Talk:Metastaseis (Xenakis)

Comment

This needs more de-purpling of my prose and a sanity check; it's part of an essay I wrote for class three years ago. But since I had it sitting around, I attempted to make an article out of it, and unusually for something I write about a composition, none of it is actually original research. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 22:39, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Instrumentation

The article states at its start that the piece is for 65 musicians, but later says 61. Which is it? Realillusions 12:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It is 61 musicians, with the three percussionists playing seven instruments. I am going to correct this in the article's introduction. — Tobias Bergemann 12:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Orginal title of work (and the meaning of that title)

On the YouTube image that accompanies a recording of this piece ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI), I see that Xenakis calls the work "META – STASEIS". Puzzling. Not only is it not the Greek word for "metastasis" (that I can determine, not being a Greek speaker), but it's not even a word. It's not even one word, it's TWO WORDS, combined with a hyphen or dash. We all know what Meta means, but what does "Satseis" mean? Upon a lengthy Google search, I seem to find that it generally means "standing, station, status" -- all of which words mean pretty much the same thing. However, this does not necessarily bring us to an understanding of the title "Meta - Staseis". Does anyone have any direct quotes from Xenakis as to it's meaning, or have any insight into the Greek language? My guess is that it may refer to architectural structures. Softlavender (talk) 02:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Micropolyphony or not, that's the question

Well, this stuff reminds me a LOT of Ligeti's Atmosphères. Though it was Ligeti who coined the term in about 1961, it appears to me Xenakis uses the very same technique here even roughly 8 years before. Or would you experts (I can't call myself one) rather believe that the musical structure of "Metastasis" be different from micropolyphony? At least the "no member of the orchestra has the same score" bit is identical to what Ligeti conceived. -andy 77.190.4.110 (talk) 16:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

There is one important difference, and that is that Xenakis is gradually bending pitches along defined curves, whereas Ligeti's individual lines are more free to move in "melodic" fashion. In this way, the techniques used to produce the aural results are different. Both, however, are guided by global changes in density and register, so to this extent you are correct. In those days, of course (and for a long time after), it was something of a point of honour never to admit to having done anything that might be seen to have been done before, especially by a competitor. Therefore, Xenakis's "clouds" could not possibly be related to Stockhausen's "sound showers", nor could Boulez's Third Piano Sonata, Stockhausen's Klavierstück XI, or Haubenstock Ramati's "mobiles" have anything to do with Morton Feldman's series of Intersections or Henry Cowell's "Mosaic" Quartet. The cry (as lampooned in Monty Python's Life of Brian) was, "We are all individuals!" Of course, this is perfectly true: there are always distinctions to be made, often important ones. It is also true, however, that there is nothing new under the sun, and historians, authors of textbooks, and journalists are usually determined to keep as many of those dratted individuals from escaping their Procrustean pigeon-holes as possible. Personally, I think Elias Canetti's aphorism says it best: "It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:23, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Bartók, Fibonacci- really now?

"it was used often by Bartók, among others."

This is a claim made by some scholars but not a proven fact, with no evidence of intentionality and, I gather, controversy beyond that. Please distinguish between the two in any Wikipedia article beyond the level of stub. Thank you. Schissel | Sound the Note! 02:55, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Erno Lendvai's assertion has been contested and defended. As with many another case, musicologists strongly prefer direct evidence (a letter from Bartók or a notation in a compositional sketch with at least the word "Fibonacci" in it) to analyses of scores purporting to show these relationships. It might be better in the present situation to say something like "alleged to have often been used by Bartók", but there are certainly other composers who have provided the kind of direct evidence musicologists prefer. I would suggest that a couple of dozen of the literally hundreds of books and articles discussing the compositional use or purported use of the Fibonacci series be cited, in order not to rely solely on the Bartók claim.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

PS: The usual way of dealing with this kind of situation is to mark the offending passage with a "citation needed" request. I have just done this. Please feel free to do likewise in any future situation you notice.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I was under the impression, from my memory of my reading of the documentation of those templates, that it was best to start on the talk page and after a discussion- or if a discussion had not occurred after a reasonable period of time but one (believed one) had a reasonable case - to insert the relevant template. I've been doing it backwards (I thought) almost always anyway, but wanted to gradually start doing it what I'd started to gather was the right way (or, I now gather, maybe not. ... Ok. ... Hrm. :)

(Hrm. "Fractals in Music: Introductory Mathematics for Musical Analysis" analyzes the Bartók and Stockhausen cases (re Fibonacci and the Golden Mean...) (leave alone the suggestions of this in a number of possible/suggested earlier uses from the Liber Usalis through works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven to portions of Schoenberg Op.16/1&5, and some works by Debussy) and the best that can be said for them, according to the author (Charles B. Madden) is, I suppose, that an analysis of the Stockhausen Klavierstück IV (1954, rev. 1961) in terms of the Fibonacci Sequence makes sense if one allows oneself to ignore part of the piece, but none of the others make even that much except in a special-pleading sort of way... ) Schissel | Sound the Note! 22:57, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I have been overly bold for all these years, but whenever I see a dubious claim I jump right in and tag it (after first making at least a cursory search for a source, of course). I shall have to look up this article, it sounds like it might be fun. I confess to a little astonishment at the claim about Klavierstück IV, which could require ignoring more than just a small part of the piece to make anything from it resemble the Fibonacci sequence. However, it was composed in 1952, and those years of composition correspond to Klavierstück IX, which is a different matter altogether (here I would like to see which parts of the piece Madden thinks must be ignored, and why this might make any difference to the analyses by Jonathan Kramer and others. Fibonacci numbers are indisputable in many another Stockhausen composition, but none to my knowledge from before 1959. Somebody once claimed that Klavierstück III (1952) must use Fibonacci numbers on the strength of nothing more than the fact that it has 55 notes in it, and 55 is one of the Fibonacci numbers. The trouble is, when it was first composed it had 56 notes, the last of which was removed after the fact by the composer.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

My link for the Madden is Fractals in Music etc. (link to p.70, section on Stockhausen). I admit my (usual) ignorance (for now) as to the rest, and thanks! Schissel | Sound the Note! 19:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I see that it is in fact IX and not IV that Madden discusses, and he appears to be relying on Kramer's analysis. I assume he must be a mathematician rather than a musician, since he seems troubled by the fact that the piece is not made purely out of Fibonacci numbers! Composers (at least, the good ones) are rarely so finicky about following rules strictly. Certainly, anyone who is still counting when the pianist stops after just 142 (instead of 144) eighth notes is paying attention to the wrong thing! (Just for the record, in 1954 Stockhausen only made the vaguest of plans for the Klavierstücke IX and X. The Fibonacci numbers, along with everything else in the score, only came into being in 1961).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2015 (UTC)