#24: 1954

In the last few weeks we have been dealing with works composed in 1054.

On this program we have two final works that belong to that year and they are both

involved with the electronic medium. Their works by Stockhausen and I gave

as Stockhausen's piece is his electronic study number

two. In the past few weeks in connection with certain pioneer

electronic compositions I have spoken at length on the series

about the musical technical and philosophical plays on data of

electronic music. And I cannot of course recapitulate these five

fundamentals every time I play a new electronic piece. I must now assume that

the average listener to this series is prepared to accept the new medium. At least

there is something here to stay. And as a legitimate artistic expression of our

time. Whether he actually learns to love understand this music

is another question. And if he doesn't accept this music I cannot help him

now with any further basic explanations or justifications. I just

can't go over the same ground every time a new electronic word comes up.

Stockhausen created this second electronic study a year after the first one.

And on the whole it resulted in a much more interesting more concise and more

sophisticated experiment.

I do think one is justified in labeling the study still as experimental. In

view of its self-imposed limitations and its avowed purpose in

exploring a certain very limited set of electronic

possibilities also experimental in view of Stockhausen's electronic

masterpiece Gunday Jung linger which was to follow two years later and which

certainly can no longer be called merely experimental and which competes rather

successfully in my opinion anyway with other works of musical art in the

broadest and highest definition you care to give that term.

It is one of the paradoxes of contemporary musical developments that some of the most

advanced concepts of musical technique and organization are in some ways more

easy to understand by the non-musician and laymen than is conventional

music. Leaving aside for a moment the quality of the music involved

it is possible for a non musician for example to get something perhaps quite

a lot out of studying scores notated in the graphic

techniques developed in recent years especially those that do away

entirely with conventional staff and note head notation. And this is

true of Stockhausen's electronic study. The score which is available to

anyone interested in buying it. It is published by universal edition of Vienna

and is available here and any good music store. I'm suggesting this because

while a layman may not be able to read a score of a Schubert symphony he absolutely

can read the score of Stockhausen's electronic study because it is notated in a

graph format that is almost as elementary as that of the stock exchange in your

daily newspaper. Do you metrical shapes are notated on graph

paper which by their proportionate size and contours give

an exact representation of the pitch level duration texture and

intensity of the sounds of that piece.

It's like looking at a visual representation or a visual translation of the musical

sounds. An introduction in the score also explains

in three languages the technical procedures used in the composition

briefly Stockhausen chose to work with in a frequency scale of 81 steps

from 100 cycles to about 17000 cycles and within this

range she creates a creates mixtures of constant

intervals made up of five so-called sinusoidal tones.

By a system which it is not possible to explain verbally on the radio. Stockhausen

builds from this limited sound source a repertoire of

193 different note or sinusoidal mixtures.

Then in the actual composition these are varied in the following three

ways. They vary in dynamics or intensities in

duration and in terms of the number of mixtures occurring

simultaneously or overlapping as overlapping in their

temporal placement.

As for the dynamics again an arbitrary scale of 31 steps was chosen

from Zero Decibels to minus 30 D.B.. With

these technical and Sonora limits as a basic premis Stockhausen then

went on to composing the work which consists of a continuous variation

of and play between the four elements pitch level duration

intensity and simultaneity of sound structures.

At first glance it is obvious that the possibilities even when within such a confined

area are quite broad and even seemingly endless.

For example a certain note mixture at a specific pitch level can be made to

increase in volume either slowly or rapidly or decrease in volume either slowly

or rapidly.

All of course in an endless variety of degrees of rapidity or slowness.

The same pitch structure can be extremely short can be extremely long

or any other duration in between. On it can be super imposed.

Other note mixtures.

Again with different dynamic curves and durations and so on almost ad

infinitum to the whole network of interlacing relationships can be set to

work. This is true of course of all music. But some people wish

to deny these musical factors. These are not technical or

mechanical factors these are musical factors as well. Some people wish to deny these

musical factors to electronic music and thus by implication implication

deny its artistic validity. In fact the possibilities

with Stockhausen's 193 sound mixtures are so limitless that the

act of composing here is mainly a matter of highly selective choice where

from this vast amount of sound materials the most logical and aesthetic

continuity must be distilled. This I think Stockhausen has done very

successfully in this piece. The alternation of all the four variants pitch

duration intensity and texture is done with imagination and a sense of

contrast. I remind you again however that you will not hear a contrast in

sonority since as I have pointed out Stockhausen specifically limits the

sonority scale to one type of sound mixture and this is

not necessarily typical of electronic music. It is just one composer's choice in one

particular experimental work. In its

overall form the piece is also simple enough viewed in conventional

terms. It starts with sounds of relative length and

intensity. Then through a series of variants of these achieves a

more agitated surface and a more extended range. And then

short structures appear their intensity curves are more jagged

and more and more groups are superimposed on top of each other. At one point as many as

seven from this greatest point of

fragmentation and density the piece suddenly levels off again into longer more

static sounds and eventually ends on a low note mixture which

almost has the effect of a cadence and

gives a definite feeling of finality to the piece.

I could say much more about this work and especially about its structure but

limit myself to the above merely to anticipate to some extent the notion

held by so many that electronic music is just a formless jumble of mechanical

sounds you know is Stockhausen's electronic study. Number two.

Why.

I.

Oh.

Now you.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

When.

That was the electronic study number two by Stockhausen

realised in the studios of the Cologne radio in Germany

we turn now to one of the most important and most successful sonic experiments

of the last decade and as days yeah and

deserts work for 20 players and two magnetic tapes of

electronically organized sounds funny Glee projected

although not on the present monophonic recording of chorus. While

it was not the first combo composition to combine live and electronic

sounds it was the first large scale effort in this direction and it

certainly was the most ambitious attempt of this kind up to that time.

The juxtaposition of live and electronic sounds is invalid as this case in an utterly logical

development and can be viewed simultaneously in two ways.

On one level it provides a sonic and psychological contrast in the

structure of the work. And at the same time on another level it establishes a

continuum between But as this type of instrumental writing and electronic

sounds in other words in one fell swoop the work

inherently guarantees both structural unity and diversity within that

unity. Flores is instrumental writing on which I have

previously held forth in connection with his earlier works. It is of course eminently

suited to the kind of son Nora's duality proposed and is there

because it has always been on the periphery of orthodox instrumental techniques.

Always a kind of pretty electronic music. It's extreme

involvement with abstraction and so to speak. Crystallization of sound

materials the hypnotic static quality of his music the

ostinato repetitions the illumination in many works of string

instruments and their softer tambourine. All this can now be clearly seen

as a direct antecedent of electronic music. Although that may

be a bit of an oversimplification there is certainly quite a bit of truth in

that. In point of fact has felt unable to continue composing in

the middle 30s because the music that he began to envision could no longer be

produced solely on conventional musical instruments. In

1937 VI has stopped composing because he felt he could not go on without

electronic means without compromising his aesthetics and artistic

integrity. It might be noted here parents ethically that valve as was never one to

think of composing as a kind of a career. And as one writer once put it

Baez will never write a devoutly small. This is where then was his

first composition after nearly 17 years of silence and study. And it was made

possible by the emergence of the electronic medium in the early 50s.

But as was now at the time of writing this they are 68 or 69 years old.

The Grand Old Man of the I want God one might say. And yet his work more

than keeps up with the younger set. If that is of importance and he

manages to still innovate a thing or two himself. There is certainly up to

that time the fullest realization of as his long held concept of a

special music a music free of all arbitrary restrictions.

And to this day of ours has never availed himself of any of these specific techniques or formulas

evolved by other leading composers in our century such as serial technique.

He also pioneered in a concept of musical recurrence or musical

reminiscence and idea later picked up by Stockhausen and other younger

composers and an idea which is the sort of the 20th century

replacement of 1000s an 18th century repetition.

But is is and always was a composer who was able to free himself of the strictures of 900

century harmonic or for that matter polyphonic thinking radical

ideas which germinated in late Debussy and early Stravinsky

and which were radically expanded and crystallized by evolve as already in the 20s.

There is there continues along these lines and pushes these concepts still

further. Rather than speak more about the work itself

I would like to take the time to quote from Valdez himself on several

aspects of his musical concepts fascinating quotations which are included in the

new Columbia record on which the present performance appears in

the first quarter patients speaks about form and rhythm and then goes on to

elucidate as this concept of composing in a way that tells us more than any

words of mine ever could.

I call it rhythm and form are still the two elements

most generally mis understood rhythm is too often confused with

metrics. Cadence or the regular succession of beats and accents has really

little to do with the rhythm of a composition rhythm is the element in music

that not only gives life to a work but that holds it together. It is the element of

stability in my own work rhythm derives from the simultaneous

interplay of unrelated elements that intervene and calculated

but not regular time lapses. This corresponds more liely no more

nearly to the definition of rhythm in physics and philosophy as a succession of

alternate and opposite or correlatives States.

And form the misunderstanding has come because we tend to think of form as a point of

departure a pattern to be followed a mold to be filled.

Form is the result of a process. Each of my works discovered its own

form. I have never tried to fit my conceptions into a known container.

If you take a rigid box of definite shape and call it a sonata box

and you want to fill it you must have something that is the same shape or that is

elastic enough to be made to fit. But if you try to force into it something of

a different shape and hardest substance even if its volume and size are the same

it will break the box. Musical form considered as the result of a

process suggests an analogy with the phenomenon of crystallization.

The clearest answer I can give people ask me how I compose is to say by

crystallisation in the description of crystal formation I find my

analogy the crystal is characterized by a definite external

form and a definite internal structure. The internal structure

is based on the unit of crystal. The smallest grouping of the atoms having the

order and composition of the substance. The extension of the

unit into space forms the whole crystal in spite of the

relatively limited variety of internal structures. The external forms of crystals

are almost limitless.

I believe that this suggest better than any explanation I can give the way my works are formed.

One has an idea of the bases of the internal structure. It is expanded

and split into different shapes or groups of sounds that constantly change in shape

direction and speed attracted and repulsed by various forces.

The form is the consequence of this interaction possible musical forms are

as limitless as the exterior forms of crystals. This is

a long quote from Governor has. Another quotation a

shorter one regards electronic music and I think this is

particularly apt at this time. The electronic instrument is an

additive not a destructive factor in the art and science of music.

It is because new instruments have been added to the old ones that Western music has such a

rich and varied patrimony electronic instruments do not mean

that old instruments will be abandoned just because there are other ways of getting there.

You do not kill the horse. I think these

statements should give an idea of the clarity and originality of A has his thoughts on music.

Let us now hear the piece for magnetic magnetic tapes of

both electronically produce sounds and music concrete sounds and

instrumental ensemble. The performance is going to by Robert Craft

who does rather better by vans than he does with almost any other composer.

The

way it was.

Thank.

You.

Will.

So. Are.

You.

A thing.

Or.

Why.

Why.

Why.

And.

Be.

What.

Be.

Why.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Eat.

Why.

That was days in now by Agyness a piece

for an instrumental ensemble and two magnetic tapes.

The performance was under the supervision of Robert Craft. And

this is a new Columbia record released quite recently.

My final work on this particular program takes us to the year in 1955.

It is by a composer who is completely unknown in America so far totally on

performed. Who is however a figure of some consequence and European of

unguarded music. He is the Greek or Romanian composer.

I don't know which Younis Xenakis I spelled X and A

K I S.

Born in one thousand twenty one who now makes his home in Paris

he is somewhat better known in Europe primarily because the conductor how much has

frequently performed works by GGs in August and because he is one of the more severe

critics of serial technique in Europe always a controversial subject.

A severe critic by the way not from a standpoint of conservative reaction I hasten to had

but because it is in visions of music still freer and still more advanced

according to him than any of the techniques presently being

employed whether serial or aleatory or a combination thereof.

In this respect Xenakis is music is closest. If it is close to anybody to the music

of other has. For example artist who has renounced the conventional linear

polyphonic concepts of western music and like the other has envisions a

freer spatial music but goes Valdes one further by creating

what he calls a global music. Xenakis calls a global music

global not in the geographic sense of course but in a geographic in a geometric

conceptual sense. Global Music or another term as an artist has invented

for his musical concepts stochastic music from the Greek

word stalk lastic us stochastic meaning conjectural in the sense of

being related to mathematical theories of probability which form the foundation

of Xanax as music. From this alone you can perhaps

gather that his music is rather uniquely intellectually

founded and is unlike any other being composed today and is

certainly almost certainly unlike any other music you will have ever heard. The

first work is an arc is composed in this new manner is an orchestral piece called

metastasis. His titles are almost all Greek middest ass's comes

from the word stays as dances they says in English and Mehta which I think in

this case means change. In other words a work in which as I see it

periods of status or even nobility undergo changes or

variants. I'm somewhat of a handicap in talking about

Xenakis as music. As I say music is totally unknown and I

know practically nobody was ever even heard of him. And I do not know the man.

I've never read any specific statements by him about this particular piece.

And there are no scores of his music in this country available as far as I know.

The American representative of his publisher has one score on hand and

that one is of another piece not metastases. I do

know some of the nurses general theories and concepts that led him to compose this

strange music and they are certainly very interesting ones and worth mentioning on this

program. The knack is believed as far back as 1955

that this serial technique had already stagnated into academic formulas

and that it represented no more than a slightly more advanced reorganization of

what he termed fundamentally 19th century Western music concepts 20th century

once but 19th century ones namely that of a linear and

polyphonic concept of musical continuity. To him serial

technique is no more than a complex superimposition of the various strands of the 12

tone series and their versions. In his more radical view of

things. Xenakis asks why must we be limited to the 12 temperate

tones of Bach's piano. He also thinks that the intended

polyphony opposed they were in music whether pointillist equally handled or not

is self-defeating as polyphony by its very complexity.

The linear continuity which forms the basis of the serial technique is not audible as such he

says. There is therefore a basic discrepancy according to exactness

between the avowed intentions and the results of this approach.

And in listening to a work by No-No for example whatever else one may admire or

question in the music one certainly cannot orally perceive its polyphonic

development so perhaps cannot as has a point here.

As an artist says that as a result of such complexity polyphonic complexity all

the year finally hears is a mass of more or less varied sounds. A

total microcosm. Instead of linear polyphony

one hears a mass surface he reasons that one should therefore abandon

this sham polyphony and its academic trappings of rigid organization and

free the music into a new global Totality where all spectra of all

musical elements can function in a more emancipated and unincumbered way.

Even the music of Valdez which as an artist admires very much for him and

does not go far enough. It is also in a mass amount of conventional rhythms and

tempers. Well the solution for Exeunt Arcus is

this global sound. Totality which in actual fact in

actual practice transit translates itself into a music in which the entire range of

sounds and pitches is activated. So to speak by the composer in

certain specific manners and at certain specific speeds for temples these are of course of

his choosing. All of this is calculated according to highly

complicated mathematical theories of probability. I sat down first on graph

paper and then translated into orchestral terms

in practice this means that for long stretches of time as an artist splits his

orchestra into many many individual single units of however many

musicians he is writing for. There are no two T's. Everybody has an

individual part. And is simply one tiny atom in this complex

structure out of the many points of sound

a total global mass of sound is thus achieved a sort of cloud of

sounds which most of the time is

internally moving while the outer edges the outlines of this shape remain the

same immobile and therefore status.

Xenakis favorite device is to take all the violins of the orchestra for example and make

each player play a series of exactly calculatedly sandals glissando is

by the way being the most continuous moving sound to be achieved by instruments and

therefore the antithesis and total obliteration of the tempered scale.

This mass of 40 to 50 individual girls sandals whose range limits are clearly

delimited by the composer is so calculated as to create in Siri

a mass of sound which in its external shape does not move but which is internally

in a state of motion. I say in theory because in practice this

idea requires a perfection of balance between all forty or fifty instruments. That is

very difficult but I would admit not impossible to achieve.

Incidentally the siren like effect that you'll hear in this piece achieved by the

Stranglers sandals are certainly not unrelated to valve as early

experiments with sirens in peace like I am a zation.

Not all the clouds of sound that eggs in August creates of course have to move. Some are

completely static where you simply hear a 15 note aggregate of

pitches sustained by all the instruments. In

this piece meant the stanzas which starts with one of these clouds of glissando

zz. After developing various kinds of other Stacey's to refer back to the

title a section for solo instruments follows which is very very

British and fragmented. Now this is not stochastic Lee organized and is

accounted for by the fact that this is an early this work which is not yet completely based

on his own theories. After this point a listing

interlude.

Gradually the a mass movement of sounds begins again and we hear

tremolos and wide web rattles introduced and all the instruments as

variants of the more or less static sound and then the orchestra is

broken up into groups with each group employing a different and particular method of

playing.

As a kind of CODA we have a short pause and then from one of these

extended global sound NASA's in full range and full intensity and full

density Xenakis creates a kind of unwinding musical

spiral Vio it's gradually all the elements are decreased until

only one single note and a flat in the middle register remains.

And on this single note the single note of course and this is of the total

global sound mass of the piece and an a long dim..

Well without further ado here is mental status by the

Greek Romanian composer Yanis Xenakis. And

the performance is conducted by him on a session.

Steve

the end.

Ye ye who. Seek.

To him in.

The

lust. And.

The

and.

The

and.

The and.

The

earth

the

earth the earth.

I am.

Saying. I am young.

I.

Thank.

Ye.

I am. The

airplane. Seat.

I am now.

I am a. Man.

Or am. I am.

The air.

And that was meant as Tacitus by Younis

Xenakis. In a performance conducted by how much session.

I would not presume to have an absolute final reaction to a work so radical and novel in

its precepts. I'm not that familiar with because I doubt this is music and I would

wish to hear it much more and above all to study it much more which as I said before is not presently

possible. For the moment I'm quite fascinated by it as a sun and a

spectacle and have incidentally myself done similar things in my work.

Spectra quite unaware of the fact that someone else was experimenting with these

same extended sound masses. While I feel an

affinity to certain aspects of Xenakis is music. I'm not sure that the

limitations and stagnation he ascribes to serial technique are not an inherent

danger in his own music and musical precepts. Certainly there are some rather

severe limits to this to his approach because after a while all masses of

sounds the more global the more this is the case all masses of sounds will

sound more or less alike and the element of indistinguishability he finds

in serial polyphonic technique could certainly be found in his music too.

In a slightly different form of course but that's just an interim thought and certainly not a

final one. I do think his music should be performed much more than it is and

it's because it's certainly more interesting than a lot of things which are played to death all the time.

That's all for now.

I'll be back with more music from 1955 next week at about the same

time.