RE: [microsound] process [was :new autechre]

[Paulo Mouat <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: vze26m98 [mailto:vze26m98@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> To the extent it became outdated, I think you'd have to 
> acknowledge that Xenakis continued his view at least until 
> 1967, when he introduced his theory of Sieves (in "Vers une 
> metamusique") with a rehash of his polemic against serialism.
> 
> So is Xenakis at both "perceptive" in 1955 and "outdated" in 1967?

Well, that article merely uses the 2nd Viennese school as context and
starting point for his own stress on outside-time structures.  Maybe it was
an abuse of language in the Vargas interview to speak of the Darmstadt folks
as the everlasting ambassadors of serialism--they certainly were at a
certain point in time, but by 1955 the outlook was certainly changing:
Boulez's dabbling with integral serialism lasted half a handful of works,
e.g. Polyphonie X (1951) and Structures 1a (1952), the former subsequently
withdrawn from his catalogue precisely because the composer felt the idiom
was not wholly satisfactory (although I find it an interesting piece);
Stockhausen never engaged in strict integral serialism, although the concept
of the series and tone row is prevalent in the works of the time but yet one
can't say that a serial work as e.g. Klavierstuck I (1952) could be achieved
by stochastic sound clouds and masses--in fact, he was already making use of
the concept of 'group' in that piece; same for Ligeti, which in 1958 was
saying "serial music was doomed to the same fate as all previous kinds of
music. At birth it already contained the seeds of its own dissolution"; Nono
too had a brief venture into strict serialism and was quickly disappointed;
etc.  If what Xenakis said was on the verge of becoming outdated in 1955, it
was certainly so in 1967--but as I mentioned above, I wouldn't say that by
this time he was still trying to warn everybody of the deadendedness of
serialism, just using a common and well-known example to springboard his
argument.  In any case, the crisis article constituted a perfectly valid and
clear justification for the stochastic approach to composition, although the
'problems' detailed therein were more or less commonly known or felt.

//p
http://www.interdisciplina.org/00.0/


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