Class 7

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Class 7

• Contemporary Music

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Class Announcements

• Quiz on Wednesday
• Reminder meet for class on Wednesday at HSS 1346
  for David Medines performance quiz will be
  after that
• Exam review?

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Reaction paper topic

• What is Steve Reich saying in Music as a Gradual
  Process, and what is he saying about serialism
  and about the music of John Cage? How is Reichs
  viewpoint manifested in his pieces Come Out and
  Piano Phase? What do you think about the
  philosophy he expresses? Does it produce
  desirable musical results? Why or why not?

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And Now for Something Completely Different

• Iannis Xenakis 1922 (Romania) - 2001
• Greek
• Studied architecture and engineering
• Fought for left-wing Greek Peoples Liberation
  Army in Greek Civil War and half his face is
  blown off
• Sneaks away to Paris is sentenced to death in
  Greece

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I mention all this because

• Xenakis is, in many ways, a peer of Stockhausen,
  Boulez, and Babbitt
• But his background is very different, and his
  music has a severity that reflects this
• If S.,B. and B.s music is cool and clinical,
  Xenakiss music is anything but, even though
  aspects of his attitude are similar

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Xenakis in his 20s

• Works as an architect
• Many teachers encourage him to build his music
  from traditional classical music studies, or from
  serialism
• But Xenakis wants to use his backgrounds in
  architecture and math as the basis of his music
  instead

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Xenakis and Architecture

• Xenakis believed that you could apply ideas from
  architecture and math without losing their truth
• Often applies ideas about probability (but,
  unlike many other composers who use non-musical
  ideas, is obscure about his methods)

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Metastasis (1954)

• Uses sound masses to illustrate a kind of
  architectural principle
• Initial drafts look like blueprints
• Remember the Phillips Pavilion at the 1958
  Worlds Fair, where Varese premiered his Poeme
  Electronique?

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The Phillips Pavilion

• Xenakis was an assistant to architect who
  designed this building, and he claims credit for
  his design
• Claims that the Pavilion was inspired by
  Metastasis

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Listening log Xenakis, Metastasis

• Does the parallel between this piece and the
  pavilion make sense? Why or why not?
• Hint this piece may sound a bit like a horror
  movie soundtrack to you. Try to ignore that and
  think what would this piece look like if it
  were three-dimensional?

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Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

• The media through which we receive information
  affects the way we think
• The medium of print is conducive to rational
  argument
• The medium of television is not

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Amusing Ourselves to Death

• When a television show is in process, it is very
  nearly impermissible to say, Let me think about
  that or I dont know or What do you mean when
  you say or From what sources do your
  information come? This type of discourse not
  only slows down the tempo of the show but creates
  the impression of uncertainty or lack of finish.
  It tends to reveal people in the act of thinking.

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Amusing Ourselves to Death

• Post-debate commentary largely avoided any
  evaluation of the candidates ideas, since there
  were none to evaluate. Instead, the debates were
  conceived as boxing matches, the relevant
  questions being, Who KOd whom? The answer was
  determined by the style of the men

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As we near the end of the 20th century, then

• If television and other new media are changing
  the way we think,
• then wouldnt that affect our music?

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Listening log Xenakis, Tetras

• How would you characterize each section we hear?
• What are the transitions between them like?

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School-band section

• Whats going on here?
• Semi-mathematical rigor
• But still! Banal materials deployed with utmost
  conviction

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Gyorgi Ligeti Piano Concerto

• 1988

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Piano Concerto

• Like Steve Reich, Ligeti becomes interested in
  the repetitions of African music
• Unlike Reich, though, Ligeti does not use these
  repetitions for entrancing effect
• Instead, he uses them in irregular ways,
  dislocating the listener
• Also employs unusual cuts between passages
• Shades of Postman--ideas are allowed to be cut
  off before they progress

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Listening log Piano Concerto

• Where do we hear these things?