Edgard Varèse - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

His/her father, engineer, were Italian, and his Burgundian mother. Having left its studies of engineering to Polytechnic of Turin, he studies with Vincent d' Indy with the Schola Cantorum (1903 - 1905) and Charles-Marie Widor with the Conservatoire of Paris (1905 - 1907); then it moved with Berlin, where it met Richard Strauss and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1913 it returns to Paris, but in 1915, disappointed by the means offered to the Compositeur S, it decided to emigrate in New York. It spent its first years to the United States to meet the main actors of the American music, promoting its vision of new instruments of Electronic music, directing orchestras, and creating the New Symphony Orchestra. It is about at this period that Varèse started to work on Americas , which was completed in 1921. In this Varèse work body to the sound matter is particularly attentive to give protean: it transforms sound masses into colors timbrales, sets of interactions reciprocal untied of the influence of a system. It was necessary for him for that to integrate new concepts of sonority which transform the traditional parameters of the music of broader categories, therefore in “fields”, moving concept, but more in phase with the research developed by fundamental sciences of today. Indeed, in the Quantum theory of the fields, resulting from work on the electromagnetism, the exact results are rare, and one must usually call upon methods of successive approximations (theory known as also of the disturbances). One will note also the agreement of the composition of Americas with the publication of the theory of the General relativity of Einstein (1916).

It is after the completion of this work that Varèse founded International Composers' Guild, (International association of the Type-setters), dedicated to the interpretation of new works of American and European type-setters, and for which it composed many its parts for instruments of Orchestre and voice, like Offrandes in 1922, Hyperprism in 1923, Octandre in 1924, and Intégrales in 1925.

In 1928, Varèse went back to Paris to modify certain parts of Americas by including there the Ondes Martenot which there had just been invented. It composed in 1931 its more famous nonelectronic work entitled Ionization . One often presents Ionization like the first part written for percussions only: this is an error insidiously installed and maintained by Varèse itself (cf Alejo Carpentier). If one disregards “Interlude” written by Chostakovitch for the opera the Nose , the first work for percussions alone of the Western erudite music is Ritmica V (1929) of Amadeo Roldán. Although written for existing instruments, Ionization was conceived like a search for new sounds and new methods to create them. In 1933, whereas Varèse was always in Paris, it wrote with the Fondation Guggenheim and the Laboratoires Beautiful in the hope to obtain funds to develop an electronic music studio. Its following composition, Ecuatorial , finished in 1934, contained parts for Thérémine S, and Varèse, anticipating an answer favorable to its request for funds, went back to the United States to create its electronic music there.

Varèse wrote Ecuatorial for two thérémines, basic voice, wind S and percussions at the beginning of the Années 1930. It was created the April 15th 1934, under the direction of Nicolas Slonimsky. Then Varèse left New York, where he had lived since 1915, and went to Santa Fe, San Francisco and Los Angeles. When Varèse returned in 1938, Leon Theremin had returned in Russia. This despaired Varèse, which had hoped to work with Theremin with an improvement of the instrument. Varèse had also presented the thérémine at the time of its voyages in the east, and a demonstration of it the November 12th 1936 had made at the time of a conference at the university of new Mexico with Albuquerque.

When towards the end of the Years 1950, Varèse was contacted by an editor to publish Ecuatorial , it only remained very little of thérémines, and it thus decided to rewrite these parts for Ondes Martenot. This new version was created in 1961.

Esthetics

Varèse had posed rather early the stakes of a new ethics of the music research. He wanted that the rigor of research maintained a firmness artistic untied of all a priori theoretical. His matter, become is often quoted famous because visionary, who with him only recapitulates the state of search in which are plunged the type-setters since then:

Music, which should Be alive and vibrating, needs new means off expression and science alone edge infuses it with youthful sap off… I dream instruments obedient to thought and which, supported by has flowering off undreamed stamps, will lend themselves to any combination I choose to imposes and will submit to the exigencies off my inner rhythm.

The music which must live and vibrate needs new means of expression, and science alone can infuse a sap teenager to him. I dream the instruments obeying with the thought and which, with the contribution of a flowering of unsuspected stamps, lend themselves to the combinations that I will like it to impose to them and yield with the requirement of my interior rate/rhythm.

In 1958, Concrete pH (Parabola - Hyperbole) of Iannis Xenakis, short two minute old part, was used as interlude during the concert with the Pavillon Philips of the World Fair of Brussels: it prepared the listeners with the electronic Poème of Edgard Varèse (see it video on YouTube). Redistributed sound space, played then a part much more important than a simple medium, than a support of work: it reaches it the row of parameter of the composition. Varèse had called its wishes such an integration; as of Hyperprism (1923) he managed to create a music which integrates the space component for a new dimension of the representation, for a spatialized music.

Works

a black big sleep (1906), for soprano and piano (an orchestral version was carried out by Antony Beaumont)
Americas (1921), for full orchestra.
Offerings (1921), for soprano and chamber orchestra.
Hyperprism (1922-23), for small orchestra and percussion.
Octandre (1923), for octuor with wind and cords (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone and double bass)
Integral (1924-25), for small orchestra and percussions.
Arcana (1926-27), for full orchestra.
Ionization (1931), for 13 percussionnists. At least 2 versions for 6 percussionnists were proposed by it. The first by Georges Van Gucht for Percussions of Strasbourg , of living of Varèse which gave its agreement and the second, in 2002 per Georges Bœuf for “Symblêma” whose director (Frederic Daumas) wrote (08.07.03): " This last version is also for 6 percussionnists. It respects the original partition scrupulously and was conceived so as to preserve the spatialization of the sound of the version at 13 .
Ecuatorial (1934), for chorus, trumpets, trombones, piano, organ, two Martenot waves and percussions.
Density 21,5 (1947), for flute alone.
Deserted (1954), for percussion, wind instruments and magnetic band.
electronic Poem , for magnetic band (1958).
Nocturnal (1959-61) for soprano, chorus and orchestra (unfinished).
Night on a poem of Henri Michaux, for soprano, winds, double bass and percussions (unfinished).

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