OccultHawk

That's my fave

Especially side 3

rostasi

Yes, the John Cage side on the electronic-only version. It's my favorite recording of all time.
I was just pointing out that it was spelled wrong - "hymen" is something else entirely...

Spectralmusic

Lol, it was late night, pls forgive me


Hymnen is definitely the first truly monolithic, behemoth in electroacoustic music. That work has and continues to be a huge resource in the genre. Gesang Der Jünglinge was great and innovative and all but Hymnen really stepped things up a few levels.

Xenakis' best electroacoustic works (which are really really different again to Stockhausen) are after the 70s.
Though there's the awesome pieces by Pierre Scaeffer, Pierre Henry, Gyorgy Ligeti, Edgard Varese, Milton Babbitt, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna etc etc etc before Stockhausen's Hymnen was written.


I'm diggin' Licht so much lately, I even grabbed a copy of this:

rostasi

The other versions of Hymnen are great as well.
My first time experiencing it live was with Stockhausen
himself as klangregie. Later he taught me how to engineer
the sound in the space. Later performances were with him
being present too.

I will disagree on the Xenakis statement tho.
My third favorite work of all time is his Bohor from 1962.

*Schaeffer* BTW

OccultHawk

That's incredible you knew Stockhausen. I was fortunate enough to attend a few lectures by Vladimir Ussachevsky but only ever asked him one question and that was during an official Q&A thing. I asked him a bumbled question about his recording techniques and felt terribly embarrassed afterward. It was obvious I just wanted to talk to him but was too stupid to come up with a respectable question.

For whatever it's worth over the last year or so I've become more and more enamared with Olivier Messiaen.

I have no idea where it ranks among all his works but I love Xenakis' percussion music.

rostasi

Yes, he was a very kind friend the last 7 years of his life and I have lots of wonderful memories.

I had the chance to study with Xenakis beginning in the late '90s, but he was so sick by that time,
that Gerard Pape was doing most of the teaching at Les Ateliers UPIC.

Messiaen was a teacher to both Stockhausen and Xenakis, so it would be natural to gravitate towards his work.

Spectralmusic

That is awesome! He must have been an inspiring man to be around; so focused, knowledgeable and witty etc


I have a strong love for Diamorphoses, Orient Occident and Bohor, no need to worry. They're such amazing pieces <3 (Stockhausen doesn't have anything on the love I have for Xenakis overall but this thread's not about him )
I do think Xenakis achieved something (as far as electronic music goes) even greater and more immersive but it's all subjective.

rostasi

I love practically all - yes, I think, really all of Xenakis' work.
The lesser of his work is leaps and bounds over most of the new crop of composers,
but, you're right, it's a subjective thing based on what you are wanting to get out of it
and also how much effort you're willing to put into it.

Spectralmusic

I have almost everything you can get (maybe minus un-necessary multiples of the same piece, though I have plenty of those), over 120 individual works in my collection.
There isn't a single work I dislike that I've heard of his, granted some are more greater than others but he was a real genius and mastermind in contemporary music, nobody like him