Palimpsest

Palimpsest

Track Listings

1. Palimpsest

2. Man'Yo # 3A-37/750A54 Zero Crossings [Extended Mix II]

3. Man'Yo # 3A-37/507417 Zero Crossings [Edit][Edit]

Tracks:

Evryali (1973) for piano solo (9:51)
Herma (1960-61) for piano solo (7:43)
Mists (1980) for piano solo (12:51)
A.r. (1987) for piano solo (2:31)
Piano and instruments:
Dikthas (1979) for violin and piano (14:37)
Jane Peters, violin
Palimpsest (1979) for piano, six drums, winds and strings (12:41)
The Society for New Music conducted by Charles Peltz

Album Description

This is the first time Xenakis' complete works for solo piano have been collected on a single disc. They are brilliant, virtuoso masterworks of the 20th century piano literature. Despite that most of these works are derived from Xenakis' use mathematical models in their composition, he is always concerned with the overall sound and esthetic result. Diabolically difficult to play, Xenakis himself considered Evryali "Éa kind of athletics for hands, body and brain". The score indeed appears complex, notes proliferate and spread over one to five staves. One is stunned by the sheer virtuosity, the chains of continuously chattering sixteenth notes, and the brilliance and fullness of the overall sound which embraces the extreme registers of the keyboard. Mists indeed invokes its title. It is a work of full of voluminous, opaque clouds interspersed with transparent, pointillistic nebulae; a sonic haze of subtle textures. Herma, Greek for "embryo" or "bond," refers to its use of musical cells which divide and multiply. It is a marvel of contrasting linear courses with clouds of sound varying in instensity and timbre. And the dazzling virtuosity; increasing in speed and intensity, culminating toward the end in an outburst of sound requiring the performer to produce an eveness of touch in the piano's extreme registers while playing up to 20 notes a second. Dikhthas takes advantage of the nature of its two instruments. Xenakis provides a piano part full of clusters and dense polyphonic textures and assigns the violin portamento, glissandi, harmonics and quarter-tones. A highly expressive work, it explores a colorful sonic environment with virtuoso runs for both instruments. The title Palimpsest stands for a reusable piece of parchment on which the writing has been rubbed out and something new has been written in its place. Palimpsest consists of superimposed musical layers, with layers of percussion, string and wind textures alternatively and later simultaneously added to the opening sound layer of the piano. A sort-of concerto for piano and chamber orchestra, the piano as the lead instrument pits itself against the energetic sounds of the ensemble. A.r. (Hommage ^ Ravel) was commissioned by Radio France to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ravel's death. The conciseness and virtuosity of A.r. make it an ideal encore piece, and it closes the disc here.

Customer Reviews:

wonderful piano end-of-the-world solos, all in one place.......2000-11-05

Herma was first performed in Toyko by Yuji Takahashi in February 1962, and represented the stochastic methods Xenakis had pioneered utilizing the ancient-like computers of that day. It is subtitled "musique symbolique pour piano". Herma means "bond" or it can mean "embryo". The extreme pointillism is forever a fascinating maze for the listener to enter,but the process here is that this piece attempts to cohere and doesn't, so we have an endless tension,irresolvable. The Xenakis aesthetic equates sound to nature,to process,clouds,arborecences,geometric metaphors,all of which has worked quite well in his hands.Sound as a metaphor like a fixed gaze at sound, at timbre as a stationary object, yet it motions itself internally.In Xenakis we cannot say the work has an internal process from tradition,he had never worked along those lines.

Herma was an early masterwork and a well thought departure from the serial tyranny of the times. When you listen to Herma, it is still linearly, there is no real texture to contemplate. Texture for Xeankis came later with Evyrali. The title means something uncontrollable, also dangerous, and here the work portrays an anger, but subjectivity doesn't quite work in Xeankis since his creations have a somewhat anoymous dimension to them. The continuous repetitions in Evyrali is spellbinding, it has that end-of-the-world feel to it, some irrational part of nature is being explored,not quite like Hitchcock's "The Birds" where the cinema screen can be thought of as a texture when you see the flocks and mobs, and gatherings of the Birds. Like wise Mists seems to be cut from the same cloth as evyrali,repetition,mindless it seems, texture bound which does maintain our interest. Texture has been a point of interest and repulsion within modernist expressions. Elliott Carter never found texture an interesting route for modernist expression,Carter has argued that texture in an of itself doesn't hold our interest,nor has it a structural potential,as linear musical thinking. I think it does if handled with some vision, as Xenakis so does with all these works.

Takahashi here knows this music very well, one of the premiere performers of this music.She brings a point that her hands are mere conduits. The chamber works see the piano situated within the welter of opaque colours.

Simeon Ten Holt: Palimpsest
Average customer rating:

Among his best

RNZ

Simeon Ten Holt: Palimpsest

Manufacturer: Donemus Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00004SP8T
Release Date: 2000-04-25

Customer Reviews:

Among his best.......2007-06-11

Just beautiful, intricate and light, like Amsterdam on a sunny Spring morning. I can't understand why it's not available in the US.

RNZ.......2002-12-22

This leaves a deep impression deep down in the crevices of your brain.....powerful ,engaging, emotional .From making the hair on your skin stand to simple foreboding....

Average customer rating:

Palimpsest
Yasunao Tone & Hecker
Manufacturer: Mego Austria
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Japan | Far East & Asia | International | Styles | Music

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0006J2G16
Release Date: 2004-11-16

Tracks:

Palimpsest
Man'Yo # 3A-37/750A54 Zero Crossings [Extended Mix II]
Man'Yo # 3A-37/507417 Zero Crossings [Edit][Edit]

Average customer rating:

correction

LOOK BOTH WAYS

Manufacturer: INNOVA
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00004Z46N
Release Date: 2000-09-26

Tracks:

Sequenza I
Debussy Deb-You-Do Pt.1
Debussy Deb-You-Do Pt.2
Sax Lines And Audio Tape
Sequenza VII
Sequenza VII/Palimpsest
Sequenza IXa
In The Pocketa Pocketa

Customer Reviews:

correction.......2007-02-26

The first piece on the cd is called Sequenza I, not Serenata for Flute and 14 Instruments. I should know because it is my cd. David Sherr

Iannis Xenakis: Palimpsest / Epéi / Dikthas / Akanthos

Average customer rating:

Iannis Xenakis: Palimpsest / Epéi / Dikthas / Akanthos
Iannis Xenakis (Composer) , Spectrum , Guy Protheroe (Conductor) , and Irvine Arditti (Violin) & Claude Helffer (Piano)
Manufacturer: Wergo Germany
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00008G1TL
Release Date: 1993-12-08

ASKO Ensemble - Live 1: Iannis Xenakis (Echange / Palimpsest / Waarg / Eonta) - Harry Sparnaay / Aki Takahashi / David Porcelijn

Average customer rating:

ASKO Ensemble - Live 1: Iannis Xenakis (Echange / Palimpsest / Waarg / Eonta) - Harry Sparnaay / Aki Takahashi / David Porcelijn
Iannis Xenakis (Composer) , ASKO Ensemble , and David Porcelijn (Conductor)
Manufacturer: Adda
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00008EMHQ
Release Date: 1993-09-01

Music Review:

Music Review

music review