A Spatial Interpretation of Edgard Varèse's Ionisation Using Binaural Audio

A SPATIAL INTERPRETATION OF EDGARD VARÈSE’S IONISATION USING BINAURAL AUDIO PAUL HEMBREE WITH DUSTIN DONAHUE, PERCUSSION ERFORMERS AND COMPUTER MUSICIANS interested in studying and interpreting the works of Edgard Varèse are faced with a daunting list of the extremely evocative yet somewhat opaque terms that he used to describe his music. His specialized terminology includes, from a lecture in Santa Fe in 1936, “the movement of sound-masses . . . shifting planes . . . sound projection . . . a journey into space . . . beams of sound . . . Zones of Intensities . . . non-blending . . . rarefactions . . .”1 Varèse was also interested in Hoëne Wronsky’s definition of music: “the corporealization of intelligence that is in sounds.”2 Because these ideas are not easily correlated with standard musical terms, building an interpretive model for his music requires an investigation into their P A Spatial Interpretation of Edgar Varèse’s Ionisation 257 meaning and origin. What did Varèse mean by a particular phrase, and what influenced him to make such a characterization? “SPATIAL PROJECTION” Of particular interest to the computer musician is “sound projection,” and in later Varèse interviews and lectures the slightly less ambiguous phrase “spatial projection,” because of Varèse’s seminal role in the use of spatially dispersed loudspeakers in electronic music through his compositions Déserts (1954/61) and, particularly Poème électronique (1958). Varèse mentioned that during the performances of Poème électronique, it was “the first time I heard my music literally projected into space,” in this case by diffusion through the loudspeaker array inside the Philips pavilion.3 Here he disambiguates spatial projection with the qualifier “literally.” We can thus speculate that physical space, exploited in an extreme fashion with Poème électronique, was probably a prototypical model for the idea of “space” in his music. Though certainly not the only “space” of elements (such as pitches, affects, etc.) that Varèse was navigating in his music, his seminal role in sound diffusion, or spatialization, justifies focusing on this aspect with scholarship and experimentation. What is also intriguing is that Varèse claims the idea “spatial projection” was part of not just his electronic works, but at least one earlier instrumental work, Intégrales (1925). In what was probably originally part of a radio interview in 1953,4 Varèse states that “Intégrales was conceived for spatial projection—that is, for certain acoustical media that would be available sooner or later.”5 One could assume that the “acoustical media” he speaks of here is what he was working with on the electronic interpolations of Déserts, which would be premiered a year after this radio interview in 1954. INTERPRETING IONISATION If Varèse was interested in spatial projection in his earlier works, but did not have the capacity, would it be possible to spatialize them with today’s technology? How would a computer musician build an interpretive model from Varèse’s writings, works, and background for the spatialization of his acoustic works? What earlier works would be susceptible to such interpretation without unacceptably distorting them? Ionisation is a good test subject. There are several reasons for this. Ionisation was written from 1929 through 1931, and therefore falls after 258 Perspectives of New Music Intégrales in 1925. We might assume he was continuing to think of spatial projection while composing Ionisation. Furthermore, the first documented appearance of “spatial projection” in the writing of Varèse appears earlier than both Intégrales and Ionisation. The electronic interpolations in Déserts—Varèse’s first use of true spatial audio—rely heavily on percussion sounds for the structure of their material. Additionally , there were earlier formative events that suggest Varèse was thinking about the spatial aspects of music potentially even in his first activities in the United States, such as conducting the antiphonal Berlioz Requiem Mass in 1917,6 well before the composition of Ionisation. Varèse wished to use physical space in his compositions to delineate form and structure in his works. Perhaps he was seeking to attain in the auditory domain the spatial clarity of the visual, as evidenced by the presence of many visual analogies to music in his writings. We have the...