Edgard Varese Research Articles

On the critical editing of electronic and mixed music. Historical matters and new perspectives

Today, the sources of electronic and mixed music produced in the XXth century by analog means have entered the digital documentary domain. Therefore, the theoretical reflection on the ethics of preservation, restoration and re-issue of audiovisual documents cannot ignore the models of communication engineering: encodeing and decoding, audio signal processing – also implemented in the World Wide Web today – are of paramount importance. After World War II, a new musical research was born within the context of acoustical and electro-acoustical communication systems and it found a privileged thread in the Theory of Information. In the world of electronic and mixed music the technological system is an integral part of the compositional project, and the audio tracks represent a ‘projection’ of the production project. Audio recordings deliver to the editor an essential evidence for reconstructing the technical and theoretical world of the composers, which is to say their pre-post-history. In this paper, the meta-conceptual role of Information and Communication Theory is historized and it becomes an integral part of a systemic method for the restitution of the electronic musical work. With a wide range of examples (including works by Edgard Varese, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Gerard Grisey) we show peculiarities and issues of the critical editing of this repertoire.

Variations V: “Escaping Stagnation” Through Movement of Signification

Variations V, a collaborative event by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and composer John Cage, premiered on July 23,1965 at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts as part of the New York Philharmonic's French-American Festival. Following Edgard Varese's Hyperprism, Pierre Boulez's Improvisation sur Mallarme II, and Elliot Carter's Second String Quartet, Variations V contrasted greatly in composition and media with the pieces of the first half of the Philharmonic's program. Instead of orchestral instrumentalists performing live on their trumpets, cellos, and violins, recorded and radio sounds filled the concert hall through six speakers "distributed around Philharmonic Hall" (Hughes "Leaps" 1965:10); the choreographed movements of seven dancers occupied the stage; and filmed images projected on a screen behind them. The performance was an over­ whelming multimedia display, with no immediate connection between the various modes of artistic expression. This was not the case, however, as performances of Variations V in the 1960s depended on a complex interface for the production of simultaneity between visual and aural media, as woven by multiple voices of artistic authority. This interface may initially be traced to Cage and Cunningham, and their shared desire to create a performance in which movement on stage set sound into motion. However, multiple collaborators contributed their electronic designs to make performances of Variations V possible. To begin, a team of sound engineers created technology to mediate between motion and sound. The first piece of equipment was a fifty-channel mixer built by Max Mathews-an innovator in the field of computer and electronic music-one year prior to the French-American Festival in 1964, for Cage's New York Philharmonic premiere of Atlas Eclipticalis. Cage then called on a Swedish research scientist at Bell Labs, Wilhelm (Billy) Kluver, to construct a series of photocells. Whenever a dancer passed in front of a light source on stage and interfered with a cell's reception of that light, the interruption would trigger a change in sound. To add to this method of electronic sound activation were twelve high capacitance antennae constructed by Robert Moog, yet another innovator of electronic music; each one taken into consideration by Cunningham when he devised his choreographic design. Sounds emanated primarily from two types of sources: tape recorders and radios. All of the tapes were created by Cage before the premiere and

Edgard Varese: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary. Ed. by Felix Meyer and Heidy Zimmermann.

Edgard Varese: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary. Ed. by Felix Meyer and Heidy Zimmermann.

Edgard Varese: composer, sound sculptor, visionary

Edgard Varese: composer, sound sculptor, visionary

Chou Wen-Chung: The Life and Work of a Contemporary Chinese-Born American Composer (review)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY STUDIES Chou Wen-Chung: The Life and Work of a Contemporary Chinese-Born American Composer. By Peter M. Chang. (Composers of North America, No. 25.) Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006. [241 p. ISBN 0-8108-5296-9. $65.] Music examples, illustrations, index. A monograph on the life and work of Chou Wen-Chung, a prominent Chinese American composer who has contributed much to the development of postwar contemporary music in North America and abroad, is long overdue. In this book, Peter M. Chang offers a detailed chronological survey and analysis of Chou's music spanning over five decades. The book is organized into eight chapters: an overview of Chou's compositional style (chap. 1), extensive biography (chap. 2), chronological survey and analysis of works (chaps. 3-5), reception of Chou's music (chap. 6), Chinese approaches to musical synthesis (chap. 7), and epilogue (chap. 8). The appendices contain a list of Chou's complete works, instrumentation, and the date of premiere for each composition as well as a complete discography to date. The book is aimed at a wide range of readers, specialists and non-specialists alike, who seek an accessible introduction to Chou's musical language. And for a reader not acquainted with traditional Chinese philosophy and aesthetics of art, this book provides a useful introduction to Chinese poetry, the system of I Ching (Yijing), and other aesthetic concepts that have shaped Chou's distinctive approach to musical composition. Anyone who has met Chou Wen-Chung in person is amazed by the excitement and passion he brings to sharing his ideas, visions, and stories about his life experiences. While preserving Chou's style of storytelling in the biographical sketch, Chang supplies historical facts and evidence to contextualize critical facets of Chou's transcultural experiences. Chang begins by tracing Chou's familial roots in the Jiangsu province and describes the formative musical training Chou received within the rich cultural landscape of Shanghai, prior to his enrollment in Guangxi University and the National Chungqing University (p. 22). Following his exile during World War II, Chou developed his career as composer in the United States through his encounter with pivotal figures such as Nicholas Slonimsky and Edgard Varese, who steered Chou to embrace his own cultural traditions in developing his compositional voice. After completing his studies at the New England Conservatory and Columbia University, Chou engaged in an extensive study of Chinese traditional art, music, and drama, including calligraphy and qin (Chinese zither), through a Rockefeller grant (1955-57). In addition to his role as educator and administrator at Columbia University and other institutions, Chou vigorously promoted cultural exchange by founding the United States-China Exchange at Columbia University and conserving the cultural heritage of the Yunnan province in China. Last, but not least, Chou kept Varese's legacy alive by editing and finishing scores as well as handling recordings and publications of scores by his mentor. This chapter bears witness to Chou's multifaceted role as composer, educator, and humanitarian. A recurring thread one finds in Chang's writing about Chou's music is the profound ways in which Varese influenced the composer's conception of sound and compositional approach based on musical synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions. In his chronological survey and analysis of Chou's works, Chang focuses on Varese's influences vis-a-vis aesthetics of Chinese poetry and art forms that inspired Chou's music. Works from the 1940s and 1950s (chap. 3), such as Landscapes (1949) and And the Fallen Petals (1954) feature thematic recycling of materials derived from modal scales of Chinese origin. An analysis of Willows are New (1957) is accompanied by commentary on traditional Chinese use of qin; Chang also offers a detailed discussion of the important qin composers throughout the dynasties and elaborates on the four types of sounds used in the playing style of qin and illustrates how these gestures are translated in Chou's works (p. …

Henri Dutilleux: Music, Mystery and Memory. Conversations with Claude Glayman (review)

Henri Dutilleux: Music, Mystery and Memory. Conversations with Claude dayman. Trans, by Roger Nichols. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. [vi, 158 p. ISBN 0-7546-0899-9. $69.96.] Bibliography, works list, discography, index of names. Now recognized as one of the great composers of his generation, Henri Dutilleux is well known not only for his individualism and independence of position, but for his discretion and reserve in matters concerning his life and music. All the more fascinating, therefore, for the composer to have at last aired many of his personal views concerning his family background, artistic development, training, and career in the form of conversations with the French writer and journalist Claude dayman. During the course of wide-ranging and penetrating interviews, Dutilleux reveals much about his approach to composition and the influences on his musical style. He discusses his music from the period of the Piano Sonata to The Shadows of Time and sheds tantalising light on future compositional plans, one of which has since come to fruition (Sur le meme accord for violin and orchestra, 2001-2002, written for Anne-Sophie Mutter). The conversations give many valuable insights into the subtle complexities of French musical life, its personalities and institutions, throughout the second half of the twentieth century and create contexts for the activities of a great many of his contemporaries, including the younger generation. Dutilleux also touches on his period in Italy on the eve of World War II and comments on life in France from the German Occupation to the Liberation. Reflecting the internationalism of his career, Dutilleux discusses his involvements outside France; most notably his time spent in the United States, as well as visits to the former Soviet Union, Poland (at the time of the first Warsaw Autumn Festival), and other former Eastern Block countries. Throughout, the conversations illustrate Dutilleux's characteristic generosity in respect of his views about other composers and almost unreserved admiration for a select few. Appearing in English translation for the first time, these conversations emerged in two phases. The original French edition, containing dayman's interviews with Dutilleux in 1992, was published as Henri Dutilleux: Mystere et memoire du son by Belfond (Paris, 1993) as part of their well established series of conversations with a wide range of distinguished musical, artistic and literary figures of the twentieth century. That Dutilleux's conversations were published as part of this series is indicative of the esteem in which he is held in France: Belfond's series includes Claude Rostand's conversations with Darius Milhaud (1952), Georges Charbonnier's conversations with Edgard Varese (1970) Pierre Bougeade's with Man Ray (1972), Alain Bosquet's with Salvador Dali (1983), Claude Samuel's with Olivier Messiaen (1986), and Pascal Vrebos' with Henry Miller (1991), as well as many others. Further discussions took place between dayman and Dutilleux in 1996; an indication perhaps of the composer's notorious predilection for detailed revision, as well as Glayman's admirable desire to commemorate Dutilleux's eightieth birthday. The complete interviews were published in a revised edition under the original title by Actes Sud in 1997, the later interviews comprising the new second section of the volume. (Each section in the 1997 edition is dated.) The revised edition provides the text for Roger Nichols' translation. Although an oversight has resulted in the omission of the date for the second section in the English edition, the text itself clarifies chronology. Both French editions include some useful appendices (list of works, bibliography and discography) as well as an indispensable index of names. The table of contents draws attention to particular issues and themes, as well as major works, and highlights aspects of the composer's periodization. (The revised French edition presents the table of contents more conveniently at the front of the volume, as is now increasingly the practice in France. …

Strands of the future: France and the birth of electronica

The early history of 1970s electronic rock music, or electronica, often centres on the innovations of Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, whose creative roots are identified as in avant-garde modernist and contemporary music (e.g. Luigi Russolo, Edgard Varese, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Schaeffer). German, British and American artists have gained wide recognition for their roles in this history, but French artists who made important contributions to developments in early electronica have seemingly been overlooked. This oversight is arguably due to a general antipathy to French rock of the 1970s (both inside and outside France) (Looseley: 2003), the considerable antagonism of rock critics to the progressive rock genre (then and since) (Sheinbaum, 2002), and perhaps due to the prejudices and priorities of earlier academic studies of popular music (Hebdige, 1979).This study analyses the work of Pulsar, Richard Pinhas / Heldon, and Jean-Michel Jarre, and suggests these artists, though having diverse creative agendas, produced music that was more than a simple imitation of 1970s British progressive rock. Alongside their foreign counter-parts, they attempted to transform and challenge Anglo-American pop and rock music. They forged a creative path that looked outside the French context for inspiration, while creating music that connected to the twentieth century French tradition of electronic music - from Messiaen to Boulez to Jean-Jacques Perrey. Rather than viewing this music as being created in the shadow of Eno, Robert Fripp and Pink Floyd, it is suggested that it may well be a fruitful exercise to excavate and re-evaluate French electronic rock music of the 1970s. With the recent growing success of French Techno, it seems an appropriate time to reconsider earlier French electronica, as it has yet to be adequately explored either inside or outside the French context.

The Antennae of the Race

An examination of the arts at the dawn of the 20th century reveals ideals, developments, and problems that would later have a defining impact on our culture. While still in the shadow of great master artists such as Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Munch, Cezanne, Degas, and Renoir, and composers Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, and Rachmaninoff, the emerging avant-garde expressed the thoughts, subjects, techniques, and moods of that time. Artists such as Matisse, Picasso, and Kandinsky, and composers Schoenberg, Ives, Stravinsky, and Debussy were at the cutting edge of new progressive ideas emerging within the arts. Eventually they became the revolutionary figures that created the new languages that defined and set the course for the new century. visionary inventors of new technologies such as cinematic, photographic, and audio recording devices, and electronic musical instruments philosophized on the infinite possibilities for creating and recording images and sounds, sparking a renaissance that further expanded the boundaries of art and music. Throughout civilization the question, But is it art? has been argued by those opposed to innovation, among them Plato, who stated that any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state and ought to be prohibited. For example, during the 1913 Paris premiere performance of Stravinsky's Rites of Spring, the audience jeered and hurled objects at the orchestra. Not unlike photography, which took more than a half-century to be taken seriously as a fine art, video spent years on the cultural fringe before reaching the museum gallery. Although Andy Warhol and Nam June Paik first used video in the 1960s, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that video installations moved to the forefront of new expression in contemporary art, and artists such as Warhol, Paik, Bill Viola, Dara Birnbaum, Gary Hill, and others began creating large and compelling bodies of work. They are today's imagery revolutionaries and the progenitors of a wide range of new approaches made possible with computers in the creation of digital art. Today's avant-garde music has developed through the invention of new instruments and unique ways of creating and using sounds. It draws upon a tradition that dates back to 1898, when Thaddeus Cahill invented the Telharmonium, an electronic music synthesizer that generated music via telephone lines, and 1913, when the Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo published Art of Noises, a manifesto calling for the inclusion of the noises of everyday life into music. This concept spread further in the late 1930s with John Cage and the French musique concrete movement in the 1940s, which incorporated chance and manipulation of sounds into compositions. Current trends in today's avant-garde music have evolved in the last half of the 20th century through works by John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varese, and many others. These artists have opened up music to include all sounds, presenting us with new technologies that compose and transform sounds, therefore interacting with musical instruments in new ways. As Joel Chadabe, pioneer composer, historian, and President of the Electronic Music Foundation points out, today's music is about the integration of the sounds of the world around us into dynamic structures that allow for public interaction. In his words, The most important trend in music today, made possible entirely by electronic technology, is that ... it is moving closer to life. As with the 20th century, the cultural production at the dawn

Elliott Carter: collected essays and lectures, 1937-1995

Part 1 Surveying compositional scene: composer's viewpoint (1946) a further step (1958) challenge of new (1960-62/94) fallacy of mechanistic approach (1946) musique serielle aujourd'hui (1964/94) ISCM Festival, Rome (1959) Rasputin's End and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1960) letter from Europe (1963) ISCM Festival, Amsterdam (1963/94). Part 2 music: once again swing - also American music (1939) music in New York scene (1940) agony of modern music in America, 1955 (1955/94) rhythmic basis of music (1955) European roots of musical culture (1961/94) Expressionism and music (1965/72) the composer is a university commodity (1970). Part 3 Charles Ives: case of Mr Ives (1939) Ives today - his vision and challenge (1944) an destiny (1946) Charles Ives remembered (1974) documents of a friendship with Ives (1975). Part 4 Some other composers: Gabriel Faure (1945) three late sonatas of Debussy (1959/94) figure, with landscape - Henry F. Gilbert (1943) Stravinsky in 1940 Igor Stravinsky - two tributes (1971) on Edgard Varese (1975/79) Edward Steuermann (1966) Walter Piston (1946) Roger Sessions - violin concerto (1959) in memoriam - Roger Sessions, 1896-1985 (1985/95) in memoriam - Stefan Wolpe, 1902-1972 (1972) two essays on Goffredo Petrassi (1960, 1986) to think of Milton Babbitt (1976) for Pierre Boulez on his 60th (1985). Part 5 Life and work: to be a composer in America (1953/94) composer's choices (circa 1960) shop talk by an composer (1960) time dimension in music (1965) two sonatas, 1948 and 1952 (1969) string quartets No 1, 1951, and No 2, 1959 (1970) orchestral composer's point of view (1970) on Saint-John Perse and concerto for orchestra (1974/94) brass quintet (1974) double concerto, 1961, and duo, 1974 (1975) music and time screen (1976) elle est la musique en personne - a reminiscence of Nadia Boulanger (circa 1985/95) reminiscence of Italy (1988). Part 6 Philosophy, criticism and other arts: more about Balanchine (1937) with dancers (1938) remembering Balanchine (1991/95) theatre and films (1943) genial sage - Paul Rosenfeld (1948) introduction to a poetry reading by W.H. Auden (1969) music as a liberal art (1944) time lecture (1965/94) Gesamtkunstwerk (1966/94) Soviet music (1967/94) music criticism (1972). Appendices: notes on sources published writings by Carter not included in this collection.

Echoes from the Gorge; Percussion Quartet (1989)

In many ways, Chou Wen-chung's percussion quartet Echoes from Gorge serves as paradigm of music in latter half of twentieth century, in which element of has been elevated to position of eminence. This view of sound, revealed in Edgard Varese's use of term organized sound in preference to has been explained by Chou himself as a modern Western parallel of pervasive Chinese concept: that each single tone musical entity in itself, that musical meaning lies intrinsically in themselves, and that this concept is manifest in great emphasis placed on production and control of tones, which often involves an elaborate vocabulary of articulations, modifications in timbre, inflections in pitch, fluctuations in intensity, vibratos, and tremolos (Chou Wen-chung, Concepts and Twentieth-Century Western Composers, The Musical Quarterly 57 [1971]: 214, 216). This concern for the production and control of tones readily apparent in score to Echoes from Gorge. Seventy-two instruments are distributed evenly among four players and grouped by timbral or articulatory characteristics into families: lignophones, for example, claves, wood blocks, castanets, and temple blocks; metallophones, featuring Asian cup bells and Chinese cymbals that impart distinct oriental flavor; membranophones, such as bongos, timbales, tom-toms, and bass drums; and instruments capable of multiple articulations, such as snare and parade drums. Instruments are also categorized by characteristics of tessitura (high and low sounds), sonority, and pitch (undulating and sliding, former produced by large metal sheet and latter by lion's roar). Chou stipulates use of ten specific playing areas, from edges or rims of instruments to their centers, and twenty-five implements in addition to fingers. Fluctuations in intensity of are controlled through notation of subtle gradations in dynamic levels, at times on note-by-note basis. The coordination of multiple playing areas, number of implements, and fluctuating dynamic levels pose significant challenge for percussionist. For example, one player required to strike large gong fortissimo near its rim with hard yarn mallet in right hand, while left hand simultaneously executes mezzo-forte stroke at center with wood beater. The titles of twelve short sections of this twenty-minute work evoke an orientally inspired imagery: Raindrops on Bamboo Leaves, Shadows in Ravine, Droplets Down Rocks. Some sections are devoted to instruments of one family - metallophones in Clear Moon, membra-nophones in Drifting Clouds; others are distinguished by textural characteristics sustained, rolled sounds in Peaks and Cascades and very dense fabric in Sonorous Stones. The rhythmic structure not based on meter, but on permutations of six rhythmic modes derived from permutations of durational ratios of 3:2:1. An expressive performance of Chou's Echoes from Gorge requires consummate musicianship and ensemble playing of highest order. This literature that makes available to percussion ensemble an opportunity for musical expression previously found only in long established chamber repertory written for instruments of string, woodwind, and brass families. Wolfgang Rihm has an extensive list of works to his credit, embracing chamber music, instrumental pieces, vocal and choral works, chamber operas, pieces for music theater, and orchestral music. He has been particularly inclined to write for orchestras of Mahlerian proportions. Percussion has played prominent roles in many of these works. Rihm's Stuck for three percussionists, short theatrical event. It was written in 1988-89, product of same approximate period as his major work for musical theater, Die Eroberung von Mexico. Each of three performers in Stuck are limited to single instrument: bongo, suspended cymbal, and wood block. …

Varèse's Multimedia Conception of Déserts

Edgard Varese's Deserts is a landmark work that had a great influence on the post-World War II generation of composers. Its premiere, on 2 December 1954, was one of those beaux scandales that make Paris Paris,1 but the public's jeering had serious consequences. As the live radio transmission of the performance was the first stereophonic broadcast in French radio history, radio executives were listening to it; the shouts that they heard of salaud and pendez-le! nearly caused the cancellation of funding for Pierre Schaeffer's studio of musique concrete where the taped portion of the piece was completed, and which was under the national radio's subsidy.2 Moreover, Varese was never reinvited to work in France.

"New Music" and the "New Negro": The Background of William Grant Still's "Afro-American Symphony"

William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony has taken on mythic proportions in the history of African-American music. First performed in 1931, it stands as a powerful symbol of black achievement-as one of the first symphonies by an African-American composer, as the first work by a black to be performed by a major orchestra, and as one of the most widely recognized musical manifestations of the Harlem Renaissance. Yet, in addition to being regarded solely for its position within black American culture-a point of view taken by most writers about the work, from Eileen Southern in The Music of Black Americans to Rae Linda Brown and others in specific studies of the piece (Southern 1983, 424-425; Brown 1990, 75)-the symphony also deserves consideration in terms of the broad artistic movements of the day. Alongside its preeminent position among black concert works of the early twentieth century, the AfroAmerican Symphony belongs with a group of pivotal pieces by white composers written in 1930 and 1931, especially Aaron Copland's Piano Variations, Ruth Crawford's String Quartet, and Edgard Varese's Ionisation. These compositions signal a time of profound transition in American culture, capping a decade of economic prosperity and exceptional artistic openness when the values and styles of the past faced bold challenges. Change marched under many banners during the twenties,

The Perception of Rhythm in Non-Tonal Music: Rhythmic Contours in the Music of Edgard Varèse

This paper develops a theory that models nonbeat-based rhythms as contours of relative longs and shorts, drawing upon discussions of temporal spaces appearing in recent work of Robert Morris and David Lewin and upon various music-psychological investigations of rhythmic perception. A new type of temporal space is proposed: a duration space (d-space) analogous to Morris's contour space, in which elements are ordered sequentially from short to long. After developing equivalence relations for d-space segments, illustrated by excerpts from Edgard Varese's Octandre, the paper concludes with an analysis of Density 21.5 that focuses upon relationships among rhythmic contours. rther, the melody that concludes the entire composition, elody (e) of Example 11, is the longest continuously rising

The Perception of Rhythm in Non-Tonal Music: Rhythmic Contours in the Music of Edgard Varese

The Perception of Rhythm in Non-Tonal Music: Rhythmic Contours in the Music of Edgard Varese

The Music of Edgard Varese

The Music of Edgard Varese

The Music of Edgard Varese

The Music of Edgard Varese

Innovation in the Music Curriculum

During the 1960s the music of the Beatles was not the only new musical influence confronting schoolchildren. In a number of classrooms in England and North America could be heard sounds which related to the work of a number of twentieth century composers, notably John Cage, Edgard Varese, Stockhausen and many others. By 1970 "creative music in schools" had arrived. [The British Inspectorate of Schools issued a paper advocating the use of various improvisatory and compositional approaches to class music. Where did this all begin? This paper attempts to explain and trace the origins of such practices.

The Amazing Mr. Cowell

When Henry Cowell founded the New Music Society in Los Angeles in 1925 (Figure 1), he discovered very quickly that there were few contemporary scores available for his performers. Other than manuscripts given to him by his friends Edgard Varese, Carl Ruggles, and Dane Rudhyar, scores of ultramodern music-the type Cowell planned to perform at his concerts-were not accessible because commercial publishers were not interested. But since he was Henry Cowell and had the great Irish god Manaunaun on his side, he solved the problem almost singlehandedly; in 1927 he established the New Music Quarterly. Only a man like Cowell with the audacity to battle the establishment and the resourcefulness to find new ways of tackling musical problems would take on such an overwhelming task. How long Cowell intended to continue publishing New Music-a journal of scores only and whether he planned at some time to turn it over to a commercial enterprise are not known, but the happy outcome of his original plan became a landmark in contemporary music, which lasted thirty-two years, published over 200 works, and became an inspiration for avant-garde composers in America and around the world.

Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgard Varèse

This quotation hardly seems a promising beginning to what is, after all, an analytical study. In fact, there would be little reason to cite it, were it not for the fact that the words are Edgard Varese's own. There is a good deal of vehemence in these wordsmuch of it, we may gather, directed against the study of music as it was pursued in the academic institutions of Varese' s student days. Beyond that, however, the passage above bespeaks an attitude about musical composition: a process that is the business of the composer and no one else. Given Varese's condemnation of analysis-by implication, of anyone's music-is there any point in attempting to analyze his own music, which may have been designed, among other things, to foil such attempts? Do we even have any right at all, morally speaking, to investigate? As a matter of fact, there are valid reasons for proceeding with this study. Varese has had a considerable, if somewhat vaguely defined, impact upon composition over the past quarter-century or so-in other words, dating from about the time when he began to receive general

Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgard Varese

Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgard Varese