Recreating the Philips Pavilion

The Electronic Music Foundation presented a virtual recreation of the 1958 Philips Pavilion last night which was pleasant enough, but the real treasure was the lecture beforehand by Vincenzo Lombardo, a professor from Turin who spent a few years in charge of a research project about the original installation. The 'virtual pavilion' which they prefer to present with video goggles and binaural headphones still has that Lawnmower Man look of mid-90's neuromancing, but it does manage to vastly enhance one's understanding of what the pavilion experience was actually like.

Most of the material presented in Lombardo's lecture is archived online. The pavilion is contextualized by dozens of great photos like this one, which shows the circular US pavilion next to the rectangular USSR pavilion at the top of the photo and the relatively tiny, by comparison, Philips pavilion in the lower right corner:



This ground level view shows it from a unique angle:



This rear view shows the ventilation windows for all of the electronic equipment:



The team unearthed a Dutch film documenting the construction of the pavilion, which includes footage of Corbusier and Xenakis checking the progress of the construction. Lombardo explained that the title, Poème Electronique, was actually Corbusier's name for the entire pavilion. His stated goal was to put 'a poem in a bottle'. In addition to Varèse's composition, Xenakis contributed his own piece, Concrèt PH. Xenakis' music was used as an interlude, played when the audience was entering and exiting the pavilion. The source material was a recording of charcoal burning.

Lombardo also revealed that Corbusier intended to narrate portions of the exhibit. The main film was originally supposed to stop at various points, during which Corbusier's voice would be heard expounding on the vague themes of the installation. Varèse objected to the idea that Corbusier's voice would be heard over his composition, and insisted on dropping the narration. One of the artifacts that Lombardo and his team uncovered was a detailed timing sheet (detail right), which had a column for Corbusier's narration ('Paroles').

In addition to the film, the visual component of the pavilion included two hanging objects (a female mannequin, and an elaborate cube), three 'windows' of projected still images, and an elaborate lighting design. Lombardo actually tracked down all 51 of the ambient lighting configurations (ambiances) in the Pavilion. On the left is an individual slide, which shows the timing of the 34th ambiance, and on the right is the index of the various ambiances:




The biggest insight as to what the actual sound experience was like came from little details like the fact that the entire interior was covered in asbestos. This would have hardened the walls enough to create a cavernous acoustic. The detailed pictures of the speaker allocation and the spatialization were also very revealing. Essentially, it was a proto-acousmonium setup with a speaker orchestra spatialized live by sound projectionists. The speakers were dotted all along the interior walls, trailing up into the various peaks of the structure (left). Lombardo displayed Varèse's detailed spatialization scheme for the entire piece that designated which speakers would be sounding at every moment of the piece. The sound was manipulated by a team of projectionists with several rotary telephone dials, which could each turn on 5 speakers at a time out of a bank of 12. Based on this scheme and other evidence of how many projectionists were actually on hand, Lombardo arrives at a low guess of 350 speakers in the pavilion, rather than the usual estimate of 400+.

Apparently, Lombardo's site has been online since 2006, and it appears that they are still in the process of creating an updated version, which should hopefully include more of the information from Lombardo's lecture such as Varèse's spatialization timings. For instance, the only thing that is up there now is the composer's sketch of the spatialization scheme (right). In addition to bearing Varèse's signature just below-right of center, the sketch reveals how extensively he intended to exploit the physical environment, particularly the height of the pavilion. Details like that help to illustrate why the piece had such a lasting impact. Lombardo and his team have done an extraordinary job of unearthing the secrets of the legendary Philips Pavilion, and it's well worth a visit to their site.

Iannis Xenakis, "Cendrées"

-- LINER NOTES --

Face 1
Cendrées
Cette ceuvre est une commande de la Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian de Lisbonne. Elle est dediee a Monsieur et Madame Jose de Azeredo Perdigao
Ed. Salabert, Paris

CHOEURS DE LA FONDATION
GULBENKIAN DE LISBONNE
ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE FRANCE
Direction : Michel TABACHNIK

Cendrées, for choir and orchestra, by lannis Xenakis, was commissioned by the Gulbenkian Foundation, where it was performed for the first time in 1974. The first French performance was in Paris, at the Salle Wagram, on 21 December, 1977. The work is headed by a bucolic epigraph, exceptionally for Xenakis : "Before the autumn, before the summer, before every season, when the sun is like a snow-flake, and when it comes down to meet the earth, all is white and opal; and this at times may be long-lasting. These are no mists, no dews, but cinders." Nonetheless, this is no descriptive work after the manner of Vivaldi or Beethoven, while being perhaps less strictly abstract a canvas than his earlier pieces which were rightly, though vaguely, described as "cosmic" in character. Is this the beginning of Xenakis the landscape-painter? Perhaps, but he still remains difficult to penetrate.

Here is none of that gentleness and silence that the epigraph seemed to promise. After the rising glissandi of the violins and the descending ones of the cellos, are quickly superimposed those of the female voices, bringing movement and humanity to the process; then the male voices proffer, with a vulgar brutality, like rough shouts, apostrophes sung to vowel-sounds; the choirs and instruments mingle in an extraordinary "landscape" of timbres, rhythms, cries, and violent punctuations leading to a superb tumult.

A curious central episode begins with a solo, then a duet on the flutes, with some very fine microtonal sounds, broadening into a concert of all the woodwind, with acid sonorities and rhythms, bringing in the return of the tumultuous chorus. Various evocative episodes follow one upon the other until the end : astonishing solos, sobs or barking by the two contraltos (one of them a young man), also making use of the very expressive aura of microtonal inflections and accents; light scrapings on the violins over a distant murmur of the horns; sometimes the heavy rain of the strings and further looming walls of fearsome sounds; and finally choruses of breath, whispered like the last whisper of a lonely strand when the sea withdraws (with one last cry), - all this that can scarcely be described, has indeed the relief of an unknown landscape and leaves the impression of a lyricism that is as powerful as it is strange. -- Translated by John Underwood

AGP 99

Iannis Xenakis, "ST/10=1-080262"

-- Liner Notes --

ST/10=1-080262 for Ten Instruments (1956-1962)
(band 2 - 12:1O)

Dedicated to Konstantin Simonovitch and the Paris Instrumental Ensemble for Contemporary Music which performs it here, the work was actually realized at the Paris IBM installation (Place Vendome) in 1962 under the direction of Simonovitch himself.

The composition signifies the initial calculation by the IBM 7090 (utilized by Xenakis for "Atrees (Hommage a Pascal),""Morisma-Amorisma" and "ST/4" among other works), following a special stochastic (probabilist) program devised by Xenakis. To the composer, the calculation of probabilities in itself is based upon the only theory capable of dealing with great numbers. The program he used here was a derivative of the thesis of "Minimal Rules of Composition" which he had formulated four years earlier for the "Achorripsis for 21 Instruments" (side two, band two). Basically, the program is a complex of stochastic laws by which the composer orders the electronic brain to define all the sounds one after the other in a previously calculated sequence. First comes the occurence date, then the tonal class (arco, pizzicato, glissando, etc.), the instrument, the height, the glissando pitch if there is any, the length in time and the dynamic form of the emission of sound. In the title itself, ST stands for stochastic (from the Greek word stochos, meaning aim) and is a term Xenakis frequently applies to his music. (In mathematical terms, stochastic has reference to the contingency of change or the theory of probability first introduced by Jacques Bernoulli in 1713.) 10-1 signifies that this is Xenakis' first work for ten instruments. 080262 equals February 8, 1962, the date when the work was calculated by the 7090. As Xenakis has commented, the IBM 7090 has served his music well by advancing his goal of creating ". . . a form of composition which is not the object in itself, but an idea in itself, that is to say, the beginnings of a family of compositions."

PARIS INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
*CHILDREN'S CHORUS OF NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS
(Chorus Master: Abbe Revert)
KONSTANTIN SIMONOVITCH conducting

AGP 99

Iannis Xenakis, "Polla Ta Dhina"

"A new Monteverdi? A new Stravinsky? A new Schoenberg? Perhaps even more because that is all in the past, the present and the future of music as well as thought. . . the method and the work of Iannis Xenakis pose the question again. The worldwide republic of musicians is totally shaken." -- LE NOUVEL ADAM

Writes conductor Konstantin Simonovitch: My first meeting with Iannis Xenakis took place in 1960, after performances of the first work that I had conducted on the scores of Webern and Varese with the Paris Instrumental Ensemble for Contemporary Music which I had founded two years before. I was then searching for new compositions through which I could explain the very reason I for the existence of my orchestra. The musical thought of Xenakis which manifested itself I in very audacious and totally contrived structures, as well as the technical means by which he brought them to life, put me I in the presence of a type of music which existed totally . . . His work seemed to me most valuable for its evocation of a certain nobility of spirit, both in the listener as well as the musician. Therefore, a few months after our meeting, we completed the first recording of Analogical A & B, a recording which proved to both of us the necessity of continuing and going further and further; even beyond so-called "reasonable" limits that had, for centuries, been enforced upon us by the conservatories.

Years of collaboration between the composer and the Ensemble musicians followed . . . in May 1965 we finally organized the first Xenakis Festival, a daring but historic evening, and it is with pride that we are today (with some symphonic works as exceptions) the only orchestra in the world having as a repertoire the complete works of Xenakis.

SIDE ONE
19:50
POLLA TA DHINA
for Children's Chorus and Orchestra (1962)
(band 1 - 7:35)

Premiered in 1962 at the Stuttgart Festival of Light Music for which it was commissioned, Polla Ta Dhina is dedicated to Hermann Scherchen. Interestingly, the vocal portion of the composition is an extract from Sophocles' "Antigone" titled here, "Hymn to Man."

ENCLOSED: Leaflet with Greek transliteration and English translation.

polla ta thina kuthen anthropu thinoteron peli; tuto ke poliu peran pontu khimerio noto khori, perivrykhiisin peron yp' ithmasin; theon te tan ypertatan, Gan aphthiton, akamatan, apotryete illomenon apotron etos is etos ippio yeni polevon. kuphonoon te phylon ornithon amphivalon ayi ke thiron agrion ethni pontu t' inalian physin stiresi thiktyoklostis, periphrathis anir; krati the mikhanes agravlu thiros oressivata, lasiavkhena th' ippon okhmadzete amphi lophon dzygon urion t' akmita tavron. ke phthegma ke anemoen phronima ke astynomus agoras ethithaxato ke thysavlon pagon ypethria ke thysomvra phevyin veli, pantoporos; aporos ep' uthen erkhete to mellon; Aitha monon phevxin uk eraxete; noson th' amikhanon phygas xympephraste. sophon ti to mikhanoen tekhnas yper elpith' ekhon tote men kakon, allot' ep' esthlon erpi. . . .

Wonders are many, but none more wondrous than man; he crosses the sea in storms of winter, cutting through surging waves; the greatest goddess, Earth, untainted, unwearied, he wears away, plowing furrows year after year, his horses turning the soil. He traps the light-witted race of birds and beasts of field and sea with his knotted nets, this thoughtful man; he craftily rules over flocks born in the mountains, he yokes the shaggy neck of the horse and the mighty bull. Speech and wind-swift thought and commerce he has taught himself, and how to find shelter from cold winds and rain, this inventive creature; he is never helpless in danger; death only he never escapes, though he has contrived to avoid sickness. Wise and clever, with skills beyond imagining, he creeps now toward evil, now toward good.. . .

(translation by George Sponhaltz)
AGP 99