Conference Schedule

This poster provides a short analysis of Orient/Occident , commissioned by UNESCO as music for a film by E. Fulchignoni, which describes the development of civilizations: the cultural backgrounds are evoked by Xenakis through various timbres and specific rhythms: a wide range of unusual sound sources are used, from the sound of a violin bow drawn over various objects to sounds from the ionosphere, and excerpt from various Xenakis' works such as Pitoprakta, Concret PH and Diamorphoses or from other GRM compositions.
We've studied the historical and technological context in which this work was conceived by using some historical sources. We've underlined some specific ideas of this composition, the composer's originality in Xenakis production and in the history of electroacoustic music. We've investigated aspects of correspondence among the constituent sound materials, illuminating the temporal relationships existing among them, exploring sound identity correspondences and variations and providing a taxonomy of recurrent phenomena to help to rationalize compositional structuring processes. In this way we can point out the relationship between ministructure and macroform, underlining the progressive aggregation process. This objective has been achieved by means of: a) a Genetic Analysis based on the study of the composer's sketches b) a listening Analysis, by following different musicological approaches. For each technique we made some graphic representations and we coordinated them: we divided the work in sections, characterized by a certain timbral and dynamic profiles homogeneity.
We've also studied the possible strategies for a live performance. (A.Vande Gorne).