Iannis Xenakis (b. 1922 d. 2001)

## Introduction

**Iannis Xenakis** was born in **Romania** , though he was of **Greek** heritage. His initial exposure to music came in the first ten years of his life, when he was surrounded by the folk music of the **Romanian** countryside and the liturgy of the **Byzantine Orthodox Church**. In 1942, when his family moved to **Greece**, he was exposed to the music of **Beethoven** and **Brahms** for the first time. He entered **Athens Polytechnic** with the intent of becoming an engineer. When **Greece** was invaded during the World War II, he became passionately involved with resistance and liberation groups. He was seriously wounded, his face disfigured, when he was hit by a British shell and lost vision in one eye. As a member of the resistance, he was eventually arrested and sentenced to death. He escaped in 1947, hoping to reach the **U.S**. But ended up settling in **Paris** and taking **French** nationality. In **Paris,** he made numerous important contacts, befriending **Messiaen, Honegger, Mihaud**, and celebrated architect **Le Corbusier.**  For him, architecture was musical, and music was architectural. He frequently used one to inspire the other, basing pieces on computer programs and complex mathematical equations. This approach resulted in highly theoretical, systematic music characterized by intricately calculated rhythms, dense and often explosive textural fields, extended timbral effects.

## Work Analysis

"No, I do not care for entertainment.  I have to write the ideas that I get, and so the ideas are above the entertainment.  If the people understand that as entertainment, all the best for them.  I do not care."

   In general his work is Architectural in its make up. His Electro Acoustic music, recorded using tapemahin.

   The music is architectural in nature. The constructions and momentum of the work is dynamic and loud. **Metastaseis (“dialectic transformations,” 1954)**, is an orchestral work inspired by **Einstein’s** view of time (a function of matter & energy) and structured on mathematical ideas by **Xenakis’s** colleague **Le Corbusier.** The 1st and 3rd movements don’t have a melodic theme to hold them together, but rather depend on the strength of this conceptualization of time. The 2nd movement does have some sort of melodic element. A fragment of a 12-tone row is used, with durations based on the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34…)

## Comparisons

**Messiaen, Honegger, Mihaud,** and architect **Le Corbusier.** **His work is predicated on mathematical equations and graphical techinques in composition**. **Xenakis** was distinct from many of his contemporary “postwar avant-garde” composers, including **Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Gyorgy Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Karlheinz Stockhausen,** in that he worked assiduously to integrate into his music audible patterns and structures of a kind that others sought to avoid.

## Observations

==== In general there is a brutality to his work that I can only think was a response to his time in the war and the resistance. There is horror and pain in the work. Do not look for anything pretty here. **"Persepolis"** sounds like war as it is going on. It is Non ambient music made to be ambient but provocative. *“Naturally, in the history of human ideas, progressions such as the golden number, magic squares, geometrical figures and all kinds of mathematical and astrological totems have played a very important part in the arsenal of sorcery. I don’t believe in them.”* ====

## Works Cited

http://www.iannis-xenakis.org/xen/bio/biography.html

http://www.wilderutopia.com/performance/sound/iannis-xenakis-musical-sorcery-using-mathematical-totems/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Iannis-Xenakis

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/iannis-xenakis-mn0000687566/biography

http://www.bruceduffie.com/xenakis.html