Leonardo

Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes Author(s): Maria Anna Harley Source: Leonardo, Vol. 31, No. 1 (1998), pp. 55-65 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576549 . Accessed: 27/10/2011 02:51
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HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE

Music

of

Xenakis's

and Sound Polytopes

Light:

Maria Anna Harley

ABSTRACT

IN A MUSICAL UNIVERSE And when I lookedup at the infinite sky, the universecontemorbit... theuniverse's plated mefrom its emptyand bottomless with a thousand suns, like a cavern enedifice garnished sconcedin eternallight, wheresuns shine like miner'slanterns and milkyways likesilverveins. Jean-Paul Richter [1] These words introduced the spectacle of Le Diatope(1979), an audiovisual work by Iannis Xenakis that incorporated an architectural shell, electroacoustic music and a mobile-light display. Similar evocations of cosmic phenomena are not uncommon in the writings of this Greek composer and architect, who once described the process of composing music as analogous to navigating a "cosmicvessel sailing in the space of sound, across sonic constellations and galaxies" and explained human intelligence in the language of astrophysics [2]. Xenakis the architect believed that the evolution of humanity had reached a cosmic stage requiring new forms of dwellings, such as his "cosmic city,"an unrealized project intended to "bring the population in contact with the vast spaces of the sky and of the stars" [3]. Xenakis the composer marked the beginning of this new "planetary and cosmic era" in human development by inventing a new form of multimedia art that he called the "polytope" [4], from the Greek polys (many, numerous) and topos (place,

electroacoustic

composition

by

Varese and a visual display by Le Corbusier. The prophetic language and technical novelties of Poemecontinued the tradition of Universal Expositions (also known as World Expositions or EXPOs), which were designed as celebrations of human dominance over nature. The Expositions' spirit of ascendancy over natural powers has been apparent in their presentations of the most recent scientific inventions and architectural projects of their times, including such landmarks as the Crystal Palace in London (1851) and the Tour d'Eiffel in Paris (1889). In Brussels in 1958, the immense Atomium (a model of the atom) symbolized the newly discovered power of nuclear energy. For EXPO '58, Xenakis-then given the job working as an architect for Le Corbusier-was

the Thisarticle explores auof Greek installations diovisual lannis and composer architect on Xenakis, focusing theworks The hecalls"polytopes." term the captures complexity polytope and ofthespatial designs mulspacesoftheseunusual tiple have works, light-and-sound which of used often thousands lights of hundredsloudspeakers. and are Xenakis's polytopes examined conand intheir aesthetic cultural of the text; discussion thisorigiart of nal form avant-gardeinof a cludes survey itsforms, and functions reception.

space, territory, location). The polytope is based on the idea of a great space consisting of many smaller elements, a domain of spatial complexity that may be articulated by sound and light
in movement. to develop According to Xenakis, the polytope "experi[5].

ments with novel ways of using sound and light. It's an attempt
a new form of art with light and sound"

Xenakis explains that in creating this art form he was "attracted by the idea of repeating on a lower level what Nature
carries out on a grand scale. The notion of Nature covers not

of designing a pavilion to display the technological achievements of the Philips Corporation from 1956 to 1958 [8]. The young artist was also asked to compose a brief piece of to musiqueconcrete provide an introduction to the electronic poem by Varese and Le Corbusier. The result was the electroacoustic miniature ConcretPH, which filled the curved spaces of the Pavilion with the "organic life and chemical flavour" of the sounds of burning charcoal [9]. The title of this piece refers to key elements of the Pavilion's architecture: the material of reinforced concrete and the basic shapes Xenakis of hyperbolic paraboloids. In Musique. Architecture, described the Pavilion as "a dawn" of a new architecture that was to be based on the bending rather than the shifting of
Fig. 1. Xenakis's sketch of the external shell of the Philips Pavilion (Brussels, 1958). Notice the bending of the surfaces and two tops towering above the structure.

only the earth but also the universe"[6]. THE PHILIPS PAVILION

AND LE GESTE ELECTRONIQUE

Xenakis's first personal encounter with multimedia extravaganzas took place during work on the Philips Pavilion at the site of Edgar Var&se's 1958 World Exposition in Brussels-the

and Le Corbusier's Poemeelectronique (Fig. 1) [7]. This unique spectacle consisted of two independently created layers: an
Maria Anna Harley (musicologist), Polish Music Reference Center, School of Music, University of Southern California, 840 West 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0851, U.S.A. E-mail: <maharley@bcf.usc.edu>.

? 1998 ISAST

LEONARDO,

Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 55-65,

1998

55

surfaces [10]. Indeed, the use of surfaces of variable curvature, such as paraboloids and conoids, became his artistic signature: the surfaces sculpted the sounds in the orchestral work Metastasis (1953-1955) and provided the architectural framework for the Polytope de
Montreal (1967).

sources were both multiple and mobile). Here, Xenakis imagined that by the preof the Poeme electronique [11]. Because of tures [15]. In the geste electronique total, cise definition of sound source locadifficulties coordinating this textual spatial locations as well as pitches, dura- tions, geometric shapes and surfaces with the music, however, instead tions, timbres and dynamic levels are in- might be projected into the area of perlayer he included the poetry excerpts in the herent to the structure. The architec- formance. These geometric sound entiprogram book. Rather than adding the tural shell of the performance space ties would arise from the succession and spoken word to the spectacle, he used should assume a new, irregular form al- simultaneity of sound images played visual means to narrate a tale of human lowing for multiple images to be dis- back from loudspeakers located in the frailties and triumphs at the beginning played at the same time in different geo- auditorium. If, for instance, the same of what he called "a new civilization, a metric transformations, criss-crossing sonority was performed in succession new world" [12] made possible by the and permeating each other. Xenakis and with a slight overlap from several of science. Such was the gen- wanted the visual display to sever all con- loudspeakers, it would create a trianguprogress esis of "lesjeux electroniques"-a new nections with the mimetic realism im- lar sound pattern. If many short imform of electronic art envisioned by Le plied by flat screens that resemble the pulses were heard, they could-dependCorbusier as incorporating elements of two-dimensional canvas of the tradi- ing on their placement in time and "light, colour, rhythm, motion and tional painting. Instead, the whole vol- space-create a sonic surface. One can sound" [13]. This definition, included ume of the performance space was to be multiply these examples to demonstrate in the program book of the Poeme filled with sounds and images. how an auditory space could be strucdid Xenakis's emphasis on the compositured by means of abstract morphologielectronique, not specify any details. In any case, Xenakis was dissatisfied tional use of the spatial properties of cal principles. Xenakis's use of the lanwith the narrative form and mimetic sound has a precedent in the writings of guage of geometry-points, lines and content of Le Corbusier's spectacle, with Pierre Schaeffer, the pioneer of musique surfaces-to discuss aural phenomena its realist imagery of Aztec sculptures, concretewho, in the early 1950s, intro- has parallels in contemporaneous literaof children and people at work, duced the idea of the movement of ture of the musical avant-garde [18] and portraits and photographs of skulls, rockets and sound along trajectoiressonores (sonic tra- precedents in theoretical manifestos of heavy machinery. He also considered the jectories) [16]. This term referred to abstract painting such as Kandinsky's
Point and Line to Plane (1913) [19].

At the Brussels exposition, the peaked pavilion with smooth walls of reinforced concrete covered with tiles (Fig. 1) housed a spectacle of sound and images. Varese's musical composition (music for tape projected from more than 400 loudspeakers) and Le Corbusier's visual display (slides and light show) were performed simultaneously, but had been created independently of each other. Le Corbusier had originally intended to read fragments of his poems praising technological progress and the conquest of "the mathematical universe" as a part

absence of cooperation between the two authors-Le Corbusier and Varese-and the fact of its double authorship to be the work's essential weakness. He thought that this form of art should have a single creator who would unite disparate elements by his or her coherent artistic vision. In 1958, Xenakis described this concept in an article that became the blueprint for the polytope [14]. This technological art form was to bring together the concept of abstract painting with the techniques of cinema, combining colored mobile backgrounds, shifting spatial configurations and patterns, a play of colors and forms, and abstract music. According to Xenakis, the process of musical "abstraction" consists of a shift toward atonality; it also relies on the appropriation of concrete sounds and the creation of electronic sonorities and their organization into vast sonic ges-

imaginary paths traced by mobile sound images that emanate from static loudspeakers and travel around a performance space. Schaeffer utilized two types of spatial sound projection with multiple loudspeaker systems-static relief and kinematic relief, the latter of which

involved mobile sound sources whose movement was controlled by hand gestures of the performers. This way of creating "spatial relief' in music was heard for the first time during a concert of Schaeffer and Pierre Henry on 6 July
1951 in Paris, when Symphonie pour un homme seul and Orphee 51 were per-

formed [17]. Xenakis reformulated

these concepts as stereophonie statique

(sound emanating points dispersed

from numerous in space) and

whose

stereophonie cinematique (sound

Fig. 2. Xenakis's sketch of the location of his Polytope de Montrealin the interior of the French Pavilion at EXPO 67 in Montreal.

POLYTOPE MONTREAL, DE

1967
In 1966, Xenakis finally had a chance to realize his dreams of this new form of electronic art. He received a commission to prepare a sound-and-light performance in the French Pavilion at EXPO 67 in Montreal [20]. The general theme
of this exposition, Terredes Hommes (Man

and his World), which was borrowed from a book by Antoine de SaintExupery, encompassed a number of subjects, all celebrating human achievements in controlling and transforming

56

Harley,Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

the Earth [21]. The documents of the Canadian EXPO Commission (published in the EXPO program book) located science at the center of human activity, with an awareness of its victories (e.g. conquest of space) and dangers (e.g. threats of global disasters and total annihilation in atomic war). The organizers hoped that, in addition to revealing a tremendous faith in progress, the exhibition would also express human solidarity on Earth- "thisone tiny speck fixed in the vastness of the universe," in the words of Quebecois writer Gabrielle Roy [22]. The theme of solidarity was obvious in the emblem of the EXPO: a circle of human figures with arms extended to the sky, symbolizing the unity and cooperation of all people on Earth. In accordance with its glorification of technology, the EXPO transformed the landscape of Montreal: the construction work used 22 million tons of rocks to enlarge one island (St. Helene) and create another (Notre Dame) that was, with an area of 400 hectares, twice as big as the city of Brussels. Set in a park amidst newly built canals, fountains and lakes, the pavilions housed exhibits from individual countries and large international organizations. They also featured special displays, such as an international collection of fine arts celebrating the theme of human creativity. Given the exhibition's emphasis on progress and the conquest of the universe, the choice of Xenakis to create an audiovisual installation in the French Pavilion was not surprising. The building, designed by Jean Faugeron (and awarded the Grand Prix de Rome), contained exhibits on the theme of "Tradition and Invention" thatjuxtaposed classic and modern works of art with recent discoveries made in the fields of science, medicine and technology, among them the color television. The pavilion included several floors of display rooms, all opening onto the central plaza-a suitable location for Xenakis's audiovisual project. Instead of a slide show that would cast images of crystals into space to a musical accompaniment (as suggested by the commission), the composer designed his first polytope. He planned five nets of steel cables that outlined intersecting shapes of conoids and hyperboloids in the interior of the pavilion (Fig. 2). The linearity of this design reflected the geometry of the building's characteristic "Venetian-blind"patterns. In Xenakis's project, however, the architecture was transparent, serving as a framework for the display of an abstract

composition of moving points of light. to experience it from a number of differThe nets of cables supported 1,200 ent perspectives during their visits to the 800 of them white and 100 each French Pavilion.According to Maryvonne lights, of red, blue, green and yellow. The light Kendergi, the audiences included many patterns changed every quarter second young composers from Quebec who were and evoked, due to the persistence of greatly impressed with this work [25]. the image on the retina, various configu- Micheline Coulombe-Saint Marcoux, for rations in motion: arabesques, spirals, instance, considered the "perfectsymbiolayered patches, nebulae, cascades, gal- sis of architectural space and musical axies, explosions, streams and constella- structures" as the polytope's most notetions of the stars. The colored lights worthy aspect [26]. were distributed over the five surfaces The automation of the Polytope de and gradually emerged from the orga- Montreal posed many technical probnized chaos of white light patterns [23]. lems. The spectacle was controlled by Xenakis wrote in the program for this means of an ingenious device: indispectacle that his "total experience with vidual lights switched on after rays of a musical composition was used here to continually shining light filtered serve light composition: probability, through holes in a perforated control structures, group structures, etc." tape and activated signals from a board logical of photosensitive cells. For the 6-minute [24]. The multitude of lights outlined complex surfaces, created fixed fields or spectacle, Xenakis calculated 19,000 succlouds and moved along the trajectories cessive light events in order to "create a of spirals, circles or complicated curves luminous flow analogous to that of muin three dimensions. The rhythms of sic issuing from a sonic source" [27]. these movements were constructed with This procedure was rather cumbersome the help of simple logical operations and instilled in the composer a craving (sums, differences). Indeed, one might for complete automation, so that say that if the whole EXPO 67 was meant a new and rich workof visualart could to present, in the words of Gabrielle arise, whose evolution would be ruled Roy, "a thousand pictures, a thousand by huge computers,a total audiovisual manifestation ruledin its compositional sounds whereby we catch a glimpse, a intelligence by machinesservingother reflection of the infinity which is our machines,which are, thanksto the sciuniverse," then Xenakis's polytope entificarts,directedby man [28]. brought this infinity under the roof of one pavilion. The yearning for "machines serving The composed spectacle of automa- other machines" in the creation of a spatized patterns of light in movement was tial music of light seems to have resulted accompanied by continuous music com- from the tedious experience of calculatposed of slowly shifting glissandi. This ing "byhand" the multitude of light patcomposition remains in Xenakis's catalog terns for the Polytopede Montreal. This under the title of Polytope Montreal; de it dream eventually found its realization in was scored for four identical orchestras of the Polytope de Cluny of 1972-1974, 11 musicians each, with the orchestras which is discussed later in this article. placed at the four cardinal points of the concert area. (The recording of this comFROM MONTREALTO position used in the numerous Montreal PERSEPOLIS performances was prepared in Paris by the Ars Nova ensemble under Marius From EXPO 67, Xenakis gained a repuConstant.) During the EXPO perfor- tation as a creator of enormous audiovimances, the tape resounded from four sual spectacles. These projects were groups of loudspeakers placed at the bot- partly displays of the newest technology tom of the central plaza, below the sus- and partly artistic extravaganzas; they pended nets of cables and lights. The uni- brought him, in turn, to Iran (1969), to formity of the timbre of the four identical Japan (1970) and to Iran once again groups of instruments and the symmetry (1971). All three projects were conin spatial location was meant to contrast nected to the cultural ambitions of the with the pointillistic light show. The con- Emperor of Iran, Shah Mohammed trast was further increased by the conti- Reza Pahlavi. The first of these projectsjoined modnuity of the music's vast glissandi, which stretched across the ranges of all the in- ern technology with the archaic granstruments. Because the show ran continu- deur of the ruins of Persepolis. The ously and was visible from all the display Shah decided to restore the splendor of rooms on the various floors of the pavil- the Iranian dynasty to its former glory. ion, members of the public had a chance He portrayed himself as the successor to

Harley,Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

57

the ancient Persian rulers and the leader of a "WhiteRevolution," bringing to Iran speedy modernization and social reforms [29]. The revival of non-Islamic Persian culture was an important element in the Shah's agenda, which included such bold steps as changing the calendar to mark the putative founding of the first Iranian kingdom. To stimulate the interest of the international artistic community in ancient Persian culture, the Shah and the Empress Farah Pahlavi selected the site of Persepolis for the annual Shiraz Festival (Shiraz is the oasis closest to the site of the ancient ruins of Persepolis, located amidst the desert sands). The remains of the buildings in this secluded fortress contained symbols of the Persian dynasty's absolute power: reliefs of tribute-bearers and inscriptions praising the king's greatness adorned the walls [30]. In 331 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire and destroyed the palace. The site was deserted for the next 2,000 years. The first festival was initiated by the Empress; it took place in 1969 and included the premiere of Xenakis's Persephassa [31]. The Empress envisioned the festival as "ameeting place of East and West" bringing together traditional performances with classical theater and avant-garde arts. The audiences, consisting of Iranian peasants, intellectuals and representatives of the international press, were treated to experimental theater productions by playwrights such as Peter Brook andJerzy Grotowski and modern music by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Xenakis. she Following the success of Persephassa, chose Xenakis to design an audiovisual installation for the Iranian Pavilion at EXPO 70 in Osaka, Japan, and to create and direct a gigantic sound-and-light performance for the opening night of the 1971 Shiraz Festival, which was held once again in the ruins of the palace of the ancient Persian kings at Persepolis on 26 August 1971. At EXPO 70, the "futuristic"architecture was even more inventive than it had been in Montreal. There were three enormous geodesic domes and an array of pavilions housing audiovisual spectacles by avant-garde composers. Stockhausen's series of "intuitive music" performances drew crowds to the German Pavilion; many visitors were also attracted to a display of moving laser beams accompanying the electroacoustic music of Toru Takemitsu.

?\..'? ;?0\o -.:-.r..

'

'* . ,'- :`\\\

-:

Fig. 3. Fragment of the blueprint for Persepoliswith Xenakis's handwritten annotations specifying the positions of the loudspeakers, the control area, the audience and the empress. The blueprint was annotated during the composer's sojourn in Aspen, Colorado.

Lasers were also featured prominently in the Japanese pavilion, for which Xenakis composed Hibikihanama(1970). The spatial projection of this electroacoustic work (made from instrumental sonorities, including Japanese instruments) used 800 loudspeakers in 250 groupings surrounding the audience. On display in the building, which was decorated by Joan Mir6, were mobile filmand-laser works by Japanese artist Keiji Usami, who strictly coordinated the motions of visual patterns with the three-dimensional movement of sound images. The laser displays captured the attention of many viewers, particularlyof Xenakis, who was ever eager to experiment with new equipment. Consequently, he went on to use two laser beams in the Polytope (the work's original title) in of Persepolis Iran (1971) and made lasers the instruments of choice in both the Polytopede Clunyand LeDiatope(1978). The 1971 festival belonged a series of events marking the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy-an extravagant celebration replete with fireworks, military parades, re-enactments of scenes from the palace reliefs and luxurious parties for an international array of royal guests. The opulence of these festivities caused widespread criticism, especially among the Moslem clergy, and increased the resentment of the Iranian people against their rulers [32]. The people rejected the "occidentosis" of their monarchs-the admiration and imitation of Europe that underlay the introduction of Western-style festivals of the arts to their country [33].

At the historic site, the distinguished public (including nine kings, five queens and 16 presidents [34]) was located in the great courtyard (Fig. 3) between the tombs of Darius and Artaxerxes. The dignitaries were surrounded by loudspeakers emitting the continuous, strange sonorities of Persepolis-an hourlong electroacoustic piece for 8-track tape [35]. In a diagram that delineates the relationships among his compositions up to 1974, Xenakis includes Persepolisin a group of pieces for tape (along with Hibiki hanama, Polytope de and Polytope Cluny).These are de Montreal connected by Xenakis to Bohor (1962), an electroacoustic composition characterized by two main traits: "microstructures" and "spatialization"[36]. Bohoris textural, with minute transformations within its dense sonorous masses that are often made up of brief, overlapping segments of sound material. In Persepolis, the sounds were also "spatialized" by means of their projection from numerous loudspeakers dispersed among the ancient ruins. The blueprint for the spectacle (Fig. 3) indicates the locations of 91 circuits for lighting effects scattered throughout the ruins of the palace, as well as eight loudspeakers (marked AH) arranged in an irregular semicircular pattern around the public. The listening area was located outside the palace walls and, judging from the placement of the sound and lighting equipment, the audience was expected to look toward the palace. Xenakis indicated the location of 59 loudspeakers (plus 10 backups), the control center (poste de commande)and

58

Harley, Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's

Polytopes

against the repressive society of their forebears [43]. Fleuret explains the sud:'. ^ ^'-'...:..' l. den popularity of contemporary music Fig. 4. A sketch by Xenakis for Polytope with such student audiences as resulting ?-..:? L -~ ... . ". * *... ? de Clunyshows the ,.'....... ,..' from their revolutionary fervor: tired of ~ ~L^+ ' : :.. . .* ... ._-, . : ---...--.:---; ^ * location of points -. . ... -..: .. r the established conventions and rules of ? -I ( t .T*E . , . . . . .- 3 : tZ ? and rays of light in .. . . .. . .;. ., -- -. . ., . . . * ..-G . . life, the young people chose spontaneity, -: :; : .. . . . . . ,. . . ~,. the ruins of the aninformality and novelty. They sought cient Roman baths at the Cluny Mu: ' "spirit, fight, passion" [44] and chose - * ' q,X.BtSt v" . *." . -.':. . - i.;. . .- ....: . - . . .. *'- , . * K A 1.'" ^I* *-'. -*_''. seum in Paris. .-. music that transcended the limits of tra' x dition and nationalism by posing issues common to the entire planet. They rejected the ritual of concert going with its formal apparel and conventions of behavior [45]; they sat on the floor, surrounded by strange sonorities and subjecting themselves to perceptual and aesthetic experimentation. They had ample opportunities for that in Xenakis's the privileged central position of the at the great anniversary celebration of largest audiovisual project, the Polytope de Empress (Reine) within the palace's col- the emperor indicate a need for creating Cluny-again, a part of LesJournees de onnades and courtyards. The loudspeak- a separate category to describe Persepolis. musiquecontemporaine Paris (SIMP). de ers, divided into sets of 8 and 16, en- Maurice Fleuret groups it with the Greek The automated work for light and closed three adjacent audience areas; project of 1978 Polytopede Mycenesas a sound opened on 13 October 1972 for here, the spectators were surrounded by "mass celebration" [38]. However, the 16 months of performances that resound. position of the Iranian spectacle in peated four times each day, attracting Xenakis's oeuvre-between the poly- crowds of Parisians and tourists. AccordThe music accompanied a spectacle of luminous patterns evoking the Zoro- topes of Montreal and Mycenes-justiing to Fleuret, more than 90,000 people astrian symbolism of light as eternal life fies this label, which was also used by the visited the Polytopede Cluny during the [37]. Diffuse light shone on the two artist during the work's creation. The initial period of its exposition [46]; after de tombs while two laser beams and many title Polytope Persepolis appears, for in- the spectacle was redesigned (1973) and the night sky. Two stance, on the blueprint for the revived (1974), the total audience spotlights brightened immense fires burned on the hilltops; performer's location within the ancient reached over 200,000 participants. The hundreds of children carried torches to ruins of Persepolis. The composer drew Cluny Museum, whose T-shaped vaults create moving light trajectories in space. from the Persepolis experience when de- once housed Roman baths, is located in The torch lights formed geometrical signing the spectacles for the ruins and the Latin Quarter,just off Boulevard St. and irregular patterns on the mountain monuments of Mycenes; he also in- Germain, in the heart of the city's unislopes as the children walked in proces- cluded dramatic images of the fires versity district [47]. This is the oldest sion to reach the summit of the hill, burning at Persepolis in the program monument in Paris, and its ancient stone then descended and dispersed. At the book of LeDiatope,another 1978 work. walls had to be protected during the inend of the performance, two groups of stallation; Xenakis had a scaffolding children converged near the tombs and built for the sound and light equipment. POLYTOPEDE CLUNY, waved their torches in the air to write a The informal performance environment of this experimental work allowed visishiny inscription: "we carry the light of 1972-1974 the earth." Xenakis coined this phrase The polytopes realized in Montreal in tors to sit or lie on the floor in the unin Farsi in an allusion to the Zoroastrian 1967 and at the Cluny Museum in Paris usual space and admire the technologireligion, an ancient Iranian belief sys- in 1972 were separated by the social un- cal innovations. The lasers-then tem. This was the spectacle's only con- rest of 1968. In 1968, Xenakis, the most associated with revolutionary tools and crete, programmatic moment; the rest radically "modern" composer living in dangerous weapons rather than ubiquiwas a sequence of abstract events that France at the time [39], became one of tous household appliances-kindled a followed a structural logic unrelated to the symbols of French students' struggle particular fascination. Xenakis used historical narrative. for change. One of the slogans of the stu- three laser rays (red of krypton, green It is still not clear whether Persepolis dent demonstrations of May 1968 de- and blue of argon) and 600 xenon flashcould be called a polytope in the true manded "Xenakis not Gounod" [40]. In bulbs. The directions of the lasers were sense of the word-that is, a complex October 1968 Xenakis's music was fea- controlled remotely and their rays reand machine-assisted audiovisual spec- tured at Les Journees de musique flected in 400 mirrors to form complex tacle that might be performed repeat- contemporaine Paris (along with work by configurations in space; the mirrorswere de edly (thanks to sound-recording technol- Varese, Luciano Berio and Pierre Henry) able to change their orientation to dif[41]. All concerts were sold out and ferent planes, and all the light patterns ogy and the automation of visual The importance of live per- many listeners found their way into the were automated and controlled by comdisplay). formers for the creation of massive light concert halls by defying security guards puters. Here, the composer finally realpatterns in Xenakis's Iranian project and [42]. Most of these listeners were young ized his dream of harnessing "machines the uniqueness of its single performance students from the generation revolting serving other machines" to create novel
" ^'-:L{'^ m .. L/..; :--'-~._ .,,:^^

Harley, Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's

Polytopes

59

art. The computational prowess of the that combined to produce a series of unheard-of kind; the days of sampling IBM and Ampex machines used for the mobile light arcs. The points moved in and digital simulacra of acoustic instruwork was impressive for the time: the 26- synchronic and asynchronic rhythms (as ments still lay ahead. The "strangeness" minute spectacle required 43,200,000 bi- in the Polytope de Montreal), creating liq- of Xenakis's electroacoustic pieces often nary commands to control the state of uid streams of light, shifting clouds and surprised listeners; after the perforthe lights, the lengths of the laser beams rotating columns, aggregates of lines, mances of Bohorat the 1968 Festival in and the positions of the mirrors. The circles and ellipses (Fig. 4). This may Paris [51], the critics described this work commands were encoded on the eighth seem like a visual lesson in Euclidean ge- as a "sonic cataclysm" [52] or as an extrack of the magnetic tape, which con- ometry, but some patterns were intended ample of Xenakis's supreme ability to tained seven tracks of music. Thus, the to distantly resemble various natural transform known sounds into something movements of light could be coordi- phenomena such as the lotus or entirely unrecognizable [53]. In the nated with the flow of sound. There are anemone-at least that is what Xenakis Polytope de Cluny, he was again reaching several important differences between called them in his sketches (Fig. 5). beyond the ordinary. Drawing from his the projects of Montreal, Cluny and the Other pointillistic images evoked the ex- experience with spatialized compositions later Diatope (1978). Xenakis describes pansion and collapse of galaxies, the aus- such as Terretetorh (1965-1966) and Nothem in the following words: "In tere beauty of the cosmos. Interestingly, mos Gamma(1967-1968), Xenakis used Montreal I used 600 floodlights, in Cluny the initial title of the whole project, La multiple loudspeakers interspersed as many flashlights, and in the Diatopeas Riviere,is a testimony to this inspiration throughout the audience for the spatial many as 1,600. The most important dif- from the beauty of nature-filtered, as it projection of the seven layers of sound ference is that in Montreal I achieved often was in Xenakis's work, through the [54]. The geometry of the performance the visual effect through film, while in language of mathematics. space did not allow for the creation of At Cluny, the music remained simple, circular patterns, but limited them to Cluny I used digital magnetic tape" [48]. In Montreal, Xenakis had created a its varying pulses and modulating tim- variations of Ts and squares. Nonethecontrast between the aural and visual lay- bres providing a counterpoint to the less, it impressed Pascal Dusapin to such ers of his work by juxtaposing the linear density of the lights [49]. The palette of a degree that he recalls his experience of continuity of the sound with the discrete, sounds includes sonorities of non-West- attending the Polytope de Cluny as the "depointillistic effects of the lighting; at ern provenance, such as recordings of cisive shock" that inspired him to beCluny, however, both the visual and aural African drums, juxtaposed with timbral come a composer [55]. strata included continuous and discrete extremities of the modern orchestra and Xenakis continued to dream on a cosevents. Numerous combinations of recti- computer-generated synthetic sounds mic scale: he planned to celebrate the linear images were precisely controlled: calculated at Centre d'Etudes de American bicentennial with a gigantic groups of multi-colored raysshone along Math6matique et Automatique Musicales sound-and-light display connecting the parallel and intersecting paths, forming (CEMAMu),founded by Xenakis in 1965 continents, then he envisioned a Northtriangles and stars in continuous trans- [50]. In 1972, digital sound synthesis was ern Lights spectacle illuminating the formation. These images were created still so much of a novelty that the sounds Earth's atmosphere above Europe and from multiple reflections of laser beams themselves were supposed to be of the North America [56]. in the latter project, it was feared the planned use of electromagnetic beams would harm the ozone layer [57]. These grandiose Fig. 5. Xenakis's sketches for the "anemone" light pattern in Polytopede Cluny.The pattern is created by laser beams reflecting off mirrors placed on the scaffolding in the perforschemes were abandoned; another unmance space. As the position of these mirrors shifted, so did the shapes of the anemones. usual idea to "illuminate the dark side of I t the new moon" with beams of light con-t centrated like a laser met the same fate [58]. Xenakis's project for the opening I ?I of the Georges Pompidou Center for the Arts in Paris (1978) was similarly ambi\ I \ I.tious: it was to be a monumental laser 0 I show accompanied by the music of in4 .I / - I dustrial sirens. The whole population of the city would be subjected to the artistic extravaganza,with no freedom of choice for those not interested in the vagaries of modern art. In the end, the artworkand the public found a much more modest site: a vinyl tent-pavilion temporarily erected on the Beaubourg Plaza. Xenakis called the multimedia installation he created there LeDiatope[59].

1978 LE DIATOPE,
ANeMONE

A NE MONE I1

The change of prefix from "poly-" to "dia-"(across, through) indicated a shift in emphasis from the coexistence of a

60

Harley, Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's

Polytopes

multitude of different spaces/objects/ phenomena to the homogeneous, enveloping spatiality of three media permeating each other: static architecture, mobile sounds and equally mobile lights [60]. Xenakis, who designed both the audiovisual spectacle and the soft vinyl pavilion housing it, unified the elements of light, music and spatial geometry in this work (Fig. 6). In the dark interior of the pavilion, a network of steel cables supported 1,680 strobe lights. Four laser beams were split by enormous prisms and reflected in 400 mirrors, shining off the glass columns and floor. The configurations of lights had a greater complexity and refinement of movement than in the previous projects, but the basic geometric elements of points and lines remained the same. Nonetheless, the spectacle featured a new element: an array of literary texts suggesting the existence of a narrative. In the program book, Xenakis included quotations from five texts: (1) the "Legend of Er" from Plato's Republic, (2) a segment of a creation myth from hermetic writings attributed to the legendary alchemist Hermes Trismegistus, (3) a reflection on infinity from Blaise Pascal's Thoughts,(4) an apocalyptic vision from a novel by Jean-Paul Richter and (5) a popular description of the supernova by astrophysicist Robert P. Kirschner [61]. Stating that "it is difficult and not necessary to explicate a spectacle of music at all levels," the composer chose texts that formed "multiple resonances" with each other and extended thematic threads from ancient Greek culture to modern astronomy and philosophy [62]. All the texts contain cosmic-and at times apocalyptic-imagery, with many references to astounding patterns of light. In the quotation from Plato, the Greek soldier Er, killed in battle, sees souls ascending a luminous pillar that shines "like a bright rainbow."This is the axis of the universe, binding together the wheels of the cosmos. After listening to the music of the spheres and forgetting about their past, the souls "like shooting starswere all swept suddenly up and away to be born." In the excerpt from Hermes Trismegistus, a medieval alchemist dreams about a visit "from a Being of vast and boundless magnitude" basking in a "serene and joyous light." This is the mind of the Deity, which creates Life and Light and the Word of God, "the voice of the light." The alchemist perceives divine secrets and understands that through their twofold nature-mor-

Fig. 6. Xenakis, sketch of the pavilion constructed for the performance of Le Diatope, published in the program book for the installation (1978).

~~
-

\)
tal in body, immortal in mind-human beings share in the perfection of the divine mind. Pascal contemplates "the sun's blazing light set like an eternal lamp" in a universe that, by its sheer scope, reduces human beings to total insignificance. In Richter's apocalyptic scene, the universe is empty: the Godhead cannot be found in the Milky Way, amidst a billion suns. The awe-inspiring grandeur of the universe incites a feeling of terror in people observing themselves suspended "between the two abysses of infinity and nothingness" (Pascal) [63]. The tragic awareness of human solitude underlies the final excerpt for LeDiatope,a factual description of the eruption of a supernova with a brightness "a billion times the luminosity of the sun" [64]. The expanding star would engulf the whole solar system, destroying humankind in the process. We can interpret the program of Le Diatopeas a testimony to Xenakis's atheism and his vision of human destiny as a tragic solitude in the enormous, hostile and empty universe. According to this reading, ours is a world of chaos and violence that should be bemoaned and feared. The texts lead the reader from ancient beliefs in after-deathpunishment and reward through the revelation of an androcentric, rationalistic universe to the rejection of faith and abandonment of all hope in salvation. The final description of the supernova would then imply that the infinity and destiny of the universe may be, in the end, understood and predicted only by science-the ultimate source of human knowledge. This scenario replaces religion with scientism and faith in the revelatory function of art. The glorification of technology is evident in the composer's description of the arrayof technical means used to create the mobile configurations of points and lines [65]. The light patterns created by the laser beams and flashes rapidly shifted and evolved. As in the

7-

,tq7i-

Polytopede Cluny, the laser beams were reflected in 400 special mirrors equipped with optic filters and prisms. Mathematical functions-operations on complex numbers and the calculus of probabilities-controlled their continuous and discontinuous motion. The use of the rudimentary visual material of points and lines of light invites comparison with basic elements of the physical universe: grains of matter and lines of photon rays. In an analogy with the black void of the empty Universe in which particles of matter and light are scattered, the interior of the pavilion provided a black background for the luminous configurations. The pavilion itself was structured from several intersecting concave and convex surfaces that Xenakis combined to maximize the empty space and minimize the covering surface. Thus, with the assistance of powerful technology, Xenakis created a new form of audiovisual art, an abstract spectacle of "visualmusic" that portrayed, on a reduced scale, "the galaxies, the stars and their transformation with the help of concepts and procedures stemming from musical composition." The most important mathematical function in Le Diatopewas, according to Xenakis, the lohe gistic distribution applied to create the musical form, rhythmic transformations, complex timbres and the variable streams of pitch-and-intensity patterns he called tressesrhythmiques(rhythmic strands) [66]. The same distributional function was used in the creation of the light patterns, evoking trajectories of galaxies, violent storms, volcanic eruptions, the aurora borealis, rotating or dispersing spirals, and other mobile configurations. Xenakis's creative power of imagination benefited from advanced technology: all the events of the spectacle were computer-controlled, requiring 140.5 million orders (binary commands) for the 46 minutes of LeDiatope.As with the

Harley,Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

61

de Polytope Cluny,the control signals were of caution, stating that Xenakis, by using the equipment of advanced technology, registered on a multitrack magnetic tape (realized at CEMAMu) also con- justified a "technological and machintaining the seven audio tracks of the istic way of life" [69]. It is not difficult to electroacoustic part of the spectacle en- see the roots of his argument in the ecodEer nomic contrast between the First and titled, after Plato's text, La Legende (realized in 1977 at CEMAMu and the the Third World. The Polytope Mycenes, de similar in many Elektronische Musikstudio of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne). ways to Persepolis but different in In the legend, Plato described the fa- sociopolitical context, was marked by a mous music of the spheres as sung by si- peculiar coexistence of the archaic (anrens who were located on different or- cient Greek culture) with the modern bits of rotation. Each siren performed (new technologies). Xenakis designed this work-or rather, festival-for the ruone pitch continuously and together ins of the ancient Acropolis of Mycenae, they sung the whole eight-note scale. The cosmic revolutions described in this attempting to capture the pagan atmolegend are reflected in Xenakis's music sphere of the historic site in a monumenby the gradual transformation of super- tal celebration [70]. Flashes of 12 antiimposed layers of sound, the rotation of aircraft searchlights and colorful sound masses [67] in audible circles and fireworks illuminated the whole region while processions of children with spirals and the continuous modulation of unusual timbres. The texts chosen by torches, herds of goats bearing lights and the composer for the program book viv- bells, fires on the hilltops and other efidly suggest the apocalyptic soundscapes fects, such as projections of images of the of his music: "eternity resting on chaos funeral masks of the Achaean kings onto the stone walls of the palace, contributed ... the dissonances [that] gnashed with to the visual strata of this polytope. The . . . [before the even more violence sound of] the interminable hammer of sound included recitations from Homer bells" (Richter) or "a downward spiral- and from recently discovered Mycenean ling darkness, terrible and grim, like a funeral inscriptions. The music included performances of a series of Xenakis's serpent . . . making an indescribable sound of lamentation ... an inarticulate "Greek"compositions (A Helene, Oedipus cry" (Trismegistus). Xenakis's appropri- a Colonne,Psappha,Persephassa,Oresteia) ately chaotic and dissonant music in- linked with seven electronic interludes. cludes three families of sonorities: (1) These consisted of repetitions of a brief instrumental sound (mostly from non- piece, Mycenae Alpha,which was the first European instruments), (2) pre-re- composition realized entirely on the corded non-instrumental sound mate- UPIC, a computer system created at CEMAMuthat synthesizes sounds on the rial and (3) synthetic sound (realized with probability functions). The expres- basis of designs drawn onto an electrosive power and vast dimensions of this magnetic table (Fig. 7). When he returned to the homeland electroacoustic work surpassed all of Xenakis's previous attempts to portray he had been forced to leave more than huge volumes and masses of sound in 30 years earlier, Xenakis took a pilgrimmotion (such as his 1962 electroacoustic age to the ruins of what has been called composition Bohor). At the site of Le the cradle of Western civilization. There the composer honored his cultural heriDiatope, La Legended'Eerwas projected surround- tage by presenting a series of musical from 11 loudspeaker systems ing the audience; other versions of the works inspired by such classic playmusic (a four-track tape for concert per- wrights as Sophocles, Euripides and formances [1977] and a stereo version Aeschylus. The scenes from the Oresteia, recorded on CD [1995]) allow for per- a trilogy on the curse-ridden dynasty of the Achaean kings that inspired the fiformances at different venues. Nouritza Matossian expresses her ad- nal segment of the polytope, were parmiration of the technological marvels of ticularly poignant near the tomb of Le Diatopein her book Xenakis[68]. She Agamemnon. Their expressive power emphasizes the fierce beauty of this was augmented by the outdoor acousspectacle, which evoked the power of tics. According to Christine Prost, one of de the physical world filtered through the the choral conductors at the Polytope this lens of mathematics. Jose Maceda, how- MycMnes, music needed to be sung ever, a Filipino ethnomusicologist and with "guttural, closed and solid voices, composer, did not share her enthusi- voices of wind and sun" [71]-simple, asm. Writing for a volume of studies de- rough vocal timbres that would carry voted to Xenakis, Maceda offers a word well in the nocturnal darkness. Such a

performance required much greater effort from the professional singers in the chorus than it did from the untrained Greek women and children of Argolis who also participated in the musical festivities. The latter group formed a separate choir, chanting archaic invocations while descending in a slow procession from the mountains [72]. This site-specific polytope featured abundant allusions to ancient Greek culture, but it excluded the thousands of years of Christian tradition in Greece. In a leap back in time, Xenakis explored the dark and even sinister moments of the archaic collective psyche as portrayed in the tragedies of Oedipus, Agamemnon, Helen of Troy and the curse of the Atrides. But while these stories depict the cruelty of fate and the omnipresence of death, the atmosphere at the performances was not woeful. The spectacle was, simultaneously, "a vast retrospective of Xenakis's music" and "a grand popular celebration of democracy and freedom" [73] that gathered together over 10,000 listeners for its five nightly performances (1-5 September 1978). The audience included tourists and international music critics, but the majority of the spectators came from the neighboring valleys and villages. Conducted as a celebration of community spirit and nawas tional pride, the Polytopede Mycenes also attended by various state officials. The music, though difficult for the uninitiated, was greeted with awe and admiration. Xenakis's harsh sonorities were perceived as appropriate for austere rituals and ancient subject matter [74]. The coordination of the various events, which were dispersed on several hilltops around Mycenae, was not an easy task, and Xenakis conducted the proceedings with a walkie-talkie in hand [75]. He gave cues for the setting of fires, the commencement of marching processions, the beginning of each piece of music, the movement of the shifting searchlights and the various other elements of the spectacle [76]. Three anti-aircraft searchlights located at a distance of 10 kilometers from Mycenae were positioned so that their bright beams formed a pyramid above the ancient ruins. Other lights searched the darkened sky,and there were distant patterns of light descending from the hilltops, creating the impression that new stellar constellations had moved down to Earth [77]. But these apparently cosmic lights were actually carried by a procession of schoolchildren and goats. The enormous scope of this work

62

Harley,Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~3lr

= __ 1

Alpha. The horizontal axis is time; the vertical axis is pitch. The hand-written score was designed on the UPIC, a sound-design and synthesis unit created at CEMAMu. The aural result sult is one of the noise of shifting bandwidth and register. one of the noise of shifting bandwidth and register.

and its close connection to the landscape of the historic site led one critic, Dominic Gill from the Financial Times [78], to call the polytope a new form of art: "artg6ographique." Ten years later, Xenakis attempted to repeat the success of Polytopede Mycenes and to reach out to the traditions of the archaic culture of Crete in another sound-and-light spectacle that premiered on 13 July 1987 at the ancient Roman amphitheater in Aries. This extravagant event was entitled Taurimachie, the title refers to the spectacle's main protagonists: live bulls and horses. The spectacle received bad press reviews [79] and may be described as Xenakis's single dramatic failure. Its lack of success seems to have resulted from Xenakis's inability to take into account the reality of animal life. He imagined stochastic patterns of animals running wildly around the arena amidst complex light patterns created by rotating spotlights. The sonorous layer of this performance consisted of works for percussion (Psappha and Pleiades), and a new piece for electroacoustic tape and live computer-generated sounds based on transformed samples of sounds of actual bulls: Tauriphanie, which was realized on the UPIC. Not surprisingly,the animals were frightened by the noise and the blinding lights. Most of the time, instead of running around with excitement, presenting living icons of primal savagery, the bulls and horses huddled together in dark corners near the arena's walls, sheltering themselves from unknown dangers. CONCLUSION Vast audiovisual spectacles have a long history that ranges from Handel's royal fireworks to Scriabin's Prometheusand the lasers of the popular rock group

Pink Floyd. But while this genre is hardly a novelty, the work of Xenakis differs from that of his predecessors and contemporaries by placing an emphasis on the use of the most advanced technology to create abstract imagery for a new form of modernist art. Nonetheless, the dismantling of the Philips Pavilion, the Polytopede Montreal, the Polytopede Cluny and Le Diatope highlights the ephemeral nature of such large-scale avant-garde artistic projects. One could say that their continuous display is simply too costly, but their disappearance is due to other reasons as well. Because these projects explore the aesthetic potential of new technologies, their newness is one of their main attractions. An artistic object placed at the cutting edge of time cannot simultaneously be a timeless masterpiece: transient in essence, it exists to dazzle with technological potential and then give way to more technically advanced art. Xenakis's gigantic projects, which Michel Ragon has called "spatial utopias" [80], require the mobilization of vast financial, human and material resources. Such reserves are readily available in few places-among them, huge corporations, rich governmental agencies and totalitarian military institutions. Xenakis was an early believer in the "peace dividend," dreaming about the artistic benefits of converting military equipment to peaceful purposes. As he if observed in Musique. Architecture, the use of armed forces were replaced with non-repressive policies it would free the resources and "l'art pourra survoler la planete et s'elancer dans le cosmos" [81]. He successfully initiated this conversion with the polytopes, some of which required military assistance (e.g. searchlights, troops, transportation) and depended on the resources and the cen-

tralized power of an essentially war-oriented institution. Xenakis's biographer, Matossian, attributes the main inspiration for the polytopes to Xenakis's war-time experiences [82]. She writes, "during his last days as a partisan he watched from a rooftop of the city as the R.A.F bombed a German airport, fascinated and aghast at the superb light and sound show tragically using Athens for its stage." This text is illustrated with an official war photo, issued by the British Ministryof Information and depicting a Grecian night sky with trajectories of moving searchlights and explosions of artillery fire (lines and points). The photograph, taken in May 1941, comes from the collection of the Imperial War Museum [83]. The polytopes embody the artistic praxis of Xenakis's favorite new science, general morphology, which searches for invariants and transformations of basic forms and patterns [84]. These are found primarily in the inorganic natural world as studied by astronomers, geologists and physicists, but they have also been consciously used by creative artistsscientists. For Xenakis, the work of the artist is technical, experimental, rational, inferential, intuitive, founded in individual talent and revelatory in nature [85]. With its unique mode of knowing through "immediate revelation," art creates a rich and vast synthesis that can support and guide other sciences, according to Xenakis. The vast scale of the polytopes calls for substantial sociopolitical support: they require funds and resources from various organizations and need the public to visit them and care about them so that the governments or other institutions feel that their expenditures are justified. As Margaret Atwood writes, there are two factors in the production of a "greatart"-the artist and the audience: Take awaythe artistand the audience can never achieve self-knowledge.... But take awaythe audience, and the artisthas part of himself cut off. He is blocked, he is like a man shouting to no one [86]. The Polytope de Mycenes provided Xenakis with a nurturing audience. At the revered site, amidst cyclopic walls and monumental tombs, Xenakis reached back to ancient Greek history and created a festival of his own homecoming. At Persepolis, he designed a very similar spectacle drawing from the cultural heritage of another ancient culture. Yet, the reception of this work was

Harley,Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

63

different because of the political context: there, Xenakis participated in celebrating the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian empire, which was destined to fall just 8 years later. Persepolis, a grand work of Western experimental art based on themes relating to Zoroastrianism and non-Islamic Persian culture, did not have a proper public in the impoverished Iran. The contrast in the reception of two analogous polytopes highlights the limitations of modern art's claims to universality. In the 1960s, Xenakis's project for a cosmic city articulated his belief in the utopia of a borderless State of the Earth, replacing all the national states with a global political organization. With the polytopes, new art seemed to have become a truly international enterprise: new inventions and aesthetic trends were dispersed to the ends of the world; citizens of all countries had a chance to participate in this art for all. Cultural differences seemed to have become less important than ubiquitous technology, invention and progress. Perhaps it has returned with the cult of the Internet, which introduces a new image of the globe as covered by nets and webs. This is much different from the vision presented by Xenakis's polytopes, which reached out toward galaxies and interstellar voids. Nonetheless, it carries on the promise of a global multimedia art form. Acknowledgments
I am grateful to lannis Xenakis and Radu Stan (Editions Salabert, Paris) for making available to me the archival material held at Xenakis's studio: sketches and notes for Xenakis's polytopes (including maps, diagrams on graph paper, transparencies, etc.) and for the Philips Pavilion, and program books of the Diatope, Shiraz festivals, Persepolis. I thank Radu Stan for providing me with copies of Xenakis's scores and promotional recordings of his
music, including

York: Pendragon Press, 1985) p. 2. Originally published as Arts/Sciences. 1979). Alliages (Paris: Casterman,

ed., special issue of Lien. Revue d'Esthetique Musicale

3. This expression is quoted from Xenakis, "Laville

cosmique," in Musique. Architecture [2] p. 159. Mehrdimensionale Geometrie, Vol. 2:

(1988) pp. 8-15; see also Carlos Palombini, "Machine Songs V: Pierre Schaeffer-From Research into Noises to Experimental Music," Computer Music Journal 17, No. 3, 14-19 (1993). 18. See Gyorgy Ligeti, "Metamorphoses of Musical Form," and Mauricio Kagel, "Translation-Rotation," in DieReihe, No. 7 (1960 [German Ed.], 1965 [English Ed.]). See also George Rochberg, "The
New Image of Music," Perspectives of New Music 2,

4. For the origin of the term "polytope," see Pieter

Hendrik Schotte,

Die Polytope (Leipzig: G. J. G6schen, 1902-1905), which discusses hyperspace and concepts of linear and nonlinear space. For studies of the polytopes, see Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, ed., Xenakis/Les Polytopes(Paris: Balland, 1975). See also Maurice Fleuret, "II teatro di Xenakis," in Enzo Restagno, ed., Xenakis (Torino, Italy: Edizioni di Torino, 1988) pp. 159ff, and a paper by Philipp Oswalt, "Polytope von Jannis Xenakis," 107Arch+ (March 1991) pp. 50-54.
5. Balint Andras Varga, Conversations with Iannis

No. 1, 1-10 (1963); and Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Musikim Raum," Die Reihe,No. 5 (1959 [German Ed.], 1961 [English Ed.]). Also published in
Stockhausen, Texte zur Elektronische und Instrumental

Musik, Bd. 1 1952-1962 (Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schanberg, 1963).

19. Wassily Kandinsky, Point and Line to Plane C. Lindsay and

(1913); included in Wassily Kandinsky, Kandinsky:

Complete Writings on Art, Kenneth

Xenakis (London: Faber and Faber, 1996) p. 112. (Originally published in Hungarian in 1980 and 1989.) 6. Varga [5] p. 112. 7. The history of the Philips Pavilion is well described in secondary literature about both Varese and Xenakis. See Michel Ragon, "Xenakis architecte," in Maurice Fleuret, ed., Regards sur lannis Xenakis (Paris: Stock, 1981) pp. 30-36; Nouritza Matossian, Xenakis (Paris: Fayard, 1981), also available in an English translation (London: Kahn & Averill, 1986); Ann Stimson, "The Script
for Poeme electronique: Traces from a Pioneer" Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference

Peter Vergo, eds. (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1982). 20. EXPO 67 lasted from 28 April until 27 October 1967. When it was over, the French Pavilion-one of the few buildings spared demolition-became a center for Franco-Quebecois culture. It continued to house various exhibitions (most notably as a Museum of Civilization) and to display Xenakis's polytope until its conversion into a casino in 1994.
21. Terre des hommes/Man and His World, EXPO 67

program (Ottawa: Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exposition, 1967). 22. Gabrielle Roy, "The Theme Unfolded
Gabrielle Roy," in Terre des hommes/Man

by

and His

(Montreal: ICMA, 1991) pp. 308-310. Xenakis's texts on the topic include "Le Pavilion Philips a l'aube d'une architecture," Gravesaner Blitter No. 9
(1957), reprinted in Musique. Architecture [2] pp. 123-142, and in Formalized Music [2].

World[21] p. 21. 23. According to Xenakis's notes for this project, preserved in his studio and reproduced by
d'Allonnes in Xenakis/Les Polytopes [4] pp. 65-69. See also Xenakis, Musique. Architecture [2] pp. 171-173;

8. Although Le Corbusier was the author of the project, including its title, Xenakis designed the Pavilion. However, the senior artist initially did not give him credit for this work and claimed to have authored both the architecture and the display. Xenakis wrote about designing the structure of the
pavilion in Le Corbusier, Le Poeme electronique Le

Matossian [7] pp. 214-216; and Varga [5] p. 114. 24. Xenakis quoted in d'Allones [4] p. 63. 25. Maryvonne Kendergi, "Xenakis et les Quebecois," in Fleuret, ed. [7] p. 301-314. 26. Micheline Coulombe-Saint Marcoux, interviewed in Kendergi [25] p. 304. 27. Fleuret [4] pp. 159-187.
28. Xenakis, Formalized Music [2] p. 179.

Corbusier, Jean Petit, ed., program book (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1958) and in Gravesaner Bldtter [7]. The battle for the authorship of the architecture of the Pavilion is described in Matossian [7]. 9. Fleuret [4] pp. 174.
10. Xenakis, Musique. Architecture [2] pp. 123-126.

11. Stimson [7] pp. 308-310. 12. Quoted from Le Corbusier's mosaic of poeticphilosophical statements, included in the program book [8]. 13. Le Corbusier [12]. 14. Xenakis, "Reflektioner 6ver Geste Electronique," Nutida Musik (Stockholm: March 1958) (in Swedish translation). Also published as "Notes sur un 'geste electronique,"' in Revue musicaleNo. 244 (Paris, 1959) pp. 25-30 and reprinted in
Musique. Architecture [2] pp. 142-150. Notice that

de Polytope Clunyand other works. Bengt Hanmbraeus of McGill University was also helpful by providing access to sources such as the Program Book of the Poemeelectronique 1958, as well as early issues of of
Gravesaner Blitter.

the Polytope de Montreal, Persepolis,

29. Under the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran set off on a path toward modernization and Westernization. From the time of his exile in 1963, Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the Shah's financial extravagance and his suppression of both Islamic traditions and political dissent. The Persepolis celebrations, during which the Shah swore faithfulness to the values of pre-Islamic Iran, were the Ayatollah's prime target. See Mohammed
Reza Pahlavi, The White Revolution of Iran (Teheran:

Imperial Pahlavi Library, 1967) and Said Amir

The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Arjomand, Revolution in Iran (New York and Oxford: Oxford

Univ. Press, 1988).

30. Chester G. Starr, A History of the Ancient World,

References

and Notes

1. Excerpt from Jean-Paul Richter's Siebenkas, quoted in Xenakis's program for Le Diatope (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1979); translated by James Harley for the program of "Concert Xenakis" (Montreal: McGill Univ., 15 April 1993).
2. lannis Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (Bloomington, IN, and

Xenakis's term closely resembles Le Corbusier's "jeux electroniques."

15. Xenakis, 16. Pierre Musique. Architecture [2] p. 146. Schaeffer, A la recherche d'une musique

4th Ed. (New Yorkand Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991) pp. 277-281. 31. The Shiraz festivities have been described in many books on Iran's recent history. Positive accounts can be found in Pahlavi [29] and in Minou
Reeves, Behind the Peacock Throne (London: Sidgwick

London: Indiana Univ. Press, 1971) p. 144; for references to human intelligence see Xenakis,
"Variete," Musique. Architecture (Tournai, Belgium:

concrete(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1952). See also Carlos Palombini, "Machine Songs V: Pierre Schaeffer-From Research into Noises to Experimental

and Jackson, 1986). Criticism appears in Marvin IL, and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991) and in
Amir Taheri, The Unknown Life of the Shah (London Zonis, Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah (Chicago,

Casterman, 1971; Rev. Ed., 1976), reprinted in William B. Christ and Richard P. Delone, eds., TheArt Indiana Univ. Press, 1973) and included (revised version) in the preliminary statement to Xenakis,
Art-Sciences: Alloys, Sharon Kanach, trans. (New of Music: Tradition and Change (Bloomington, IN:

14-19 (Fall 1993); and Jacques Poullin, "Musique Concrete," in Fritz Winckel, ed., Klangstrukturder
Musik. Neue Erkentnisse Musik-elektronischerForschung,

Music," Computer MusicJournal

17, No. 3,

(Berlin: Verlag fur Radio-Foto-Kinotechnik GMBH) pp. 109-132. 17. Annette Vande Gorne, "Espace/Temps: du Historique," in L'Espace Son II, Francis Dhomont,

and Sydney:Hutchinson, 1991). According to the latter, the Shah identified himself as a "new Cyrusdestined to revive Iran's ancient grandeur," and this grandeur was the focus at Persepolis (p. 193).
32. Marvin Zonis, Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah

(Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991); Minou

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Harley,Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis's Polytopes

Reeves, BehindthePeacockThrone(London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1986). 33. Jalal Al-i Ahmad, Occidentosis: Plaguefrom the A West, R. Campbell, trans. (Berkeley, CA: Mizan Press, 1984; first publication in 1964). An "occidentotic" person is someone who has studied in the West and been uprooted from his or her culture; one of the symptoms of occidentosis is "the melancholia of glorying in the nation's remote past" (p. 134). 34. Zonis [32]. 35. For the realization of Persepolis, Xenakis had at his disposal all the technical resources of Iranian Television. According to Maurice Fleuret, the same institution was later one of the sponsors of the tode tally automated Polytope Cluny.See Fleuret, "Une Musique a voir," L'Arc, special issue on Xenakis (Paris: 1972) pp. 32-36. 36. Undated diagram preserved in Xenakis's archives among source materials for the composition Echange(1989). 37. Xenakis's notes forPolytopede Persepolis from his archives. See also Fleuret [4] p. 177; Matossian [7] pp. 217-218; Revault d'Allonnes [4]. 38. Fleuret [4] p. 182. 39. This is the account given by Fleuret in Maurice Fleuret, "Bilan et lecon des journees de musique contemporaine," La Revue Musicale, Nos. 265/266 (1969) pp. 7-13. This special double issue is devoted to Varese, Xenakis, Berio and Pierre Henry, four composers who were featured at the Days of Contemporary Music, Paris, 25-31 October 1968. 40. Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, "Xenakis et la modernite," L'Arc (1972) p. 26. Charles Gounod (1818-1893) was a nineteenth-century conservative French composer, author of numerous operas, including Faust. About Gounod, TheNewDictionaryof Music and Musicians states, "Because of his great popularity and stylistic influence on the next generation of composers, he is perhaps the central figure in French Music in the third quarter of the 19th century." See Stanley Sadie, ed., TheNewDictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 7 (London: Macmillan). 41. Varese-Xenakis-Berio-Pierre Henry. OeuvresEtudes-Perspectives,special issue of La Revue Musicale [39]. 42. Fleuret [39] p. 7. 43. For a positive account about the students' acand John tions, see Barbara Ehrenreich Ehrenreich, Long March, Short Spring: The Student Uprising at Home and Abroad (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1969). Criticisms appear, for instance, in Stephen Spender, "Notes on the Sorbonne Revolution," in The Yearof the Young Rebels(New York, Random, 1968-1969) pp. 37-38; Lewis S. Feuer, The Conflictof Generations: CharThe acterand Significanceof StudentMovements (New York and London: Basic Books, 1969). 44. Fleuret [39] p. 10. 45. Fleuret [39] p. 9. 46. Fleuret [4] p. 178. 47. This description of the Polytope Clunyis based de on accounts given in d'Allones [4]; Fleuret and Xenakis [37]; Matossian [7] pp. 218-222; and Fleuret [4] p. 175. 48. Varga [5] pp. 115-116. 49. The account of the music is based on listening to a promotional copy (cassette tape) provided by Editions Salabert, Paris (Xenakis's publisher). 50. Iannis Xenakis, Catalogue Generaldes Oeuvres, Radu Stan, ed. (Paris: Editions Salabert, 1992). List

of works with a biographical note, list of awards, bibliography, discography, filmography. 51. Fleuret [39]. 52. La Tribunede Lausanne, reprinted in La Revue Musicale [39] p. 167 53. Henry-Louis de la Grange in Le Nouvel Observateur(11-17 November 1968), reprinted in La RevueMusicale [39]. 54. Maria Anna Harley, "Space and Spatialization in Contemporary Music: History and Analysis, Ideas and Implementation," Ph.D. dissertation (Montreal: McGill University, 1994). 55. Pascal Dusapin, "Entretien: Pascal Dusapin et Harry Halbreich," in Fleuret, ed. [7] p. 355. 56. Xenakis quoted in Matossian [8] p. 222; excerpt of interview in Varga [5] p. 114. 57. Xenakis in Matossian [7] p. 222. 58. Varga [5] p. 114. 59. The initial proposal for this project was monumental, costly and unfeasible. Xenakis planned to erect a gigantic web supporting a multitude of lights on the plaza. The web was to be suspended between two parallel transparent walls 30 meters high; the light projection would be controlled by computer. An architectural sketch for this project (dated 12 September 1974) appears in Musique.Architecture [2]. A scaled-down pavilion opened in 1978 in Paris; the next year it moved to Bonn for a temporary installation. Xenakis presented the tape composition produced for this installation at the 1978 International Computer Music Conference at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, where he was the keynote speaker. 60. A change of title occurred during the project's development; this work was initially called Polytope de Beaubourg(see Fig. 6). 61. Xenakis, Gestede lumiere de son. LeDiatope,proet gram book (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1961). An English translation of Xenakis's "La Legende d'Er" appears in Xenakis, "Xenakis on Xenakis," Perspectives of New Music pp. 32-36. Xenakis discussed LeDiatopein Xenakis, "LesChemins de la composition musicale," Keleiitha. Ecrits, Emmanuel Gresset, trans. (Paris:L'Arche, 1994) pp. 15-38. This text was first published in French in Curtis Roads, ed., Le compositeur l'ordinateur et (Paris: IRCAM, 1981), which appeared in English as Composersand the Computer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985). The text was published in German in MusikTexte (1986) pp. 42-49. 13 62. Quoted from Xenakis [61]. 63. Xenakis [61]. 64. Xenakis [61]. 65. Xenakis [61]. 66. Logistic distribution is a type of probability function that can be described by the following formula: y = (aeax- (1 + e-x-5)-1. Its musical application was suggested by Xenakis in a section entitled "New Proposal in Microcomposition Based on Probability Distributions" in Xenakis, Formalized Music [2] chapter 9, p. 246. 67. Sound mass might be defined as a complex aggregate of sonorities played simultaneously over a duration of time. Sound masses differ in their location in pitch/register space, the density of events from which they are constructed, and the timbres of source material. This term, now freely used in the language of music theory, was introduced by Edgar Varese. In Formalized Music, Xenakis frequently uses the term "cloud of sounds." See Xenakis [2] pp. 12-13.

68. Nouritza Matossian, "L'artisande la nature," in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 44-51. 69. Jose Maceda, "Xenakis, l'architecture, la technique" in Fleuret, ed. [7] p. 339. 70. Brigitte Schiffer, "Polytope de Mycenae," Tempo, No. 127 (December 1978) p. 44. See also Jean de Xenakis chez les Lacouture, "LePolytope Mycenes: Atrides," in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 291-293. See also Fleuret [4]: "The idea arose in November 1974 while visiting Mycenae after Xenakis's triumphant return to Greece. Yannis Papaioannou, the General Secretary of the Hellenic Association of Contemporary Music, persuaded the National Office of Tourism to fund the project. The ministry of defense gave the anti-aircraft searchlights, troops, and camping gear, the National Theatre provided the electroacoustic equipment, the musicians came from France and Greece, including a large number of amateurs" (p. 184). 71. Christine Prost, "Sur l'Orestie," in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 279-281. The choir came from the University of Provence and, in some sections of the music, was accompanied by musicians from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Lorraine, conducted by Michel Tabachnik. 72. Lacouture [70] p. 292. 73. Robert Fajond, "L'Orestie a Mycenes," in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 283ff. 74. As reported by the spectacle's witnesses, participants and reviewers: Brigitte Schiffer, "Xenakis's A Reviewof 'Polytope de mycenae'", Tempo. Quarterly ModernMusic, No. 127 (December 1978); Dominic Gill, "Polytope de Mycenes," Financial Times (14 September 1978) reprinted in French translation in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 294-298; Robert Fajond, "L'Orestie a Mycenes," in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 283290; Christine Prost, "Surl'Orestie," in Fleuret, ed. [7]; Lacouture [70] pp. 291-293. 75. Lacouture [70] p. 291. 76. Gill [74] p. 298. 77. Gill [74] p. 296. 78. Gill [74] p. 296. 79. See reviews by D. de Bruycker in Le Monde (17 June 1987), Claude Samuel in Le Matin (17 June 1987) and Charles Leble in Liberation (20 July 1987). 80. Michel Ragon, "Xenakis architecte," in Fleuret, ed. [7] pp. 30-36. 81. Xenakis, Arts/Sciences. Alliages [2] p. 186. 82. Matossian [7]. 83. The photograph was reprinted in the program of the Xenakis Festival, "A Celebration in Honour of the 65th Birthday of Iannis Xenakis" (Glasgow: 26-29 May 1987). 84. Xenakis discusses the notion of "general morphology" in "Les chemins de la composition musicale" [61] pp. 15-33. 85. Xenakis's words are paraphrased from his "Preliminary Statement" to Arts/Sciences. Alliages [2] pp. 190-191; the quote is from the same source. The dissertation has been published in English in Kanach [2]. 86. Margaret Atwood, Survival: A ThematicGuideto Canadian Literature (Toronto: Anansi, 1972) p. 183.

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