There's something incredibly sadistic about writing this kind of music and expecting a pianist to learn how to play it. It is amazing that people exist who are willing to go through it. I'm very glad they do exist, because i really love the result. Serious question though for any knowledgable musicky types out there - does this achieve anything that excellent improvised atonal music with much more 'random' note choices doesn't? Maybe it sounds more mechanistic and structured... but couldn't an improviser improvise mechanistic structured sounding stuff... Surely whatever the clever complicated generative patterns underlying the note choices are, are more or less impossible to actually perceive as a listener? I like improv, I like this, its all super
Your dilemma is natural and legitimate. But let's look at it from the other side: why should a contemporary composer deny himself from creating music that is "equal" in this sense to improvised music? Why should it not be the most tightly composed music? Let's even call it a form of experimentation or exploration of the limits of composition and performance. Cheers :D
This isn’t a dilemma. A good improviser can improvise any style of music, whether tonal or non-tonal. You can ask the exact same question of the moronic post-minimal quasi-tonal pieces that flood contemporary classical programs in the US. When I hear that music I think “why go through the trouble of writing this down”. Xenakis is in a league we won’t see again.
Firstly bravo for playing this. The rhythms are fiendishly difficult; I wonder if it's even possible to play them exactly as notated (7 in the space of 5, etc.). What I like about Xenakis is his music is very structured and he creates wonderful "sound worlds"...could be spikey/aggressive, soft/mysterious or even jazzy/funky. So although there may be "apparent randomness" to SOME of the notes, there is a very definite mood.
Wow, sensationellt och enormt vackert spelat, har aldrig hört någon så musikalisk tolkning tidigare. Kan inte föreställa mig hur lång tid detta måste ta att lära sig.
Wow! Sort of birdsong, but not ... a resonant, spiky smoothness, if that makes any sense. As with Messiaen, an entirely original composer whose work stands by itself, unique. Thanks for uploading; a marvellous performance.
This is amazing ... is there any discussion by the pianist about how to approach learning to play such a piece. How long did it take? What were the processes that s/he needed to go through to get it to this performance standard? What lessons are the for piano students learning challenging pieces? Hugely impressive composition and performance - thanks for posting this.
Hello Adam, thanks for your comments! I do have some answers scattered among the comments, but to summarise (and expand): 1) roughly 100 hours, although that's after almost 20 years of constantly playing big complex contemporary pieces, without that experience it takes much longer; 3) lessons for piano students - apart from the boring, necessary stuff (practise every note slowly with metronome, be patient, play the right notes in the right order, be patient again etc), I think it's very important to learn how to break down the difficulties into manageable chunks, develop a large repertoire of specific practice strategies, and to think hard about the priorities specific to each particular piece; 2) learning processes - I can't really go into much detail here (that'd be a book), but for Mists specifically, there are three texture types that are the main challenges: - four-part polyphony (0:43 and similar places) - first it's useful to observe that all four parts use exactly the same pitches, meaning that playing the right notes is actually important! Second, figuring out the right order of the notes, and identifying those meant to be played together (marked by Xenakis in the score). Then it just becomes a matter of successive approximations, with the goal of four smooth lines, moving at different speeds. The polyrhythms look frightening but don't actually add anything to the real difficulties. It's still really hard though. - fast arpeggios in both hands (2:50) - this is classical, but also really hard. - "clouds" (most of the piece from 3:31 on, 3:58 is a good example of maximum density and range) - this is mostly about finding good fingerings, grouping notes together and working out the position changes. Dynamics and pedalling instructions are also very important here. These pages are also (unsurprisingly) very hard. The good news is that the rest is easy!
Greetings Jonas! thank you so much for your prompt and generous answer - really fascinating and of great interest to musicians of all types more modest and mainstream. Although my area is jazz and SA township music, my father the composer Stanley Glasser was very engaged with 20th century serious music and I remember being to be taken to concerts as a teenager at the QEH and RFH on London’s South Bank where I first heard Boulez conducting ‘Pli Selon Pli’ and works by Iannis Xenakis. You have inspired me to return ( as a listener ) to this marvellous sound world thank you again
Extremely impressive playing, although I'm still unsure about the music. I'd be fascinated to know how one practises such complex music and to see your fingerings! Is it really possible to accurately play some of the polyrhythms, or is it just approximations? How about a RU-vid tutorial?🙂
Thanks! I'm afraid that would be the most boring RU-vid tutorial ever - I'd just say things like practise every note slowly with a metronome and be prepared to spend hundreds of hours. As for accuracy of polyrhythms (0:43 and similar places), it depends a lot on what you mean (isn't everything an approximation?) - I mostly play the right notes in the right order, but it's not really humanly possible to play four slightly different speeds in a mathematically exact way. An efficient approximation strategy would be to figure out the right order, including identifying those notes meant to be played together (the dotted vertical lines in the score), then tweaking the spacing so we end up with four smooth lines. Easier said than done.
That’s crazy! Next Lemma Icon Epigram lol. Then soon you can replace the player pianos for Nancarrows studies. Aside from the joking- this is insane and crazy. What a feat
Haha, thanks, actually I just recorded the Ferneyhough, but I should make a proper recording soon. No Nancarrow planned, but thinking of Boulez 2nd and Sciarrino 3rd sonatas.
It's basically a frequency/time graph, like all musical notation. Play all the notes in the right order, respect the horizontal spacing, the vertical lines are semiquavers. This is much easier said than done, especially around 4:00 - that's really a horribly difficult place. Sorry about the wrong notes at 3:59 and 4:04.
but Horowitz only played romantic repertoire - complex contemporary pieces like Mists require a bit more precision, otherwise the music will just sound bad
It's fun. If it's improvised after half bottle of whisky. ... I still don't understand, how came, that improvisation is almost forbidden... at least not taken serious, basically only allowed in jazz. I love jazz, but I'd love to play... just what I hear. What I want. What I feel. If I'd write it down, and someone else would play it, people would be amazed. This way they just don't give a shit. Interesting planet... but not for an other incarnation.