Gosh, what an interesting piece. The first thing I noticed was how the first 15 seconds or so sounds exactly like the Dolby Digital introduction that they have at the cinema.

The second thing I noticed was, in some parts, how incredibly dense the sound was because of those glisses. Obviously this wasn’t a constant, there were times that the sound thinned out to just a triangle, or to some small subsection of the orchestra. I had honestly never heard such a dense, thick orchestration and it’s entirely due to these intense clusters that Xenakis develops throughout the orchestration.

The pieces isn’t 12 tone, it uses Xenakis’ unique mathematical mind to use things such as the fibonacci sequence to develop his scales and choose the notes in his melodies. At the same time, however, the piece could also be considered microtonal, due to the very long glisses that no one could possibly play in time with one another, and having different sections moving independently adds to this.

This piece demonstrates the use of mathematics to create a very musical piece and the use of huge blocks of sound to create an interesting structure

Saska

Iannis Xenakis’ Metastaseis

Hey guys,

My first reaction to hearing this work was “wow!”  I think Xenakis produces some amazing effects in this work; he writes at the introduction of the score that “it was an attempt to demonstrate that the human orchestra was capable of outclassing the current electro-magnetic techniques” and to achieve this aim Xenakis has every instrumentalist play his own part. That is, he writes a piece for an orchstra of 61 soloists.

I  was amazed by the colours and textures that he produced. I particularly liked the start where he has the strings play a unison G3 (G2 in bass), and then gradually he has the violins and violas glissando up and the basses glissando in the opposite direction. Simultaneously, they crescendo from pp to ff. The effect, I found, was stunning; a thin, fragile texture grows into this dense, full sound.

Xenakis then contrasts the string glissandi with trombone glissandi – and I find myself lost for words to describe this, but what he essentially contrasts is the acoustic nature of these instruments. The trombones are louder than the strings, but only play two parts; whilst the strings are softer yet can play many. The amount of time it must have taken Xenakis conceive and notate these ideas astounds me; for his perception must have been amazing.

To me, this piece speaks volumes about what can be done with an orchestra, and I feel that I can barely comprehend it. I also like how Xenakis adapts sonic ideas in the same way that Beethoven would adapt minute melodic motifs. The crescendo/glissandi idea returns, and he alters the contour of the glissandi for each instrument and contrasts te dynamics further. However, he also manages to achieve coherence throughout a piece for 61 soloists, namly trough dynamics. Whilst the texture may be ever-changing, it is maintains universal dynamics.

Iannis Xenakis – Metastasis

Orchestral work for 61 musicians, with no two performers playing the same part

• Piece was inspired by a combination of an Einsteinian view of time and sounds of warfare.
  • Einsteinian view of time: Time is a function of Mass and Energy (vs. Newtonian view of time being linear)
  • Warfare: sound single bullet being fired cannot be identified in warfare. The sound of gunfire is clearly identifiable. The order in which gunshots are fired are not important, it still sounds like gunfire.
• First and Third movements are based solely on the Einsteinian concept of Time. Instead of using Mass and Energy to propel the piece forward, Xenakis uses intensity, register and density.
• Second movements has some melodic content.
  • pitch is taken from a tone row
  • duration is based on the Fibonacci Sequence (a sequence often used by composers such as Bartók)
• Piece began on a graphical score, however Xenakis notated the entire piece, rather than leaving anything up to the performers.

Most info from Wikipedia: Metastasis

This piece taught me that time need not be fixed. So often time in music is seen as something stable – a tempo – that the rest of the piece is based upon. Tempo for the most part does not change that much. The rhythms based on that tempo change most definitely, but not so much the tempo itself. This piece challenges that (much like Einstein challenged Newton’s concept of time), having time be the slave of other musical elements.

To be honest, I prefer a linear, and stable timeline. But that isn’t to say that this piece does not demonstrate how time can be used differently.

- Dean