''Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition'' is a book by

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

composer,

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, and

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Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...

in which he explains his motivation, philosophy, and technique for composing

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

with stochastic mathematical functions. It was published in Paris in 1963 as ''Musiques formelles: nouveaux principes formels de composition musicale'' as a special double issue of ''

La Revue musicale ''La Revue musicale'' was a music magazine founded by Henry Prunières in 1920. ''La Revue musicale'' of Prunières was undoubtedly the first music publishing magazine giving as much attention to the quality of editing, iconography, and illustrat ...

'' and republished in an expanded edition in 1981 in Paris by Stock Musique. It was later translated into English with three added chapters and published in 1971 by Indiana University Press, republished in 1992 by

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with a second edition published in 2001, also by Pendragon. The book contains the complete FORTRAN program code for one of Xenakis's early computer music composition programs GENDY. It has been described as a groundbreaking work.

Editions

*Xenakis, Iannis. 1963. ''Musiques formelles: nouveaux principes formels de composition musicale''. Special issue of ''La Revue musicale'', nos. 253–254. Paris: Editions Richard-Masse. *Xenakis, Iannis. 1971. ''Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition'', translated by Christopher Butchers (chapters 1–6), G. W. Hopkins (chapter 7), and Mr. and Mrs. John Challifour (chapter 8). Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. *Xenakis, Iannis. 1981. ''Musiques formelles: nouveaux principes formels de composition musicale'', expanded edition, Paris: Stock Musique. . *Xenakis, Iannis. 1992. ''Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition'', second, revised English edition, with additional material translated by Sharon Kanach. Harmonologia Series No. 6. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press. . Reprinted Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2001.

References

1963 non-fiction books 1971 non-fiction books 1992 non-fiction books 2001 non-fiction books Music books Mathematics of music {{music-publication-stub