & Averill.

Reynolds Xenakis

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reynolds Xenakis

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reynolds Xenakis

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Xenakis:... Tireless Renewal at Every Instant, at Every Death...

Author(s): Roger Reynolds

wasA man of keen intellect, with a sardonic, bird-of-prey

themore humanely intricateworlds of Shakespeare in English); thorough

frequently ungenerous reactions thatwere elicited when he revealed the

As I read, I marked passages inwhich his voice could be heard,

1. PHILOSOPHY / DEATH AND REBIRTH

1. Philosophy / Death and Rebirth

Without, I think,feeling a districtingfiliality to history,

of early and original thought. Large, comprehensive ideas often

Philosophy (in the etymological sense)

Yet, while driven, hewas inveterately

Change?for there is no rest?the couple death and birth lead the

Living metaphoricallyunder thesword ofsucha compactwith oneself,

Here iswhat he wrote to the eminentphilanthropistPaul Fromm (in

It is out of the question that I shall submit my writing to the censor

But he was, not without on the impact that

a individual composer has to say in regard to

The actual state of knowledge [now] seems to be the manifestation of

So, it isnot simply"perpetual originality"frontphilosophical, techni

tion of philosophic or scientific ideas on the being, its evolution, and

While even more ambitious than that in

is, in fact, desirable.

There must remain always a small color of mystery, or not understand

Art, and above all,music has a fundamental function, which is to catalyze

must be consistencies, across time

rules and laws. But . . . there is else in music, in any music,

The closes back upon one sees that however

I can speak of structures. . . . But I can neither question nor speak of

How does an evident aesthetic are its

1. It is a sort of comportment necessary forwhoever thinks it and

2. It is an individual pleroma, a realization.

3. It is a fixing in sound of imagined virtualities (cosmological, philo

4. It is normative, that is, unconsciously it is a model for being or for

6. It is the gratuitous play of a child.

7. It is amystical (but atheistic) asceticism. Consequently expressions

enduring principles. This is clear in XenakisJs writings. Formalized

unexpected and, I think, fertile support in certain areas of mathematics.

For this purpose the qualification "beautiful" or "ugly" makes no sense

Here Xenakis echoes more explicitly V?rese3s attentiveness to

This does not prevent the utilization of sounds defined as pleasant or

There is, then, an intersection of perspectives: the proper purposes of

In this section, pragmatic considerations emerge. If mathematical

100,000Hz, in spite of theaccepted standards). Probabilistic adjust

Sound synthesis almost everywhere is based on additive synthesis?

The management isposited as a alter

Now Xenakis begins discussing the origins of stochastic music?and its

compositional application in, e.g., the musical works Analogique A

When we speak or order or disorder we imply first of all "objects" or

And what isan example ofsucha component"object"?How would it

New Proposal inMicrocomposition Based on Probability Distributions

which occurs in colloidal suspensions,independent of external influ

There is an advantage in defining chance as an aesthetic law, as a nor

Note, in thefollowing, theadmirable way thatXenakis3s philosophical

At the beginning of a transformation towards asymmetry, exceptional

I am haunted by theprospect ofan encounterbetween

to music, Xenakis argues that the component "mental

(How do we actually produce thesoundswhich carry themusic?)

It is . . . natural to think that the disruptions inmusic in the last 60