During the 1950s and early 1960s‚ Iannis Xenakis represented an alternative avantgarde‚ with a radical approach to form and texture that rejected the serial mechanics of Boulez and Stockhausen‚ and involved a uniquely intense interpretation of ideas about probability and randomnessÊ–Êa world away from John Cage’s laidback experiments. The three works on this disc‚ composed between 1953 and 1964‚ show no signs of the kind of ethnic material that brought a new expressive dimension and sense of humanity to Xenakis’s music in later years. As such‚ they represent either a supremely visionary aural imagination‚ or a deadend obsession with calculation and control‚ and my own response to them continues to oscillate between these two extremes. The two short orchestral works‚ Metastasis and Pithoprakta‚ are undoubtedly far more austere‚ more primitive in their overall effect‚ than the exuberant‚ hyperactive Eonta‚ whose ferociously demanding writing for piano and five brass players pulsates with the kind of creative energy that the orchestral pieces seek to suppress. Performances are always going to be rare‚ so these reissues of pioneering accounts first released on LP in 1965 are significant historical documents. However‚ two more recent CD versions of Eonta are in the current catalogue‚ and all three scores undoubtedly benefit greatly from modern recording techniques‚ as well as presentday performance expertise. No amount of skill can sanitise the impact of this music‚ however‚ and Le Chant du Monde’s sound has the advantage of raw immediacy. If ever music needed to convey a sense of struggle‚ this is it.
