Xenakis [Import] [Paperback]

Nouritza Matossian (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Kahn & Averill; New Ed edition (1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 187108217X
• ISBN-13: 978-1871082173
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,275,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Matossian's brilliant exposition of Xenakis, October 28, 2005

By 

Roger Woodward (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Xenakis (Paperback)

Matossian's briliant exposition of Xenakis's complete works (updated in her most recent publication, October, 2005) provides the classroom a much sought after standard reference which is a classic.

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable material on a great composer, December 17, 2010

By 

R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Xenakis (Hardcover)

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2000) was one of the great composers of the late 20th Century. This now out-of-print book from 1986 is one of the most important resources on Xenakis in English.

It is a biography, but the focus is on his music and architecture, not his personal life. For me, the most valuable part of the book is the extensive coverage of his participation and leadership in the Resistance from 1941-1945 (19-30). This heroic movement against foreign occupation and fascism culminated in tragegy when the British demanded the surrrender of the Communist-led forces, which according to Xenakis had the support of 70% of the population, and the EAM and ELAS capitulated, leading to right-wing rule in Greece until the generals were removed from power in 1974. There is a great photo of Xenakis in Athens in 1974 upon his long-delayed return from a 27-year exile (229). The book includes several other black-and-white photos and drawings, including Xenakis with his wife and daughter (231), Xenakis at Persepolis in Iran (217), and Xenakis in the front row of a march in Athens on March 25, 1942 protesting the German occupation (21).

This may be the single best book on Xenakis in English, but Harley's is the most comprehensive on Xenakis's music, Conversations With Iannis Xenakis makes great reading, and then there is Xenakis's own Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (Harmonologia Series, No 6), which is of course indispensable.

Matossian does a good job of presenting context for understanding Xenakis's music, while lacking the ability to go into as much depth into the theory and construction of the compositions as Harley or Xenakis himself.

(verified library loan)

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully lucid insights into a modern music original, July 19, 1999

By 

Rachel Abbinanti ([e-mail]) (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Xenakis (Paperback)

Matossian knew the Xenakis family,and she gleaned considerable insights into Xenakis,the architect and composer. She traverses his life in work up to the middle Eighties,his life in Paris, the time of working for Le Corbusier.There are short yet comprehensive chapters hitting all the relavent points in his oeuvre. The early theories on stochastic music an alternative to the moribund state of serial 12-Tone thinking,also polytopes,a visual work with lasers. Xenakis had actually thought of a graphic representation utilizing lasers to beam across the earth,so if extraterrestial life exists it would have an image of us. She also discusses his theatre music,ones returning to Greece after the demise of the junta in the summer of 1974. This ended twenty years of exile,and also a Light and Sound Commission for the Shiraz Festival in Iran in August 1971, a sight on the ruins at Persepolis.. There is also a marvelous section on the theories of arborescences or "branching" ideas that Xenakis had sought parallels to the sonic world in terms of pitch-time. The profundity here is that the theories surrounding Xenakis and his music are seldom discussed in such a straightforward,lucid manner. Ususally if you read Xenakis himself,these theories are accompanied by high math items.Matossian has found a nice balance here in analysis of the music"Nomos Alpha" for violoncello" and "evryali" for piano solo,two great examples, with excerpts and the science oriented theories that acompany it that Xenakis had discovered.