Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; , ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-gardeKundera wrote in 1980 about Xenakis in "Regards sur Xenakis" published by Paris Editions Stock pages 21-25. Later added commentary in 2008 in Un Rencontre published in Paris by Gallimard, pages 92-98. The translation comes from Interpreting Xenakis, published by Pendragon Press in Hillsdale New York in 2010.
"Xenakis has had to go beyond music. His innovation has a quite different character than those of Bach, Debussy and Schoenberg. They never lost the link with the history of music, they could always "go back" (and often did). For Xenakis, the bridges were irrevocably destroyed. Oliver Messiaen said it: Xenakis' music is "not radically new but radically different". Xenakis does not set himself against a preceding phase of music. He turns his back on all European music, in total rejection of this inheritance. His starting point is somewhere else: not in the artificial sound of a note that has isolated itself from nature in order to express human subjectivity, but in the noise of the world, in a "sound mass" that doesn't gush from the heart, but comes to us from the outside, like the pitter-patter of rain, the din of a factory, or the chanting slogans of a crowd demonstrating." composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and engineer.
After 1947, he fled Greece, becoming a naturalised citizen of France eighteen years later.Gagné, Nicole V. (2012). Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, p. 299, Lanham: Scarecrow Press. : "Xenakis settled in Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1965." Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic and computer music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances.Gérard Pape, Musipoesc: Writings About Music, Paris: Éditions Michel de Maule, 2015, pp. 351-353.
Among his most important works are Metastaseis (1953–54) for orchestra, which introduced independent parts for every musician of the orchestra; percussion works such as Psappha (1975) and Pléïades (1979); compositions that introduced spatialization by dispersing musicians among the audience, such as Terretektorh (1966); electronic works created using Xenakis's UPIC system; and the massive multimedia performances Xenakis called polytopes, that were a summa of his interests and skills.
Among the numerous theoretical writings he authored, the book Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (French edition 1963, English translation 1971) is regarded as one of his most important publications. As an architect, Xenakis is primarily known for his early work under Le Corbusier: the priory of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, on which the two collaborated, and the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58), where Xenakis was the chief designer.
Life
1922–47: early years Giannis Klearchou Xenakis was born in Brăila, Romania—which at the time had a large Greek community, as the eldest son of Greek parents; Klearchos Xenakis, a businessman from Kymi, Euboea who was managing director of an English export-import agency and one of the richest men in the city, and Fotini Pavlou from Lemnos, a pianist who also spoke German and French. His two younger brothers were Jason, who became a philosophy professor in the United States and Greece, and , an architect, urban planner and artist.
His parents were both interested in music, and it was Pavlou who encouraged the young child to learn more about it: the young Giannis was given a flute by his mother, and the family visited the Bayreuth Festival several times, due to his father's interest in opera. Her early death in 1927, when Xenakis was five years old, was a traumatic experience that, in his own words, "deeply scarred" the future composer. She had previously been infected from measles and died after giving birth to a stillborn daughter.Matossian, 13.
He was subsequently educated by a series of English, French, and German governesses, and then, in 1932, sent to Greece to study at the Anargyrio-Korgialenio boarding school on the Aegean island of Spetses. He excelled in both academics and athletics and sang in the school's boys' choir, where the repertoire included works by Palestrina, and Mozart's Requiem, which Xenakis memorized in its entirety.Varga, p. 14.
It was also at the Spetses school that Xenakis studied notation and solfège, being introduced to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms and became enamoured of Greek traditional and church music. At the same time, he discovered the writer Homer and had a habit of visiting museums.
In 1938, after graduating from the school, Xenakis moved to Athens to prepare for entrance exams at its National Technical University, also studying Ancient Greek. He was encouraged by his friends and family to do so due to his interests in physics and mathematics. Although he intended to study architecture and engineering, he also took lessons in harmony and counterpoint with Aristotelis Koundouroff.Matossian, 14–17. In 1940, he successfully passed the exams, but his studies were cut short by the Greco-Italian War, which began with the Italian invasion on 28 October 1940. Although Greece eventually won the war, it was not long before the German army joined the Italians in the Battle of Greece, in April 1941.
This led to the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II, which lasted until late 1944, when the Allies began their drive across Europe, forcing the Axis forces to withdraw. Xenakis joined the National Liberation Front early during the war, participating in mass protests and demonstrations, and later becoming part of armed resistance—this last step was a painful experience Xenakis refused to discuss until much later in life.Matossian, pp. 18–27.Varga, pp. 14–19.
After the Axis forces left, Churchill ordered that British forces step in to help restore the Greek monarchy; they were opposed by the Democratic Army of Greece, and the country plunged into a civil war. In December 1944, during the period of Churchill's martial law, Xenakis (who was by then a member of the communist students' company of the left-wing Lord Byron faction of ELAS) became involved in street fighting against British tanks. He was wounded and facially disfigured when shrapnel from a tank blast hit his cheek and left eye, which was blinded; the fact that Xenakis survived the injury has been described as a miracle.Harley, 2.Barthel-Calvet, Anne-Sylvie. (2002). "Chronologie". In Portrait(s) de Iannis Xenakis, edited by François-Bernard Mâche, pp. 25–82. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France. .
The Technical University operated intermittently during these years. Despite this, and Xenakis's other activities, he was able to graduate in 1947, with a degree in civil engineering.Baltensperger, André. (1995). Iannis Xenakis und die Stochastische Musik – Komposition im Spannungsfeld von Architektur und Mathematik. Zürich. Paul Haupt. p. 72.
Xenakis was then conscripted into the national armed forces. Around 1947 the Greek government began arresting former resistance members that were left-wing oriented and sending them to prison. Xenakis, fearing for his life, went into hiding. With the help of his father and others, he fled Greece through Italy by using a fake passport. On 11 November 1947 he arrived in Paris. In a late interview, Xenakis admitted to feeling tremendous guilt at leaving his country, and that guilt was one of the sources of his later devotion to music: For years I was tormented by guilt at having left the country for which I'd fought. I left my friends—some were in prison, others were dead, some managed to escape. I felt I was in debt to them and that I had to repay that debt. And I felt I had a mission. I had to do something important to regain the right to live. It wasn't just a question of music—it was something much more significant.Varga, p. 47. In the meantime, in Greece he was sentenced in absentia to death by the right-wing administration. The sentence was commuted to ten years' imprisonment in 1951, and only lifted some 23 years later, after the fall of the Greek junta in 1974. He later returned the same year.Harley, p.92.
1947–59: architecture and music
Although he was an illegal immigrant in Paris, Xenakis was able to get a job at Le Corbusier's architectural studio. He worked as an engineering assistant at first, but quickly rose to performing more important tasks, and eventually to collaborating with Le Corbusier on major projects. These included a kindergarten on the roof of an apartment block in Nantes (Rezé), the Unité d'Habitation of Nantes-Rezé, parts of government buildings in Chandigarh, India, the "undulatory glass surfaces" of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, a Dominican priory in a valley near Lyon, and the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58—the latter project was completed by Xenakis alone from a basic sketch by Le Corbusier.Hoffmann The experience Xenakis gained played a major role in his music: important early compositions such as Metastaseis (1953–54) were based directly on architectural concepts. At the same time, he dropped the "G" from his professional name to get the name he is most commonly known by, "Iannis".
At the same time, while working for Le Corbusier, Xenakis was studying harmony and counterpoint, and composing. He worked long and hard, frequently far into the night,Matossian, 37. and sought guidance from a number of teachers, most of whom, however, ultimately rejected him. Such was the case with Nadia Boulanger, who was the first person Xenakis approached about lessons. He then tried studying with Arthur Honegger, whose reaction to Xenakis's music was unenthusiastic. As Xenakis recounted in a 1987 interview, Honegger dismissed a piece which included parallel fifths and octaves as "not music". Xenakis, who was by that time well acquainted with music of Debussy, Béla Bartók, and Stravinsky, all of whom used such devices and much more experimental ones, was furious and left to study with Darius Milhaud, but these lessons also proved fruitless. Annette Dieudonné, a close friend of Boulanger's, then recommended that Xenakis try studying with Olivier Messiaen.Harley, 4. Xenakis approached Messiaen for advice on whether he should once again start studying harmony and counterpoint. Messiaen later recalled: I understood straight away that he was not someone like the others. [...] He is of superior intelligence. [...] I did something horrible which I should do with no other student, for I think one should study harmony and counterpoint. But this was a man so much out of the ordinary that I said... No, you are almost thirty, you have the good fortune of being Greek, of being an architect and having studied special mathematics. Take advantage of these things. Do them in your music.Matossian, 48.
Francisco Estévez has described this work as "mathematical formulas translated . . . into beautiful, exciting, and above all, convincing music."Thatcher, Nathan. 2016. Paco. New York: Mormon Artists Group. . p. 116.