Paranoia. Grenzerfahrungen elektronischer Musik im Kontext von Iannis Xenakis’ Schaffen

Roundtable - Ludger Brümmer, Sharon Kanach, Makis Solomos, Daniel Teige, Daniel Teruggi und Thomas Troge

In keeping with Maryanne Amacher's post-Cagean conception of musical composition as articulation of "ways of hearing," between 1968 and 1991 the composer created no significant works involving acoustic instruments. Responding however to acommision from the Kronos Quartet, in the early 1990s, Amacher came to an "endotonal" solution for integrating acoustic instruments onto her "interactive scenarios" whereby instruments and electronics alike would function together to "einforce" listeners' "interaural processing." By examining GLIA (2006), a composition conceived after the model of and including material from the unfinished string quartet, I approach Amacher's fundamentally refunctioned conception of "electro-acoustic" composition.

Das Symposium beschäftigt sich mit der Aufbereitung der Dialektik aus Konstruktion und sinnlicher Empfindung. Die Art, in der Xenakis arbeitete, die Ästhetik, die er entwickelte, die Instrumente, die er konstruierte, eröffnen einen neuen Horizont des musikalischen Gestaltens und Erlebens. U.a. werden Zeitzeugen referieren, die mit Xenakis zusammengearbeitet haben, oder dessen Erbe im Centre Iannis Xenakis an der Universität Rouen wissenschaftlich aufarbeiten. Zusätzlich werden ExpertInnen zu Wort kommen, die Xenakis’ Leben und Arbeiten grundlegend untersucht haben.

Rudolf Frisius: Musik als Formverlauf? Form und Struktur in der instrumentalen und elektroakustischen Musik von Iannis Xenakis

Roundtable - Christoph von Blumröder, Rodolphe Bourotte, Ludger Brümmer,Tobias Hünermann, Matthias Nowakowski and Leopoldo Siano

Iannis Xenakis wrked at the GRM studios from 1958 to 1962, working in close relation with Pierre Schaeffer and the activities of the Studio. However when one listens to some concrete music examples and then any of Xenakis electronic works, it is difficult to make a clear link between both, except for the similar technological devices used in both music. What is there in Xenakis electronic music? Did it influence concrete and electroacoustic music? Some examples will illustrate the unique approach he developed during this crucial period of his life and of the GRM's existance.

In einem Podiumsgespräch sollen ausgehend von der Biographie und dem elektroakustischen Œuvre des Iannis Xenakis kompositorische Kontexte sowohl im Sinne der Wirkung und Resonanz seinees Schaffens als auch ideell verwandter musikalischer Phänomene und Tendenzen anderer Komponisten gemeinsam reflektiert werden.

Together with “Cinq études de bruits” (1948), by Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen‘s “Studie II” (1954), “Williams Mix” (1952/53) by John Cage, belongs among the key works of early audiotape music. During these early years, in which the appearance of the synthesizer and sequencer were still a long way off, electro-acoustic music was produced directly on audiotape in what was then the newly-founded studios: by recording existing sounds (environmental noises, voices, music instruments, etc.), the generation of electroacoustic sounds by the simplest of means (vibration and noise generators, beat buzzers, etc.), processing through filtering, transformation of the replay speed and direction and, finally, by the temporal sequence and overlapping of material.

Although John Cage left the score of “Williams Mix” with his publisher C.F. Peters New York, so that other artists could produce new pieces, this opportunity has yet to be exploited. In this sense, Werner Dafeldecker’s and Valerio Tricoli’s project of once again realizing “Williams Mix” represents a premiere. Its significance not only lies in the digital appropriation of analog production methods by contemporary artists, in the sense of a historical practice of performance, but far more in the redemption of John Cage’s demand which was to understand audiotape music as a living part of musical encounter and analytical interpretation, and to accordingly update it by way of the new technologies.

Context: Where does the motivation for a tool such as UPIC come from?

History: We will have a short look at the history of the UPIC, and then at ten years of software innovations in a post-CEMAMu world.

Today: What tools do we dispose of now, when thinking graphically about sound?

tomorrow: Xenakis ideas were generally implemented in separate, independent programs. We will dicuss about integration two of them, sieves and stochastic sound, into a graphical editor.

The Talk investigates the question of how to perform the electronic music from Xenakis Polytopes today. Following the research done about Persepolis and Polytope de Cluny, a possible approach will be presented and discussed.