Iannis Xenakis:Das elektroakustiche Werk (review)

During 11-14 October 2006, Ralph Paland and Christoph von Blumröder organized an international symposium on Iannis Xenakis: The Electroacoustic Works. This event was held at the Musikwissenschaftliches Institut at the University of Cologne and featured an international roster of researchers and a number of concerts presenting the complete set of electroacoustic works by Xenakis (see review in CMJ 31:3, p. 82). The organizers of the symposium have carried on their work to edit this volume of papers for the benefit of all those unable to attend the event.

Iannis Xenakis: Das elektroakustische Werk is the 14th volume of a series of books titled Signale aus Köln: Beiträge zur Musik der Zeit, for the most part edited, or co-edited, by Christoph von Blumröder, who is a musicologist based at the University of Cologne. This particular volume includes articles in both German and English, about evenly weighted (the articles are presented either in one language or the other). Although this may pose a bit of a barrier for English-language readers not counting German as one of their reading languages, it presumably poses less of a barrier for readers in Germany, who are much more likely to read English in addition to their native tongue (and perhaps others). Article summaries or abstracts in the other language may have helped monolingual readers, but this would have no doubt added considerably to the page count and the editorial and production costs. That aside, the book is carefully edited and handsomely produced. There are abundant references and notes in each article, figures are clearly reproduced, and the index is useful.

The articles are grouped into eight sections, each containing two or more articles. The introductory section, with remarks by the editors, to some extent sets the context for the volume (and symposium). Christoph von Blumröder's "Iannis Xenakis 2006" provides a fairly broad, historical view of Xenakis's thought and work, particularly his electroacoustic compositions and related writings. Ralph Paland's "Diamorphoses / S.709" is in essence an introductory note for a concert presentation of these two works by Xenakis (they were performed for the opening of the symposium). The final section of writings collects several more such concert notes on the different electroacoustic works of Xenakis. These were written by Jochen Graf, Gerardo Scheige, and Michael Stark, and were intended to provide introductions to the four concerts of these works held over the course of the symposium in Cologne. All these notes are quite substantial in content, and will help readers become familiar with these works even without attending their concert presentations (they are all available on recording, in some cases in stereo mixdowns of the multi-channel originals).

The second section, "Das elektroakustische Oeuvre im Ü berblickt," contains two articles giving overviews of Xenakis's work in the electroacoustic domain, the article by Daniel Teruggi focusing specifically on Xenakis's association with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM). "Continuities and Changes in the Electroacoustic Music of Iannis Xenakis" by James Harley discusses all the works, including computer-generated compositions.

"Philosophische und komposition-stechnische Prämissen" contains four articles exploring both philosophical and technical issues. Gerard Pape discusses Xenakis's conception of time, most usefully explaining "out of time" structures in his music. In "Formalisierte Kompositionsweisen in der frü hen elektroakustischen Musik," Martha Brech examines the formal thinking around the composition of Xenakis's early works, notably Diamorphoses and Concret-PH. Her article contains a number of useful sonograms of this music that support her analyses. Jan Simon Grintsch, in his "Random Control: Xenakis and Early Mainframe Computers," focuses on the early computer work Xenakis carried out, particularly leading to his ST algorithmic compositions, dating from 1962. Mr. Grintsch...