VOTD 5/7/2023

 Iannis Xenakis: Oresteia (Musical Heritage Society)

Purchased at Jerry's Records. Not from the Duquesne University collection this time.

I've been at this blog nearly steadily since late December, and I'm wary about something. I think sitting and writing is a positive thing, and I think I'm becoming aware of some of my bad habits. Adding unnecessary amplifiers would be one: "pretty good" instead of just "good," for example. I don't know if it is all coming to nothing, having just turned sixty and never seriously written anything outside of school assignments.

The part of this that concerns me is only writing about me. It's one thing if my intention is to provide thoughts and perhaps review recordings, partly with the intention of making better use of my library of records and CDs. When I start throwing in anecdotes, personal history, and facts I just happen to know, it's the alarms on my ego that start to sound, virtually saying, "What makes you think you're so interesting? Why are you always writing about yourself?"

I recognize that I've spent two paragraphs leading to that point. 

I'll belabor it further. I'm thinking of an old friend, with whom my contact current is only on Facebook. When he decides to respond to a posting, it's usually to the effect of, "I drove that band around in 1987" or "I met that person in 1985" or something similar. It would be far more annoying if it wasn't just Facebook and easily ignored. (I'm resisting going into more details in the unlikely event someone figures out who I'm writing about.) When I see myself doing something similar, I don't like it.

There are stories about Xenakis I've told many times. I mentioned his name when being interviewed for an oral history of Carnegie Mellon recently. Iannis was the first guest artist to appear on the CMU campus during my first year of college. At the time I didn't fully understand the significance. 

Xenakis' name became some of a running joke among some of my classmates that year. The CMU music department leans on the conservative side on the whole. I probably joked about him too, though I was intrigued enough that within a month or two of his appearance, I bought a used Xenakis LP at the Record Graveyard up the street from campus. I still have it. 

I've come to admire Xenakis and his music. I surely must have recordings of the majority of his works. Some of his orchestral music is so strident, it borders on the ridiculous. It sometimes feel like he's corralling physical forces more than composing. There are works I find to be quite dry, often the early algorithmic works calculated by computer. But even then, JACK Quartet proved on their recording of ST4 that a lively performance can add much to a dry work. 

I came across this record at Jerry's today. I haven't double checked, but I don't think it's a piece I have in my collection otherwise. It's an odd one, though compared to what? It is listed as being a "Suite for Ensemble of 12 Instrumentalists, Mixed Chorus and Children's Choir." I will confess to not having read the liner notes, so I'm speculating that it's something like an oratorio: operatic but never intended to be staged. 

It's vague, but this work seems to harken more to ancient music. Perhaps it's the use of chanting, perhaps the classical Greek themes: movements are titled "Agamemnon", "Choephores (Libation Bearers", and "Eumenides". Xenakis was very interested in classical Greek history and culture, and this piece maybe comes closest to....I'm not certain how to express it, drawing on that energy? Finding a more direct inspiration from those sources? In that respect, it's nice to have on hand because the work fills in a piece of Xenakis' overall canon. 

It's the second work of his I've heard using children's choir. Was it by choice or commission? I'm inclined to believe the later. The other work, Polla Ta Dhina, has the choir intoning a single pitch while a chaos of instruments roils beneath. 

This one was released on Musical Heritage Society. It was an interesting label, mail order I understand. Most of the MHS releases I've seen have been early music, Bach, Haydn, and the like, standard classical fare if leaning on the early side. But there's also a 20th century wing so to speak: an album of Ondes Martenot, a Messiaen playing Messiasen double LP, several albums of Sorabji, even a CD of Conlon Nancarrow ensemble pieces. Interesting. It's like Nonesuch in some ways, which was a good label for cheap standard lit & rep recordings but also had a modern line with some vanguard releases (not to mention the international albums, too). 

I bought so much at the dollar sale, but I couldn't pass up on Iannis. I might go back for more out of the $3 bins too....*sigh*