Xenakis, Iannis

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

According to the sleeve notes with my Decca HEAD LP, he has been in exile in France since 1947 and was granted French citizenship in 1965 (the LP was issued in 1976).

Sadly, Xenakis died in 2001 (on my birthday, which was a bit of a mood dampener!): he returned to Greece in the years before his death after democrasy was restored to Greece. There is a very moving film documenting his life that used to be on youTube but which now seems to have been withdrawn (the title is a play on the "stranger"/"foreigner" origins of his name) - he recites Full fathom five in English from his memories of his schooldays.

[Richard Barrett]

(the LP was issued in 1976)

- and those notes were already out of date: his death sentence in Greece, commuted to ten years' imprisonment in 1951, had finally been lifted in 1974 so that he was able to travel back to Greece. His widow recalled in an interview in 2009 that he kept the Greek passport he was then given (having been stateless between 1947 and 1965) close by him for the rest of his life.

[Richard Barrett]

There's plenty of biographical information about Xenakis on the net, including this detailed timeline http://www.iannis-xenakis.org/xen/bio/bio.html which contains a moving paragraph by Maurice Fleuret who accompanied Xenakis on his first post-exile visit to Greece.

While we're on Xenakis anecdotes connected with English poetry: one of the last times I saw him was in 1994, when I happened to be in Paris and he invited me to visit him at his studio: the first thing he wanted to talk about was the poetry of John Donne, a subject which embarrassingly I was pretty ignorant of at the time, though afterwards I went off and boned up on it "just in case"... one of his late works Sea-Nymphs sets "Full fathom five" - I wonder which text of Donne he might have been contamplating working on...

[ahinton]

There's plenty of biographical information about Xenakis on the net, including this detailed timeline http://www.iannis-xenakis.org/xen/bio/bio.html which contains a moving paragraph by Maurice Fleuret who accompanied Xenakis on his first post-exile visit to Greece.

While we're on Xenakis anecdotes connected with English poetry: one of the last times I saw him was in 1994, when I happened to be in Paris and he invited me to visit him at his studio: the first thing he wanted to talk about was the poetry of John Donne, a subject which embarrassingly I was pretty ignorant of at the time, though afterwards I went off and boned up on it "just in case"... one of his late works Sea-Nymphs sets "Full fathom five" - I wonder which text of Donne he might have been contamplating working on...

Thank you very much for these fascinating insights; I wonder how many people, other than Xenakis scholars and experts, would have known about most of this?

[KipperKid]

Thank you all for the most interesting information on this great man.

My book and cd were from about 25 years ago, and could not have researched anything close to the level of information on this thread!

I did not know he had received a death sentence. My appetite is whetted for further reading.

P.S. probably for a different thread, and put in my mind by ferney's post, is the word 'xenophobia' derived from the Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, due to his bemoaning of the alleged reduction in the quality of the Greek population during his lifetime, or did words including a 'Xeno' reference predate him?

[Richard Barrett]

is the word 'xenophobia' derived from the Greek philosopher, Xenophanes

No. ("xenos" with the meaning of "foreigner" occurs already in Homer.)

[KipperKid]

No. ("xenos" with the meaning of "foreigner" occurs already in Homer.)

Yes, of course.

Keep threatening to re-read The Iliad.

[Lat-Literal]

Not a composer I know much about, but I know he has advocates amongst forumites (and the OCD in me likes to have an X in the list of composers ).

What with your excellent post and some behind-the-scenes enterprise of which even ferney is unaware, it's Rebonds all round.

[MrGongGong]

What with your excellent post and some behind-the-scenes enterprise of which even ferney is unaware, it's Rebonds all round.

This is a work of staggering genius IMV

[Beef Oven!]

A very interesting interview, IMV.

[Beef Oven!]

Part 2

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The other Xenakis thread seems to have eluded the "transfer" market.

[Lat-Literal]

The other Xenakis thread seems to have eluded the "transfer" market.

It wasn't elusive.

But it was "Xenakis et al".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It wasn't elusive.

But it was "Xenakis et al".

Well it eluded me. Just think of the fun of extracting the Xenakis posts from the "et al" thread and transferring them.

[Lat-Literal]

It’s virtually all Xenakis.

Back in May 2013 I had an inkling that a new sub-forum would be created 4 years later, but I threw in the 'et al' in parenthesise, anyway

It was offered by me and the decision went against it.

I'm content with it - we have a new thread.