I love how the dodecaphonic synthesis of platitudinal melismatic prognostics deliquesces into cacophonic, hexagonical necrophilia and semantic antiphony. Indeed, the protoplasmic reticular epicycles that occur throughout this serious, serious work of art music gradually yet subtly amplify the peripatetic tetrichordal necrosis, resulting in a plethora of new and exciting musical textures.
Heard this piece for 1st time in live performance with Geoffrey D Madge playing piano part and I HATED it. I'm well used to late 20th century music but it sounded like an assault on my eardrums. Being in 2nd row didn't help.
Now I hear THIS performance and it's like listening to a different piece altogether. The orchestra are better balanced, the piano playing is completely accurate and very crisp. The whole piece makes sense now.
Just shows never judge a piece on one performance!
@ukdavepianoman True, even Beethoven's performances fell apart or were utter failures from time to time! And can you then even imagine trying to organize this?
im not quite sure what to make of this piece. i wont insult it nor will i compliment it being as though im not quite sure what the composers intentions were of writing this.
@paradox56533 There are a few good explanations of his music online. The one I especially like is "The Limits of Logic: Structure and Aesthetics in Xenakis's Herma." Basically, I think with this piece especially he was going for a new way of listening to music, which obviously never quite caught on with everyone.
That phase of life in Calderdale was actually rather temporary. 1979? long ago now. I remember it though. The church elders got more abrasive (not less) when I disposed of the Frank Zappa, Allman Brothers, etc. It just gave them more license to have a go at everything else; so naturally, I had to get rid of Chopin, Berlioz, Beethoven, etc. All works of the devil.
Yeah, I know, but at least I got out! And I kept more of it, including the Xenakis (and Berio) than they ever knew. Great stuff.
It was like today, 89 years ago when this brilliant spirit , this authentic human being was born. May the 29nth 1922. His creations,his precious creations and thoughts will live fore ever and ever, and i strongly believe that one day, humanity will be mature enough to understand and embrace his amazing and unique legacy.
@politispittas, mature? More like schizophrenic and brainwashed. And it's not going to happen. All the self-deluded, brainwashed ivory tower sophisticates will never be able to influence humanity. And that is the point of all of this, isn't it? To put up impassable barriers between the public and high art. The corporate state uses people like you to make the general population contemptuous of intellectual things, and therefore ultimately stupid and easily manipulated.
@KhagarBalugrak Mate, what are you talking about? Xenakis wrote the music he liked to write and if someone likes it then he/she enjoys it, if not, he/she doesn't. That simple. Can you accuse Xenakis for his work, or me, for enjoying his work?
Now, if your comment is towards people that believe that art can be high or low, then I totally agree with you. Just to mention Xenakis was not in this category, he was a simple man himself.
@3xpr1ment, well, what I'm really pointing out is that music like this has been proven, in scientific experiments, to be harmful to living things. It's sad but true, and what is disturbing is that unless you write music like this, almost no music school will ever accept you into their composition programs.
It's very sad that classical music has degenerated into music like this. It just further lowers intellectuals in the eyes of the general population.
Ok well I clearly over stepped my boundaries there. There is no definition of art, so I will gladly concede that part of my argument. I will stand firmly behind the fact that it isn't genius and the fact that it isn't good music. Based firmly on the condition that good music is enjoyable to listen to. If you want to have a semantic argument about what "good music" is I am not going to join you. At this point I'm pretty sure that the argument is over as this is a fairly subjective topic.
My enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of this piece is an irrelevant strawman that has nothing to do with your stupid opinion that this is not "art." Of course this is art. On what basis are you claiming it is not art? Answer that sensibly and then I'll tell you if I enjoy this or not.
Well that's your problem right there. The problem is the major and minor scales do exist. It's not that they were invented or something by someone. They are tones that our brains have evolved for whatever purpose, but it so happens that they sound good to humans. Anyone can take out a calculator and put a bunch of notes on a page. This isn't genius, this isn't good music, its not even art. Plus it sounds awful. let me guess, next you are going to try to tell me that 4'33" was genius right?
you're a retard, the major/minor scales are a western convention. the blues scale isn't technically appropriate in the western modes, it's been conditioned for you to think it sounds good.
@palmeristhecoolest Haha while it is true that in a practical way somebody wrote them down, but I think its fairly difficult to invent something that already exists. As for being conditioned to them, well you sir are the one who is retarded. People don't write music so others will think it will sound good in the future. Are you telling me you think this piece is enjoyable to listen to Palmer? Or do you just get an erection being a hipster music snob?
@toolfantwo Ahahahaha I knew the word hipster wasn't far off. The word that should be banned forever on the internet and the word you're using to distract from your bad opinions.
@palmeristhecoolest Just answer me this question, do you enjoy listening to this composition, the same way you would enjoy listening to your favorite "western" composer or rock band or what ever type of music you enjoy?
@toolfantwo I enjoy trying to get the subtleties, trying to understand what he did on a compositional level.
While this may be music I like, this is not music I'll listen to normally. I listen to this personally only when I'm in the mood of analyzing music and learning about it.
n order to understand this music u have to listen it not as "music" but as beautiful sounds like the sound of the sea the sound of the wind in your ears the sound of the rain the sound of the storm etc., because this "music" is beyond the traditional music and the traditional association of sound-emotion. This music implies mathematical calculation, and mathematics are just a abstraction of the nature. if u listen this music in the same way u listened mozart, for sure u will not understand it.
In order to understand this music u have to listen it not as "music" but as beautiful sounds like the sound of the sea the sound of the wind in your ears the sound of the rain the sound of the storm etc., because this "music" is beyond the traditional music and the traditional association of sound-emotion. This music implies mathematical calculation, and mathematics are just a abstraction of the nature. if u listen this music in the same way u listened mozart, for sure u will not understand it.
i hate it when people say its nightmarish (even if they love it). Thats just because youre still thinking with the major and minor modal systems. When u try to project those it sounds like psychopath music, but one shouldnt. Its like trying to find the quality of major in a pentatonic. Its like, if trying it to imagine for a movie, dont imagine it as a horror movie, imagine this in your favorite nonhorror movie, and find other moods in it other than apocalypse, psycho, horror way.
It's interesting to hear Xenakis after 25 years, and really begin to understand the intent, and the range of emotions created. This is what they mean by acquired taste.
perchè genio?? a me fa schifo. siamo alla derive dell'arte e anche della musica. chissà se lo saremo un giorno anche nel teatro: uno entra in scena, urla e scappa via. che genilità!
listening to xenakis music constantly reminds me of the interstellar travelling scene of kubricks space odyssey. the atonal qualities of this music creep me out, but i still find it fascinating. the only thing that brought me out of that state of suspense was watching the director convulse at 7:55:i laughed my ass off.
for those who think that in Hell you can listen to music ... you should open your ears here on Earth while living.
It depends on your relationship with music. If all you need is to please your ears, fare enough, but you should know that humans listen with the brain , not their ears.
So, this kind of music ( that through mathematics emphasises on timbre feeds the brain and has a deeper meaning.
wake up the world looks ,smells ,feels like this not Rach2&3. Wake up.RuthCrawfordSeeger back in 1920's knew romanticism was a dead horse!Berio,Boulez,Barraque. put that in your britches and heart and let it work its way up to your head!
I encountered this on the Decca Headline series when I was 17 and never bothered with rock music after that, ever again. This absolutely thrilled me to bits. AT the time I was also listening to Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Spohr, and Lutoslawski.
I got into trouble for listening to all of this by my Mom, who was under the influence of a very religious group in Calderdale who thought that all of this was of the devil; Beethoven especially, as he was a pagan!
@MarkGrindell wow, i could imagine religious mothers worrying about their kids listening to the rolling stones (or any other rock band) or madonna (or any other openly sexual pop artist), but i never thought there were mothers worried about their kids listening to beethoven...!
I've read about this piece for years, never being able to hear it. So great to be able to hear it as well as see it. Frankly I'm amazed to see so many folks in the audience. I figure it would only be me and thee, or a "walkout" - but this is Japan not the US. Maybe they have more knowledge over there?
This is Xenakis at his height - the late 60's before neo-romanticism took over. Art of this nature was seen to be 'futuristic' but perhaps not loved- at least it was respected.
Fantastic is an understatement. There is no language on this earth that can do this piece to justice. The sound is almost like from another dimension yet strangely familiar.
The pianist does not have anyone to turn pages of the score cause it is really hard to follow the score and only the pianist can do that comfortably... Wow...
This piece sums up Xenakis's pure essence - the Mathematician, it's so beautiful...yet so cold. It's hard to explain in a language not my own, but I love and Hate it at the same time.
@agendu Actually, I can say the same thing (Loving & Hating simultaneously) about several composers and specific works. Getting to know, really KNOW, a composition, particularly a complex or difficult one, requires, for me to have a score to study at least well enough to get a proper grasp on the work. While I am quite familiar with scores of all the Xenakis solo piano and a few other ensemble works, Synaphai isn't one of them, so whenever I hear it it is like hearing it almost for the 1st time.
I admit I've never seen the score, but looking at the bulk of the material the pianist is playing, and what I can see of the score, if there are "10 staves", it's certainly not a big part of the score, at least in this part. Now I'm on to the 2nd part and see what it looks like.
Not many people have metioned the conductor who strikes me as outstanding. Like most conductors who have an affinity for complex contemporary music he is CLEAR but more unusually he conveys the EMOTIONAL surges of the music to perfection. of course,the orchestra respond to this.
You should all know that the piano part is necessarily an "arrangement" of what Xeankis wrote. The actual piano part is deliberately unplayable by one human being. The sheet music that Ooi is reading from is his own "arrangement" written in his own hand. Some portions of the piano chart are written by Xenakis on ten staves -- one for each finger. No pianist wants to read that, believe me. That said, it is a heroic, amazing performance of music.
It probably seems vague due to the lack of discernible progressions, at least undiscernible to a lamen like me. It's like a language different than any i've ever heard. I know one thing, that guy has some SERIOUS skills to have the bandwidth to sight read like that! I would have to look at the music itself to see what it's getting at as far as pattern, it'd be fascinating just to see all those notes splattered across the page like Pollock
The authority and level of technique with which he finishes that section at 5:06 is superhuman! An exceptionally gifted pianist. Coldband I enjoyed your comment, the piece invokes strange feelings, I can't really place them right now and maybe that was entirely the purpose.
If you dont try hard to understand what your hearing...then you will understand it. As long as you dont form thoughts and feelings about what the music is or what it should be, you will be able to feel its true nature
Well, perhaps when your ear acquires the ability to adjust to this very alien, lush sound-scape, you will feel quite differently.
The day may come, and it may not. I'm not a huge fan of Picasso, but he was surely a genius. Perhaps my eyes will eventually bloom; perhaps not. I will, however, continue to look. In the end that's what it's all about.
Alright, so to me this sounds like random noise, the only purpose of which (if there is one) is to make my ears bleed. But rather than post some hater comment, I'm actually going to try to comprehend - can someone please at least begin explain why this beautiful/good/interesting? Why would such a seeming aural assault be worth listening to?
I really want to know what the deal is here. I can listen to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mahler just fine, but seem to lack the aesthetic sense to "get" this.
It's like seeing abstract art, it's not meant to be structured or beautiful (the latter being pretty relative) but it's meant to just invoke a feeling and just be. The "symphony" of a thunderstorm isn't structured, but is very calming to some, while frightening to others. It's all about relativity, whatever way you want to take it is completely up to you, which is what this music is all about.
The way its meant to "just be", as you put it, is beatifully reflective of a higher order of organization beyond intentional structuring by humans. (like observing a thunderstorm)
given that philosphy, what's the purpose of even listening to this stuff? why not just listen to a thunderstorm, a fan whirling in the background, a faucet running, there's just as much "ordered chaos" if not more in any other sound in nature than there is here, without the limitations of "human interference", just my personal opinion of course.. sounds like something to go along with a dance scene or something... but on it's own? it's just too "vague" to find enjoyable
Is there any place I can find a biography on this pianist? I am amazed at what he is capable of doing. I can never imagine being able to play this piece.
5:08 to 6:00 reminds me of riding the swinging ship ride at an amusement park(e.g. the wind brushing against the hull).
To be honest, I don't understand why there is a debate. If people dislike this music, it's understandable, because it is difficult to comprehend. Those who enjoy it should not be phased by others slating it; this genre will continue and expand regardless of critical reception.
people, aesthetic is learned. no type of music is more or less intelligent than another, despite its complexity. it isn't good or bad in any universal sense either. when you get all upset because you don't like the music you only make yourself sound like a child arguing that a word cannot mean two things at once. go yell at the TV or something.
I haven't listened to Xenakis for years. I always used to find his music cold, difficult and abstract, but listening to this now, I have no idea why! This is gorgeous and creepy!
What a gorgeous music! Vibrant, haunting and deeply captivating. I first listened to a Xenakis composition 4-5 years ago - some late period work. I disliked it, and didn't listened to anything more by him until yesterday, when I came across Aïs. It was a blissful experience; i.m.h.o., a tremendously beautiful work. And today I come across this... Xenakis might become one of my favorite composers.
You are truely ignorany if you make a comment like that. People who listen to nothing but bach and mozart have empty brains, nowhere to go, not willing to listen to things that are different and are afraid of change, such as urself. Your are truely ignorant. I myself, enjoy this piece, it is very different. I don't want to go to a concert and see on a program, "Yey, another mozart symphony" they all sound the same. This piece, there is nothing like it.
Be a little more gentle. I personally love this piece and find it to be very emotionally evoking and extremely powerful, but do not discount the fact that Mozart and Bach were great composers. Composers such as Bach paved the way for composers like Xenakis to follow, and without them, this would have never happened. Filipdinca, this is a very heady piece of music, and not to many people's tastes. Please respect that, but understand that this is nonetheless a very well-crafted piece musically.
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trash music... music must exprime some emotions...not hate... this is definetly hate, confuse, stupidity for all noobs and for all suiciders .... go lisen bethowen, bach, heyden, mozart..... they where trully composers! and all who made music with a very nice melody theme!
thats only one way of looking at it different artists are trying different things. YOu cant judge this by what mozart was trying to do cause they have different goals. YOu have to open yourself up to different kinds of listening.
music has to be developed. honestly, this is not my favorite type of music idder, but we couldn't remain classic forever... the music of the second half of the XX century is kind of exaggerating. this is xenakis, and it's original. xenakis is to music the same way picasso is to painting. i'm just saying this because probably there are other modern composers you might like, for example, shostakovich, or stravinsky. this kind of music requires a very educated public...
And don't forget, there have been more "accessible" developments in contemporary classical music since Xenakis showed up in the 50s, too. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Evan Ziporyn, Annie Gosfield, Steven Mackey, etc. It's not like music history is a progression from least complex to most complex. It's more like a pendulum that swings back and forth.
It does not faze me that other people seem to genuinely abhor Xenakis' music. Whatever insults/diatribes/reasoned arguments they throw against him do not and cannot diminish my love of this music, nor weaken my enjoyment of this performance.
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Imagine if videogame creators would start to make unplayable videogames without a plot, but interesting from the technical point of view of CG rendering. Imagine they would promote these games on highly-technical lectures and would blame the average kid for not sharing their enthusiasm about expert techcnical analysis. Composers may feel superior in their area of expertise, but when other human activities and thoughts are concerned, they experience them at the same basic level of a non-expert.
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This music is more based on ideologies than on artistic choices. The ideology is modernism which claimed the superiority of intellectual aspects over sentimental aspects. For this philosophy music resides in its form and stucture not in its content. It's no wonder that many musicians appeciate this music only because they can read the score and detect technicla nuances a non-musician couldn't. It's all a pretty intellectual fame but I believe intellectual aspects is not everything in music.
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To call modernist stochastic music the evolution of music is pure folly. This is nothing but one of many artistic philosophies, one who has used music as a propaganda means for specific socio-cultural postulates. Modernist music is just one very small point of view, a personal questionable credo and completely irrelevant to modern societies communication. Experimentalism for the sake of experimentalism. Good, but don't call it music evolution or the standard of serious music!
I find an auditorium of people listening to challenging and risky art much more "relevant" than a bunch of half-dead people listening to Mozart or Beethoven only because they're scared to experience anything different. Modern music like this way has and never will find a place in the symphony crowd, but has nonetheless found a place among younger people today who do not frequent the turgid offerings of today's symphony orchestra.
It proposes a gesture meaning in life itself thus referencing to the soul of human nature and thought. and art cannot be at any way compared withing different ages of evolution, it's impossible to compare Bach with Xenakis.
1. just a thought (split up in 7 parts for legth):
As we will never agree on "if this music is good or not" lets agree to disagree. But I pose you another, purely pragmatical question: what IS this music? I mean, what is its point? Does it elevate you like Bachs music perhaps? Or does it make you feel more human like say a good Beethoven? Or perhaps does it stimulate & give you an insight into depression like say a Mahler symphony? Does it give you an elegant nostalgia like Chopin or Schumann?
2. Or perhaps does it moove your body like Stravinsky? Or perhaps does it make you for a split second tangible the Idea of the Sublime like a perfect Mozart or Brahms? Or perhaps does it make you reflect on social conditions like a good work of Alban Berg or a Pierrot od Schoenberg? Or just make you feel happy like a lot of light Viennese music? Or perhaps does it give you a rush of adrenaline like a lot of great Rock music? Or that primeval feeling like a lot of good metal music?...
3Or perhaps a subtle feeling of profused wellbeing like a lot of red-hot jazz music? Or perhaps does it want to make you get sweaty and close to another human being of the opposite sex like a lot of great Afro/Latin music (not only!:)? And I could go on....do you see where I' am getting at?
Music is defenetly a tool, and an energy. What is the tool being applied for here? What about its energy?...
vvozzeck, you don't find amazing that 87 musicians are able to coordinate themselves and execute such an intricate and highly complex piece of music composed in such a relatively young and new style? Listen from 7:50 -...that's all through-composed! Imagine how long it takes these musicians to synchronize and create just the right dynamics and textures! As a "tool", I would say that this music is being applied to liberate and challenge the mind, and to push composition forward!
4There is only one justification for this music, which it's suppoerters would agree to hands down: Its just an abstract enjoyment of the mind for those few who want to bother with it. Fine. But then be honest about it, say it clearly, its an abstract gratification, which by absolute musical standards does not ammount to much...
"There is only one justification for this music, which it's suppoerters would agree to hands down: Its just an abstract enjoyment of the mind for those few who want to bother with it."
I don't agree at all. I find this music at least as emotionally powerful/transformative as that of Bach, Mozart, etc. It reflects positive and negative aspects of the human condition, and speaks to me with an immediacy that a lot of older music, filtered through the lens of History and nostalgia, cannot.
5So let's not try to pass this music off as a "necessary (or even important?!) process of the artistic creation reflecting our contemporary world wiew etc" or something like that. This is music for the few, for the few, and of relative "few" musical substance in relation to the effecs produced by other kinds of music. Intelellectual enjoyment can be had by other means too, if this is all that this music ammounts to.
6. And that is without even getting in the very pragmatical (and moral argument) that the same resources spent on producing such music on the backs of a social elite who support it could be better spent producing much more useful music of other sorts....
7But hey I am tollerant, to each his own. As long as were honest about it. But what I am not to tollerant about is mismanaged resources or perceptions, especially in a world where 85%+ of the population almost litteraly starves to death. In the Bigger Picture, well, one must admit, Xenakis IS extremely useless...
Continuation: In any case, in terms of feeding the hungry, promoting social justice, etc, Bach and Mozart's music is every bit as useless as Xenakis'.
Maybe in our modern era we are more keenly aware of these injustices and monstrosities, so the uselessness of music seems to be worse. But while Adorno said that "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," he also acknowledged that "While the situation does not permit art...it nonetheless demands it,"; I think this sums up the dilemma nicely.
Interesting little microcosm of classical music listeners in these comments....
From the comments of some of the more conservative listeners, one would think that it's impossible to go to a concert or click a link on youtube without hearing Xenakis.
Newsflash: no one is forcing you to listen to Xenakis. If you want to forget the last 100 years in music happened, that's your choice to make. But why impose your bitterness on those of us who *do* enjoy and love Xenakis' music?
Interesting little microcosm of classical audiences in these comments....
From some of the comments of the more conservative listeners, you'd think people are forcing this music on them...as though you can't keep away from Xenakis, all the concert hall programming, everywhere you click on youtube, leads you to him! Far from it. If you don't like Xenakis' music, fine, but why impose your bitterness on the rest of us who do?
I love how the dodecaphonic synthesis of platitudinal melismatic prognostics deliquesces into cacophonic, hexagonical necrophilia and semantic antiphony. Indeed, the protoplasmic reticular epicycles that occur throughout this serious, serious work of art music gradually yet subtly amplify the peripatetic tetrichordal necrosis, resulting in a plethora of new and exciting musical textures.
Or maybe this piece just sucks ass.
KhagarBalugrak 2 months ago
@KhagarBalugrak That's very funny. You been taking writing lessons from Ferneyhough?!
ukdavepianoman 2 months ago
Heard this piece for 1st time in live performance with Geoffrey D Madge playing piano part and I HATED it. I'm well used to late 20th century music but it sounded like an assault on my eardrums. Being in 2nd row didn't help.
Now I hear THIS performance and it's like listening to a different piece altogether. The orchestra are better balanced, the piano playing is completely accurate and very crisp. The whole piece makes sense now.
Just shows never judge a piece on one performance!
ukdavepianoman 3 months ago
@ukdavepianoman True, even Beethoven's performances fell apart or were utter failures from time to time! And can you then even imagine trying to organize this?
wetuadjlv 2 months ago
im not quite sure what to make of this piece. i wont insult it nor will i compliment it being as though im not quite sure what the composers intentions were of writing this.
paradox56533 3 months ago
@paradox56533 There are a few good explanations of his music online. The one I especially like is "The Limits of Logic: Structure and Aesthetics in Xenakis's Herma." Basically, I think with this piece especially he was going for a new way of listening to music, which obviously never quite caught on with everyone.
wetuadjlv 2 months ago
That phase of life in Calderdale was actually rather temporary. 1979? long ago now. I remember it though. The church elders got more abrasive (not less) when I disposed of the Frank Zappa, Allman Brothers, etc. It just gave them more license to have a go at everything else; so naturally, I had to get rid of Chopin, Berlioz, Beethoven, etc. All works of the devil.
Yeah, I know, but at least I got out! And I kept more of it, including the Xenakis (and Berio) than they ever knew. Great stuff.
MarkGrindell 3 months ago
what for a big bullshit
bonso1111 3 months ago
It was like today, 89 years ago when this brilliant spirit , this authentic human being was born. May the 29nth 1922. His creations,his precious creations and thoughts will live fore ever and ever, and i strongly believe that one day, humanity will be mature enough to understand and embrace his amazing and unique legacy.
politispittas 8 months ago
@politispittas, mature? More like schizophrenic and brainwashed. And it's not going to happen. All the self-deluded, brainwashed ivory tower sophisticates will never be able to influence humanity. And that is the point of all of this, isn't it? To put up impassable barriers between the public and high art. The corporate state uses people like you to make the general population contemptuous of intellectual things, and therefore ultimately stupid and easily manipulated.
KhagarBalugrak 4 months ago
@KhagarBalugrak Mate, what are you talking about? Xenakis wrote the music he liked to write and if someone likes it then he/she enjoys it, if not, he/she doesn't. That simple. Can you accuse Xenakis for his work, or me, for enjoying his work?
Now, if your comment is towards people that believe that art can be high or low, then I totally agree with you. Just to mention Xenakis was not in this category, he was a simple man himself.
3xpr1ment 3 months ago
@3xpr1ment, well, what I'm really pointing out is that music like this has been proven, in scientific experiments, to be harmful to living things. It's sad but true, and what is disturbing is that unless you write music like this, almost no music school will ever accept you into their composition programs.
It's very sad that classical music has degenerated into music like this. It just further lowers intellectuals in the eyes of the general population.
KhagarBalugrak 3 months ago
@KhagarBalugrak "music like this has been proven, in scientific experiments, to be harmful to living things". Reference please.
3xpr1ment 3 months ago
I've never seen dbl basses in the front row. Is this something that Xenakis specified in the score?
sieracki001 9 months ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Ugly, disgusting, disturbing mess, I would not call it "music" any more ... why to create such ugliness ?
violinoamore 11 months ago
@violinoamore go jump off a cliff
sixstringking6 11 months ago 2
@violinoamore
I dont think you understand music yet. Stop hearing it. Feel music.
GrimZoso 9 months ago
May everyone have an unspeakable Feb 4. Long remembrance of Xenakis.
NevinJarek 1 year ago
excellent pianist and director
xodn3300 1 year ago
@xodn3300 and orchestra too
xodn3300 1 year ago
At least the flaming below this post hasn't yet descended into an ungodly race-war as so many do.
Love this piece, everything is broken and re-expressed as Xenakis' theories and practicalities expressly wanted them to be.
pastrychef1985 1 year ago
the pianist is a beast!
psychopathtoine 1 year ago
(gasp)this is the most beautiful thing i have ever witnessed...
acceptthevoid 1 year ago
youtube is bulsshit because you can only post such a limited number of words
philippehales 1 year ago
This is great music because it breaks, no SMASHES, the rules. All great music does that.
sieracki001 1 year ago
7:55
booniak 1 year ago
Ok well I clearly over stepped my boundaries there. There is no definition of art, so I will gladly concede that part of my argument. I will stand firmly behind the fact that it isn't genius and the fact that it isn't good music. Based firmly on the condition that good music is enjoyable to listen to. If you want to have a semantic argument about what "good music" is I am not going to join you. At this point I'm pretty sure that the argument is over as this is a fairly subjective topic.
toolfantwo 1 year ago
@toolfantwo
in Music, there's like... no argument, man....
MokshaIS 11 months ago
My enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of this piece is an irrelevant strawman that has nothing to do with your stupid opinion that this is not "art." Of course this is art. On what basis are you claiming it is not art? Answer that sensibly and then I'll tell you if I enjoy this or not.
palmeristhecoolest 1 year ago
Well that's your problem right there. The problem is the major and minor scales do exist. It's not that they were invented or something by someone. They are tones that our brains have evolved for whatever purpose, but it so happens that they sound good to humans. Anyone can take out a calculator and put a bunch of notes on a page. This isn't genius, this isn't good music, its not even art. Plus it sounds awful. let me guess, next you are going to try to tell me that 4'33" was genius right?
toolfantwo 1 year ago
@toolfantwo
you're a retard, the major/minor scales are a western convention. the blues scale isn't technically appropriate in the western modes, it's been conditioned for you to think it sounds good.
palmeristhecoolest 1 year ago
@palmeristhecoolest Haha while it is true that in a practical way somebody wrote them down, but I think its fairly difficult to invent something that already exists. As for being conditioned to them, well you sir are the one who is retarded. People don't write music so others will think it will sound good in the future. Are you telling me you think this piece is enjoyable to listen to Palmer? Or do you just get an erection being a hipster music snob?
toolfantwo 1 year ago
@toolfantwo Ahahahaha I knew the word hipster wasn't far off. The word that should be banned forever on the internet and the word you're using to distract from your bad opinions.
palmeristhecoolest 1 year ago
@palmeristhecoolest Just answer me this question, do you enjoy listening to this composition, the same way you would enjoy listening to your favorite "western" composer or rock band or what ever type of music you enjoy?
toolfantwo 1 year ago
Well I suppose that's where you and I differ.
toolfantwo 1 year ago
I don't really quite understand the point of creating music just for arts sake. Why write music that sounds terrible?
toolfantwo 1 year ago
@toolfantwo the point of making music is mostly to express yourself, ask any musician about it
he chose that way because it is the closest to his emotions and he worked hard for it to express it, and it's not random, it's made with knowledge.
S3bz3r0 1 year ago
@S3bz3r0 Yes but do you enjoy it? I'm not really interested in why he made it, just why do people listen to it?
toolfantwo 1 year ago
@toolfantwo I enjoy trying to get the subtleties, trying to understand what he did on a compositional level.
While this may be music I like, this is not music I'll listen to normally. I listen to this personally only when I'm in the mood of analyzing music and learning about it.
S3bz3r0 1 year ago
n order to understand this music u have to listen it not as "music" but as beautiful sounds like the sound of the sea the sound of the wind in your ears the sound of the rain the sound of the storm etc., because this "music" is beyond the traditional music and the traditional association of sound-emotion. This music implies mathematical calculation, and mathematics are just a abstraction of the nature. if u listen this music in the same way u listened mozart, for sure u will not understand it.
omargk 1 year ago
In order to understand this music u have to listen it not as "music" but as beautiful sounds like the sound of the sea the sound of the wind in your ears the sound of the rain the sound of the storm etc., because this "music" is beyond the traditional music and the traditional association of sound-emotion. This music implies mathematical calculation, and mathematics are just a abstraction of the nature. if u listen this music in the same way u listened mozart, for sure u will not understand it.
omargk 1 year ago
7:53 - 7:58 looks that conductor is trippin out lol
whitewalls1222 1 year ago
i hate it when people say its nightmarish (even if they love it). Thats just because youre still thinking with the major and minor modal systems. When u try to project those it sounds like psychopath music, but one shouldnt. Its like trying to find the quality of major in a pentatonic. Its like, if trying it to imagine for a movie, dont imagine it as a horror movie, imagine this in your favorite nonhorror movie, and find other moods in it other than apocalypse, psycho, horror way.
omgtkseth 1 year ago
I Luv IT!
marcossaboya 1 year ago
It's interesting to hear Xenakis after 25 years, and really begin to understand the intent, and the range of emotions created. This is what they mean by acquired taste.
ShawshankLove 1 year ago
Excellent ! ! !
Great performance from the pianist !
fousekis1212 1 year ago
la banda sonora de algun sueño enfermo o el prefacio del apocalipsis
GENIAL
donpancho321 1 year ago
It hit me like pop music. Sweet
Bagas 1 year ago
Comment removed
TheTimeTraveler100 1 year ago
perchè genio?? a me fa schifo. siamo alla derive dell'arte e anche della musica. chissà se lo saremo un giorno anche nel teatro: uno entra in scena, urla e scappa via. che genilità!
carloando84 1 year ago
awesome!
hanstime 1 year ago
..is music made by Hal 3000
iransoto 1 year ago 3
Its only natural when you are young to idolize great men.
Dont forget that Xenakis is part of our music today not all of it.
PPOLL01 1 year ago
listening to xenakis music constantly reminds me of the interstellar travelling scene of kubricks space odyssey. the atonal qualities of this music creep me out, but i still find it fascinating. the only thing that brought me out of that state of suspense was watching the director convulse at 7:55:i laughed my ass off.
damv04 1 year ago
for those who think that in Hell you can listen to music ... you should open your ears here on Earth while living.
It depends on your relationship with music. If all you need is to please your ears, fare enough, but you should know that humans listen with the brain , not their ears.
So, this kind of music ( that through mathematics emphasises on timbre feeds the brain and has a deeper meaning.
ninosgr 1 year ago
I can accept you don't like it...It is NOT about that though.
The molecules of a rose are not that pretty as the rose itself....Wake up people...there is not such thing as Hell !!! :p
ninosgr 1 year ago
wake up the world looks ,smells ,feels like this not Rach2&3. Wake up.RuthCrawfordSeeger back in 1920's knew romanticism was a dead horse!Berio,Boulez,Barraque. put that in your britches and heart and let it work its way up to your head!
lovesGenet 1 year ago
I encountered this on the Decca Headline series when I was 17 and never bothered with rock music after that, ever again. This absolutely thrilled me to bits. AT the time I was also listening to Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Spohr, and Lutoslawski.
I got into trouble for listening to all of this by my Mom, who was under the influence of a very religious group in Calderdale who thought that all of this was of the devil; Beethoven especially, as he was a pagan!
I always wanted to se this performed.
MarkGrindell 1 year ago 6
@MarkGrindell wow, i could imagine religious mothers worrying about their kids listening to the rolling stones (or any other rock band) or madonna (or any other openly sexual pop artist), but i never thought there were mothers worried about their kids listening to beethoven...!
grandexandi 3 months ago in playlist Music
faNTástico!
IngridAtenea 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
ugh...this music is like hell
If you viewers wanna hear to something more pleasant, then try Rachmaninoff 3
i think im gonna puke after i listen 2 this
sackwhacker 1 year ago
Idiot.
flammesombres 1 year ago
@flammesombres
Say that to my face, I dare you too, axehole!
sackwhacker 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
There is no music - chaos - no beauty sound.... My imagination is saying me - music like that is in hell :)
tigerSh4rq 1 year ago
何回聴いてもすごい・・・。
KOJIKOJISYU 1 year ago
I've read about this piece for years, never being able to hear it. So great to be able to hear it as well as see it. Frankly I'm amazed to see so many folks in the audience. I figure it would only be me and thee, or a "walkout" - but this is Japan not the US. Maybe they have more knowledge over there?
This is Xenakis at his height - the late 60's before neo-romanticism took over. Art of this nature was seen to be 'futuristic' but perhaps not loved- at least it was respected.
Thanks.
sieracki001 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
This is so random. The composer must have been near to delirium when he wrote this.
sakemmat 1 year ago
Or on a very bad acid trip.
Renshen1957 1 year ago
I can't even being to imagine how difficult this piece is.
Stoner4589 1 year ago 3
Thank you for this video.
BodyHeaven 2 years ago 2
This pianist is amazing. I can't imagine how long it'd take to learn this.
sptimmy1 2 years ago
People that follow the tradition, especifically the european tradition like little João Sebastião in your picture. It's just taste
jmzhn 2 years ago
Atrocious? It could be, maybe it was intecional for people like u feel this...
But i could swear that i saw a orchestra in this video playing music...
Are u a kind of god?
PS:He use all the notes as u can see in the video
jmzhn 2 years ago
Comment removed
Enantiodromialist 2 years ago
fascinating,,and ..hideously gorgeous
markmando333 2 years ago 2
i feel it shows the illusion of individuality what do u think?
zoranest 2 years ago
Fantastic is an understatement. There is no language on this earth that can do this piece to justice. The sound is almost like from another dimension yet strangely familiar.
DrFattyJr 2 years ago 5
genius
MiyazakiKnight 2 years ago 2
Una pieza maravillosa! Xenakis el puto amo!!
Kuerales 2 years ago
The pianist does not have anyone to turn pages of the score cause it is really hard to follow the score and only the pianist can do that comfortably... Wow...
Sudharsanbluewaves 2 years ago 3
This piece sums up Xenakis's pure essence - the Mathematician, it's so beautiful...yet so cold. It's hard to explain in a language not my own, but I love and Hate it at the same time.
agendu 2 years ago 14
get on it
mikeouk 2 years ago
@agendu Actually, I can say the same thing (Loving & Hating simultaneously) about several composers and specific works. Getting to know, really KNOW, a composition, particularly a complex or difficult one, requires, for me to have a score to study at least well enough to get a proper grasp on the work. While I am quite familiar with scores of all the Xenakis solo piano and a few other ensemble works, Synaphai isn't one of them, so whenever I hear it it is like hearing it almost for the 1st time.
eurisko618 1 year ago
#t=7m55s
fffuuuu2 2 years ago
10 staves for piano? right? one per finger?
ch252525 2 years ago
I admit I've never seen the score, but looking at the bulk of the material the pianist is playing, and what I can see of the score, if there are "10 staves", it's certainly not a big part of the score, at least in this part. Now I'm on to the 2nd part and see what it looks like.
EuriskoLontano 2 years ago
A monumental performance of one of Xenakis' masterpieces.
WilliamSusmanMusic 2 years ago
Not many people have metioned the conductor who strikes me as outstanding. Like most conductors who have an affinity for complex contemporary music he is CLEAR but more unusually he conveys the EMOTIONAL surges of the music to perfection. of course,the orchestra respond to this.
japanesesweet 2 years ago 4
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WOW;);) fucking amazing
ziz0r 2 years ago
You should all know that the piano part is necessarily an "arrangement" of what Xeankis wrote. The actual piano part is deliberately unplayable by one human being. The sheet music that Ooi is reading from is his own "arrangement" written in his own hand. Some portions of the piano chart are written by Xenakis on ten staves -- one for each finger. No pianist wants to read that, believe me. That said, it is a heroic, amazing performance of music.
jatwell55 2 years ago 3
この曲を含むCD買って聞いていたのですが、どうしても演奏しているシーンが見てみたくなり、ようつべをググったらこの動画が出てきますた。
この動画をうpしていただいた方、乙です。
Translation:
Last Saturday, I bought some CDs which included this piece. I want watching this performance, and search it.
Thanks for this piece uploading.
roba2005kaiinget 2 years ago
It probably seems vague due to the lack of discernible progressions, at least undiscernible to a lamen like me. It's like a language different than any i've ever heard. I know one thing, that guy has some SERIOUS skills to have the bandwidth to sight read like that! I would have to look at the music itself to see what it's getting at as far as pattern, it'd be fascinating just to see all those notes splattered across the page like Pollock
llieske 2 years ago
like, or dislike... intellectuals can't stand that that's all there is and whatever you feel justifies your opinion is absolutely true.
YOU ARE ALL CORRECT!!!
Can we all relax now?
squishcow 2 years ago
so schon
mesoxyz 2 years ago
Dig. Seriously dig.
heartpolytonality 2 years ago
Wake me up at intermission...
koreankayagum 2 years ago
The greatest 'Piano Concerto' of the second half of the twentieth century. This is a truly gorgeous piece of music!
I own three copies of this work, and this performance is by far my favorite. Much thanks for the post!
sonicpsychiatry 2 years ago
The authority and level of technique with which he finishes that section at 5:06 is superhuman! An exceptionally gifted pianist. Coldband I enjoyed your comment, the piece invokes strange feelings, I can't really place them right now and maybe that was entirely the purpose.
KeithWhalen11 2 years ago
I'd love to understand it though...
gilsonbsantos 2 years ago
If you dont try hard to understand what your hearing...then you will understand it. As long as you dont form thoughts and feelings about what the music is or what it should be, you will be able to feel its true nature
Marklar0 2 years ago
Wow, pure light. You should be proud.
gilsonbsantos 2 years ago
fabulous piece.
Many thanks for posting.
DF (London UK)
DIPFM2009 2 years ago
pure structure
uburei 2 years ago
gorgeous
markmando333 2 years ago 3
I personally don't like it, it's not really enjoyable. But.. I have to admit.. it's genius.
Stevenup7004 2 years ago 11
Well, perhaps when your ear acquires the ability to adjust to this very alien, lush sound-scape, you will feel quite differently.
The day may come, and it may not. I'm not a huge fan of Picasso, but he was surely a genius. Perhaps my eyes will eventually bloom; perhaps not. I will, however, continue to look. In the end that's what it's all about.
sonicpsychiatry 2 years ago
Alright, so to me this sounds like random noise, the only purpose of which (if there is one) is to make my ears bleed. But rather than post some hater comment, I'm actually going to try to comprehend - can someone please at least begin explain why this beautiful/good/interesting? Why would such a seeming aural assault be worth listening to?
I really want to know what the deal is here. I can listen to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mahler just fine, but seem to lack the aesthetic sense to "get" this.
GuitarManARS 2 years ago 3
It's like seeing abstract art, it's not meant to be structured or beautiful (the latter being pretty relative) but it's meant to just invoke a feeling and just be. The "symphony" of a thunderstorm isn't structured, but is very calming to some, while frightening to others. It's all about relativity, whatever way you want to take it is completely up to you, which is what this music is all about.
Coldband24 2 years ago 2
The way its meant to "just be", as you put it, is beatifully reflective of a higher order of organization beyond intentional structuring by humans. (like observing a thunderstorm)
Marklar0 2 years ago
given that philosphy, what's the purpose of even listening to this stuff? why not just listen to a thunderstorm, a fan whirling in the background, a faucet running, there's just as much "ordered chaos" if not more in any other sound in nature than there is here, without the limitations of "human interference", just my personal opinion of course.. sounds like something to go along with a dance scene or something... but on it's own? it's just too "vague" to find enjoyable
llieske 2 years ago
You really find this vague? There really aren't any 'chaotic' elements in this work. Its actually highly ordered with a very discernible form.
Interesting to get a completely different perspective on it, though. I think its a masterpiece.
sonicpsychiatry 2 years ago 3
there is no chaos in nature. it's all about fractal geometry and string theory.
festivalsfunerals 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
thats supposed to be played with electronic instruments not with physical
zoranest 2 years ago
Is there any place I can find a biography on this pianist? I am amazed at what he is capable of doing. I can never imagine being able to play this piece.
5:08 to 6:00 reminds me of riding the swinging ship ride at an amusement park(e.g. the wind brushing against the hull).
scottturner1994 2 years ago
To be honest, I don't understand why there is a debate. If people dislike this music, it's understandable, because it is difficult to comprehend. Those who enjoy it should not be phased by others slating it; this genre will continue and expand regardless of critical reception.
roryyyyyy 2 years ago 4
It looks so hard to play...
123coolmik 2 years ago
ça change des emmerderies à mozart!
fotosonic 2 years ago
people, aesthetic is learned. no type of music is more or less intelligent than another, despite its complexity. it isn't good or bad in any universal sense either. when you get all upset because you don't like the music you only make yourself sound like a child arguing that a word cannot mean two things at once. go yell at the TV or something.
Forrest5486 2 years ago 4
xenakis is maddening..i love it
markmando333 2 years ago
I haven't listened to Xenakis for years. I always used to find his music cold, difficult and abstract, but listening to this now, I have no idea why! This is gorgeous and creepy!
objectholder 2 years ago 3
life is bad enough.. FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!
maniakalemetalen 2 years ago
this is scary as fuck. i love it. this is what horrific pain sounds like
DillonDemas 2 years ago 2
If you don't like this music, you don't have to listen to it. No one is obligating you with the task of listening to this music.
DannyDaWriter 2 years ago 2
I don't care about the "mockers".
I think this music is beautiful (even though it prompts the image of a sinking ship in front of my inner eye). A class of is own.
193151838 2 years ago 3
i think my favorite part is the conductor....
intrepiddestiny 2 years ago
Wow. 7:55 to 7:58 was VERY interesting.
scottturner1994 3 years ago 2
What a gorgeous music! Vibrant, haunting and deeply captivating. I first listened to a Xenakis composition 4-5 years ago - some late period work. I disliked it, and didn't listened to anything more by him until yesterday, when I came across Aïs. It was a blissful experience; i.m.h.o., a tremendously beautiful work. And today I come across this... Xenakis might become one of my favorite composers.
SchmuyleHauksendorf 3 years ago 3
This comment has received too many negative votes show
This music has no sense.
It's only a great mistake.
laurion69 3 years ago
Wow how can you say this music is a mistake - its beautiful
fishybishbash 2 years ago
~Abstract mysticism ~
PupuTheClown 3 years ago
Wow. Can anybody say "dissonance?"
And to think people think that death metal is as heavy as it gets!
That was an interesting experience. 5 stars.
SchmittyRKD 3 years ago 2
Filipdinca:
You are truely ignorany if you make a comment like that. People who listen to nothing but bach and mozart have empty brains, nowhere to go, not willing to listen to things that are different and are afraid of change, such as urself. Your are truely ignorant. I myself, enjoy this piece, it is very different. I don't want to go to a concert and see on a program, "Yey, another mozart symphony" they all sound the same. This piece, there is nothing like it.
sixstringking6 3 years ago
Be a little more gentle. I personally love this piece and find it to be very emotionally evoking and extremely powerful, but do not discount the fact that Mozart and Bach were great composers. Composers such as Bach paved the way for composers like Xenakis to follow, and without them, this would have never happened. Filipdinca, this is a very heady piece of music, and not to many people's tastes. Please respect that, but understand that this is nonetheless a very well-crafted piece musically.
ThatHoboOverThere 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
trash music... music must exprime some emotions...not hate... this is definetly hate, confuse, stupidity for all noobs and for all suiciders .... go lisen bethowen, bach, heyden, mozart..... they where trully composers! and all who made music with a very nice melody theme!
Filipdinca 3 years ago
English first.
BeQuietPeter 3 years ago
Hate is an emotion, noob.
HamalSharatan 3 years ago 2
haha your english reflects your lacking number of brain cells
kusuna7 3 years ago
No, it doesn't. It just reflects his/her native language is not english. However, this piece is far from being trash!!!
maurice22ravel 3 years ago
thats only one way of looking at it different artists are trying different things. YOu cant judge this by what mozart was trying to do cause they have different goals. YOu have to open yourself up to different kinds of listening.
edcerc 3 years ago
Heyden? Bethowen? Never heard of them. Do they "exprime" some emotions?
DiegoCR74 3 years ago
They lived around the same time as Bak and Bibaldee, I think. Maybe around Mosard.
DannyDaWriter 3 years ago 2
music has to be developed. honestly, this is not my favorite type of music idder, but we couldn't remain classic forever... the music of the second half of the XX century is kind of exaggerating. this is xenakis, and it's original. xenakis is to music the same way picasso is to painting. i'm just saying this because probably there are other modern composers you might like, for example, shostakovich, or stravinsky. this kind of music requires a very educated public...
feneco2 2 years ago 2
You speak wise words.
DannyDaWriter 2 years ago
And don't forget, there have been more "accessible" developments in contemporary classical music since Xenakis showed up in the 50s, too. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Evan Ziporyn, Annie Gosfield, Steven Mackey, etc. It's not like music history is a progression from least complex to most complex. It's more like a pendulum that swings back and forth.
objectholder 2 years ago 2
This is beautiful music, regardless of whether one is aware of the ideology behind it. Open your ears & listen!! Thanks for posting.
santanko 3 years ago 6
Wonderful, really distant from idiot pop music. Not for people with an empty brain...
L.N. Lanner
luigisn 3 years ago 3
It does not faze me that other people seem to genuinely abhor Xenakis' music. Whatever insults/diatribes/reasoned arguments they throw against him do not and cannot diminish my love of this music, nor weaken my enjoyment of this performance.
franzliszt370 3 years ago 5
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Imagine if videogame creators would start to make unplayable videogames without a plot, but interesting from the technical point of view of CG rendering. Imagine they would promote these games on highly-technical lectures and would blame the average kid for not sharing their enthusiasm about expert techcnical analysis. Composers may feel superior in their area of expertise, but when other human activities and thoughts are concerned, they experience them at the same basic level of a non-expert.
OvoPiano 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
This music is more based on ideologies than on artistic choices. The ideology is modernism which claimed the superiority of intellectual aspects over sentimental aspects. For this philosophy music resides in its form and stucture not in its content. It's no wonder that many musicians appeciate this music only because they can read the score and detect technicla nuances a non-musician couldn't. It's all a pretty intellectual fame but I believe intellectual aspects is not everything in music.
OvoPiano 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
To call modernist stochastic music the evolution of music is pure folly. This is nothing but one of many artistic philosophies, one who has used music as a propaganda means for specific socio-cultural postulates. Modernist music is just one very small point of view, a personal questionable credo and completely irrelevant to modern societies communication. Experimentalism for the sake of experimentalism. Good, but don't call it music evolution or the standard of serious music!
OvoPiano 3 years ago
I find an auditorium of people listening to challenging and risky art much more "relevant" than a bunch of half-dead people listening to Mozart or Beethoven only because they're scared to experience anything different. Modern music like this way has and never will find a place in the symphony crowd, but has nonetheless found a place among younger people today who do not frequent the turgid offerings of today's symphony orchestra.
marqrdt 3 years ago 7
I'm 24 years old and I prefer Beethoven. Am I half - dead ? :D
subsydiarny 3 years ago
what a racket
simoncurtis73 3 years ago
It proposes a gesture meaning in life itself thus referencing to the soul of human nature and thought. and art cannot be at any way compared withing different ages of evolution, it's impossible to compare Bach with Xenakis.
nikiblue 3 years ago
1. just a thought (split up in 7 parts for legth):
As we will never agree on "if this music is good or not" lets agree to disagree. But I pose you another, purely pragmatical question: what IS this music? I mean, what is its point? Does it elevate you like Bachs music perhaps? Or does it make you feel more human like say a good Beethoven? Or perhaps does it stimulate & give you an insight into depression like say a Mahler symphony? Does it give you an elegant nostalgia like Chopin or Schumann?
vvozzeck 3 years ago
This music is Xenakis' music. When I want to listen to something like Bach, I play Bach. If I want to hear Xenakis, I play Xenakis. Move on.
DiegoCR74 3 years ago 4
2. Or perhaps does it moove your body like Stravinsky? Or perhaps does it make you for a split second tangible the Idea of the Sublime like a perfect Mozart or Brahms? Or perhaps does it make you reflect on social conditions like a good work of Alban Berg or a Pierrot od Schoenberg? Or just make you feel happy like a lot of light Viennese music? Or perhaps does it give you a rush of adrenaline like a lot of great Rock music? Or that primeval feeling like a lot of good metal music?...
vvozzeck 3 years ago
3Or perhaps a subtle feeling of profused wellbeing like a lot of red-hot jazz music? Or perhaps does it want to make you get sweaty and close to another human being of the opposite sex like a lot of great Afro/Latin music (not only!:)? And I could go on....do you see where I' am getting at?
Music is defenetly a tool, and an energy. What is the tool being applied for here? What about its energy?...
vvozzeck 3 years ago
vvozzeck, you don't find amazing that 87 musicians are able to coordinate themselves and execute such an intricate and highly complex piece of music composed in such a relatively young and new style? Listen from 7:50 -...that's all through-composed! Imagine how long it takes these musicians to synchronize and create just the right dynamics and textures! As a "tool", I would say that this music is being applied to liberate and challenge the mind, and to push composition forward!
mikepenny01 2 years ago 2
4There is only one justification for this music, which it's suppoerters would agree to hands down: Its just an abstract enjoyment of the mind for those few who want to bother with it. Fine. But then be honest about it, say it clearly, its an abstract gratification, which by absolute musical standards does not ammount to much...
vvozzeck 3 years ago
"There is only one justification for this music, which it's suppoerters would agree to hands down: Its just an abstract enjoyment of the mind for those few who want to bother with it."
I don't agree at all. I find this music at least as emotionally powerful/transformative as that of Bach, Mozart, etc. It reflects positive and negative aspects of the human condition, and speaks to me with an immediacy that a lot of older music, filtered through the lens of History and nostalgia, cannot.
(tbc)
p0lyph0ny 3 years ago 3
5So let's not try to pass this music off as a "necessary (or even important?!) process of the artistic creation reflecting our contemporary world wiew etc" or something like that. This is music for the few, for the few, and of relative "few" musical substance in relation to the effecs produced by other kinds of music. Intelellectual enjoyment can be had by other means too, if this is all that this music ammounts to.
vvozzeck 3 years ago
6. And that is without even getting in the very pragmatical (and moral argument) that the same resources spent on producing such music on the backs of a social elite who support it could be better spent producing much more useful music of other sorts....
vvozzeck 3 years ago
7But hey I am tollerant, to each his own. As long as were honest about it. But what I am not to tollerant about is mismanaged resources or perceptions, especially in a world where 85%+ of the population almost litteraly starves to death. In the Bigger Picture, well, one must admit, Xenakis IS extremely useless...
vvozzeck 3 years ago
Continuation: In any case, in terms of feeding the hungry, promoting social justice, etc, Bach and Mozart's music is every bit as useless as Xenakis'.
Maybe in our modern era we are more keenly aware of these injustices and monstrosities, so the uselessness of music seems to be worse. But while Adorno said that "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," he also acknowledged that "While the situation does not permit art...it nonetheless demands it,"; I think this sums up the dilemma nicely.
p0lyph0ny 3 years ago
Adorno was a jackass.
SirJonathanTavener 3 years ago
What appears to be more useless is your mindless opinion of what the world can use.
SirJonathanTavener 3 years ago 2
Interesting little microcosm of classical music listeners in these comments....
From the comments of some of the more conservative listeners, one would think that it's impossible to go to a concert or click a link on youtube without hearing Xenakis.
Newsflash: no one is forcing you to listen to Xenakis. If you want to forget the last 100 years in music happened, that's your choice to make. But why impose your bitterness on those of us who *do* enjoy and love Xenakis' music?
p0lyph0ny 3 years ago 5
Interesting little microcosm of classical audiences in these comments....
From some of the comments of the more conservative listeners, you'd think people are forcing this music on them...as though you can't keep away from Xenakis, all the concert hall programming, everywhere you click on youtube, leads you to him! Far from it. If you don't like Xenakis' music, fine, but why impose your bitterness on the rest of us who do?
p0lyph0ny 3 years ago 2
Impassioned conducting from Inoue-makes a good foil for the pianist who has a very different personality.
japanesesweet 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
In this kind of music, composer can invent any rules of composition.
But invent rules means to do anything you want.
For this, in last analysis, this crap is nothing else but notes at random.
laurion69 3 years ago
Very profound words there..
TheBlackPage1 3 years ago
Yes, truth always is simple.
Beauty is subjective, you said.
And - subjectively - this work is nothing else but a huge, ugly rubbish.
laurion69 3 years ago