Varèse: The Complete Works

Varèse: The Complete Works

For a composer who is (now) recognizably part of the 20th-century classical canon, the French Ã©migrÃ© Edgard VarÃ¨se's output was astoundingly meager. Just 15 compositions from his entire life (he destroyed the compositions from his early years, and was a merciless editor of his own material in general) made it out to the listening world. VarÃ¨se was caught in the chasm between the music of yesterday and the music of tomorrow: scoring music for modified theremin, steamboat whistles, or air sirens, all balanced with the force of a large orchestra; writing pieces based on the flows of water and wind because that's what shapes the earth; using the concepts of chemical reactions and specific gravity as a basis for his music. Using extremes of contrast, dissonance, and variety in sound, VarÃ¨se's pieces had power in the way he attacked and shaped the sound he imagined. From Ionisation (1929), scored almost entirely for unpitched percussion, to the electronic-only, three-dimensionally produced Poeme Electronique (1958), he's provided a foundation that many genres, musicians, and composers were to build from not only for the next 40 years, but inevitably beyond. --Robin Edgerton
Country USA
Manufacturer London / Decca
Binding Audio CD
ItemPartNumber 028946020821
ReleaseDate 1998-09-15
UnitCount 2
Format Import
UPCs 028946020821
EANs 0028946020821

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