The Origins of Stochastic Music

Author(s): Iannis Xenakis

Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 78 (Autumn, 1966), pp. 9-12
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/942502
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 STOCHASTICMUSIC 9

the whole work. But whereas the coda of the Fifth Symphony is the culmination
of a musical process which began in the work's opening bars, in the Fourth there
is no constant process in the music to make such a culmination possible. Shosta-
kovich is hence forced to attempt a massive 'summing-up' of all that has gone before.
This, in the case of a work whose very vitality springs from the riotous profusion
of its ideas, is of course impossible. The result (at least from figure 238 to figure
246 in the score) is bombast, tacked on to the rest of the movement by a very
shaky transition.
The relevance of the finale to the rest of the work is perhaps the aspect of
the Fifth Symphony in which it is most superior to the Fourth. The whole work
opens with a theme (Ex. I 2a) containing two minor sixths, a fifth and a minor
third, an intervallic progression which is resolved only by the 'strong' rising
fourth with which it ends. This key interval underpins the entire first movement,
linking the first and second subject groups, pervading the development, and ham-
mered out in the recapitulation. By the time it comes to be reiterated softly at
the close of the first movement (Ex.23), the work's basic idea of 'striving' is
Ex.23
Solo Vln.

Vlns. Ji Celesta morendo

Trpts.&Timps.orendo

. 9f _7A
,-7:IF
&Bassi __

?f- morendo

inherent in it. The idea is taken up again in the finale, the main themes of which
are also linked by fourths. (So too, incidentally, are those of the slow movement)
It is finally this interval of a fourth which, with its triumphant assertiveness,
dominates the coda and gives it its coherence. In the closing pages (Ex.2 I) we
hear not empty gesturing but the logical conclusion of a closely-organised sym-
phonic argument. To generalise from this would be foolish, but there can be
no doubt, in this particular case, as to the fruitfulness of a political interven-
tion in the arts.

THE ORIGINS OF
STOCHASTIC MUSIC'
by lannis Xenakis
Art (and especially music) has a fundamental catalytic function, which is to
effect sublimation by all its means of expression. It should aim to lead by constant
points of reference towards that total exaltation in which, unaware of self, the
individual will identify with an immediate, rare, vast and perfect truth. If a work
of art achieves this even for an instant, it has fulfilled its purpose. This massive
I Translated and abridged by G. W. Hopkins from Xenakis's papers 'Les musiques formelles' in the Revue
Musicale No. 253/254, and reprinted by permission.
) 1966 by lannis Xenakis
10 TEMPO

truth does not consist in objects, nor feelings, nor sensations; it lies beyond them,
as Beethoven's Seventh2 lies beyond music. For this reason, art is capable of
leading to those regions still occupied by certain religions.
But this metamorphosis of craftsmanship which transforms trivial products
into 'meta-art' is a secret. Those possessing it know nothing of the mechanisms
which brought them to it. The rest dispute among themselves, in the transient
'climate' of their time, the ideological and technical tendencies of their modes
of expression. While keeping in sight this supreme 'meta-artistic' goal, we shall
try to define more modestly the paths which can lead out of the magma of contra-
dictions found in present-day music and towards that goal.
There exists a historical parallelism between European music and the suc-
cessive attempts at a rational explanation of the world. Already, the music of
antiquity, causal and deterministic, was strongly influenced by the Pythagorean
school and that of Plato. Plato insisted on the principle of causality .. ."for it is
impossible for anything to be born without prior cause." Strict causality survived
until the nineteenth century, when it underwent a violent and fruitful transformation
as a result of the statistical theories in physics. In fact, since ancient times, the
notion of chance, in conjunction with those of disorder and of disorganisation,
had been considered the opposite and, indeed, negation of reason, order and
organisation. Only recently has our knowledge led us to penetrate chance events
and perceive their gradations (or 'degrees'); in other words, only recently have
we begun the progressive rationalisation of chance, without yet having arrived
at a complete and definitive explanation of the problem of complete randomness.
After a lag of some decades, atonal music broke free of the function of tonal-
ity, opening a new path parallel to that of the physical sciences-but immediately
blocked it again with the quasi-absolute determinism of the serial system.
It is not surprising that the presence or the absence of the causal principle,
first in philosophy, then in science, can influence musical composition and lead
it into paths which, though appearing divergent, actually converge in the Probab-
ility Theory, and sometimes in the logistics of polyvalency-types of generalis-
ation which enrich the principle of causality. The necessary extension of the
principle of causality whose basis is the law of large numbers3 helped to explain
the world and hence the sonic phenomena we live among, as well as those we
may ourselves create. This law implies an asymptotic evolution tending to a
state of stability, i.e. to a sort of goal, of 'stochos' hence the adjective 'stochastic'.4
. Let us now consider some of the details of an attitude towards musical
composition that I have developed for some years, and which I have called 'stoch-
astic' after the Probability Theory which has served as its logical basis and has
been of use in calculating the conflicts and 'knots' that have arisen. Our first
task is to make an abstraction of all inherited conventions and to apply a funda-
mental critique to acts of intelligence and their realisation.5 What in fact does
2 Messiaen's analysis of this work is legendary, and influenced many of his pupils in the I95os. (Translator's
Note).
3 In calculating the statistical frequency of types of musical events (modes of attack, degrees of intensity, etc.)
according to the laws of probability, Xenakis calls upon James Bernoulli's Limit Theorem, otherwise known as
the 'Law of Large Numbers'. In simplified terms, this theorem states that: 'If p be the true probability of the
happening of a certain event in a single trial, n a number of trials, and s the number of times the event is ob-
served to happen in those n trials, then, as n increases, the probability approaches certainty that the statistical
frequency, s/n, will approach p.' I am indebted for this formulation to The Fundamental Principles of Mathemat-
ical Statistics by Hugh H. Wolfenden (Toronto, I942). (Translator's Note)
4 Defined in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary as "Pertaining to conjecture".
g Xenakis's word is 'materialisation'; elsewhere he writes: 'materialisation =communication', Thus 'realis-
ation' may be taken broadly, as a double-entendre. (Translator's Note)
 STOCHASTIC MUSIC 11

a musical work offer us, seen strictly as a construction? It offers an assemblage of

successions, intended as being causal. To put it simply, when the major scale
asserted its supremacy over tonal functions-tonics, dominants and subdomin-
ants, towards which the other degrees gravitated-it was thus responsible on the
one hand for linear processes (the melody) and on the other hand for simultaneities
(the chords) in a way which was markedly deterministic. Then the serialists of
the Viennese school, not having been able to exert a logical control over the non-
determinism of atonality, reverted to a type of organisation which was strongly
causal in the strict sense of the word, and which was more abstracted than tonal
organisation-this being where their great merit lay. Messiaen achieved a
generalisation of this procedure, and took an important step in systematizing the
abstraction of all the variables of instrumental music. The paradox is that he did
this in the sphere of modality. He created a multi-modal music which was im-
mediately imitated in the sphere of serialism. And the abstracted systematization
was all the more justifiable in a multi-serial music. This is what has energized
the post-war neo-serialists. Now they were able to advance blindfolded in the
steps of the Viennese school and of Messiaen-on occasion borrowing from
Stravinsky and Debussy-proclaiming as they did so a truth which was stronger
than the others. Other tendencies were strengthened, the most important of these
being the systematic exploration of sonic entities, of new instruments and of
noise'. Here, Varese was the pioneer, and electromagnetic music6 the bene-
ficiary (electronic music being a branch of instrumental music). Yet in electro-
magnetic music problems of construction and morphology were not consciously
raised. It was still multi-serial music, that fusion of Messiaen with the Viennese
school, that touched at the heart of music's basic problem.
But this music was already on the point of expiration in 1954, by reason of
the absolutely deterministic complexity of its compositional procedures and of
the works themselves. This complexity engendered an auditive and ideological
non-sense. I drew attention to this in No. I of the GravesanerBlatter (I955) in
my article 'The Crisis of Serial Music':
"The linear polyphony is destroyed by its own present complexity. One
hears in reality only aggregations of notes at various registers. The enormous com-
plexity makes it impossible for the ear to follow the tangled lines, and its macro-
scopic effect is that of an unreasoned and fortuitous dispersion of sounds through-
out the entire frequency-spectrum. Consequently a contradiction exists between
the linear polyphonic system and the result as heard, which is merely surface and
mass. This contradiction inherent in the polyphony will disappear as soon as the
sounds become totally independent. In fact, once the linear combinations and
their polyphonic superpositions have ceased to operate, what will count will be
the statistical mean of the isolated states and of the processes of change which
the components undergo at any given moment. Thus the macroscopic effect can
be controlled by means of the movements of objects selected by us. This results in
the introduction of the notion of probability, which also implies, in the present
instance, combinatorial analysis. There, briefly, you have the possibilities by
which musical thought may transcend the 'linear category'."
That article served to preface the introduction of mathematics into music.
For if, by reason of its complexity, the strict, deterministic causality extolled by
the neo-serialists was a lost cause, it had to be replaced by a more general causal-
ity, i.e. by a logic of probability broad enough to account for strict serial causality
6 We should call this 'musique concrete'. (Translator's Note)
12 TEMPO

as a special case. These requirements are met by 'stochastics'. Stochastics

makes a study of the laws of large numbers as well as of infrequent occurrences,
and the various aleatory processes, etc. So that was how in 1954 a music con-
structed from the principles of indeterminism was developed from, amongst
other things, the impasse of serial music; two years later I baptized this music
'musique stochastique'. It was as a musical necessity that the laws pertaining to
the calculation of probabilities found their way into composition.

Xenakis argues that similar general principles hold good not only in music,
but in painting, sculpture, architecture, cinema, etc. as well; in support of this,
one may point to his graphical transformation of a musical composition (Meta-
stasis, 1953-4) into an architectural design (the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels
World Fair 19g8), executed in collaboration with Le Corbusier. The process is
illustrated in detail in the Philips Technical Review, Vol.20, No. , 1958/g9. See
also 'La Crise de la Musique Serielle' (Gravesaner Blatter, No. I, and
'Le Corbusier's "Elektronisches Gedicht" und der Philips Pavilion' I95•),
(Gravesaner
Blatter 3, No. 9, 1957, pp. 47-54) (Translator's Note)

METAMORPHOSIS
IN MODERN CULTURE
The parallel evolution of music and painting in the
twentieth century
by Brian Dennis
To take a backward glance at the amazing kaleidoscope of change which
has characterised so much artistic activity since the turn of the century, to look
down from our present vantage point over the richly patterned landscape,
indistinct and volatile, of the evolving ideologies, schools and styles, is to watch
an inexorable tide of dark waters rising above a peaceful land, covering gardens,
orchards, villages and churches, flowing in fast streams and eddies, linking and
dispersing, fingers of flood groping forward, when unable to flow no further-
dissipating, joining further washes pressing forward, swelled by secondary
streams, a total immersion of previous landmarks, drowned in the rising waves,
a saturation of ideas, a primordial cleansing, destruction, obliteration, finally-
regeneration.
We follow this most clearly in the visual arts; communication is at its most
to
tangible and direct. The panorama of such a rapid development, due perhaps
the relative ease of both execution and presentation, and with a large number of
protagonists, is complex and diverse, a labyrinth of theory, technique and
expressive intentions. No less disturbing changes have affected music in this
universal tide of revolution, but the mechanism of composition and performance,
with a smaller incidence of creative artists, has tended to function at a slower, if
( 1966 by Brian Dennis