Iannis Xenakis: "Synaphaï" and "Khoai"

Try to imagine this picture made into sound:



Until now I'd thought that the works of Iannis Xenakis I'd heard were a bit too 'intellectual' compared to the beautiful and (relatively) accessible compositions of Gyorgy Ligeti. But yesterday I listened to the big orchestral epic "Synaphaï" on headphones, and I suddenly 'got' it. Listening with headphones, it was like I was surrounded by clouds of strange and beautiful fractal shapes made into sound. An overwhelming experience! It's just incredible that he could make an orchestra sound like that, like the biggest and strangest synthesizer in the world. I'd suggest searching out this work, on "Orchestral Works vol. 3", or other discs in the "Orchestral Works" series. This series has proper 'surround'-like sound engineering, making it suitable for immersive headphone listening. Faar out, man! :-D

No, listening in bad sound quality on Youtube will NOT blow your mind, but here's an excerpt anyway:



As a bonus better suited for Youtube listening, here's a really cool - almost 'evil'-sounding Xenakis composition for hapsichord:

Xenakis: "Herma"

Greek composer Iannis Xenakis(1922-2001)'s "Herma" is one of the most difficult piano pieces ever written. Xenakis used complex computer math to compose his music. I still don't quite 'get' his stuff - for all I know "Herma" might be some kind of advanced prank. But you know - I'd swear that it still has some kind of strange beauty to it. And it sure must take some dedication to learn to play it correctly.

Watch Japanese pianist Yuji Takahashi play the piece (with commentary in Japanese):



You can listen to it without commentary if you go HERE. Embedding was disabled so I could not put it in a window on this page.