''Ionisation'' (1929–1931) is a
musical composition by
Edgard Varèse written for thirteen
percussionists
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excl ...
. It was among the first concert hall compositions for percussion ensemble alone, although
Alexander Tcherepnin
Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Черепни́н, link=no; 21 January 1899 – 29 September 1977) was a Russian-born composer and pianist. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin (pupil of Nik ...
had composed an entire movement for percussion alone in his Symphony No. 1 from 1927. In the journal ''
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (ofte ...
'', percussionist Brian Holder writes, "The work presented the important notion that unpitched percussion (with piano and other pitched instruments coming in at the end) could stand alone as a serious form of concert music – a relatively unexplored concept at the time."
The premiere was at Carnegie Chapter Hall, an annex to New York City's
Carnegie Hall, on March 6, 1933, conducted by
Nicolas Slonimsky, to whom the piece was later dedicated. One critic described the performance as "a sock in the jaw".
Music
''Ionisation'' features the expansion and variation of
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...
ic
cells, and the title refers to the
ionization
Ionization, or Ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged atom or molecul ...
of
molecule
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioche ...
s. As the composer later described, "I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena". Varèse also acknowledged the influence of the Italian Futurist artists
Luigi Russolo
Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto ''The Art of Noises'' (1913). He is often regarded as one of ...
and
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...
in the composition of this work.
Both
Chou Wen-chung
Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Conservatory and Columbia Univer ...
and Jean-Charles François have analyzed the structure and
timbre
In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...
features of ''Ionisation'' in detail. András Wilheim has noted that only the last 17 measures of ''Ionisation'' include musical tones of the "traditional tonal system", where any five successive chords contain the 12 tones of the
chromatic scale
The chromatic scale (or twelve-tone scale) is a set of twelve pitches (more completely, pitch classes) used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone. Chromatic instruments, such as the piano, are made to produce th ...
. Holder writes, "The reconceptualization of pitch was one of Varèse's great insights. He was able to reinvent the role of concert percussion in a radical and refreshing manner, primarily by establishing pitch relationships between instruments of individually indeterminate pitch... its performance is a reenactment of a great rite of passage for what was then a fresh and previously unrecognized musical ensemble."
Frank Zappa said that ''Ionisation'' inspired him to pursue a career in music, as it was the first album he purchased.
Jack Skurnick Jack Skurnick (March 22, 1910 – September 6, 1952) was an American record producer and writer, known as the founder and director of EMS Recordings and as publisher and editor of the music review ''Just Records''.
Career
Skurnick worked in th ...
, director of
EMS Recordings EMS Recordings was founded in 1949 by Jack Skurnick in New York City. The company won first prize at the Audio Fair of 1950 for the high quality and interest of its recordings. It issued the first recording of works of Edgard Varese.
Skurnick's par ...
, produced early post-war recordings of Varèse; this piece appears on the first Varèse LP, EMS 401: Complete Works of Edgar Varèse, Volume 1. ''Ionisation'' had also been the first work by Varèse to be recorded in the 1930s, conducted by
Nicolas Slonimsky and issued on 78rpm Columbia 4095M.
The players for the recording included, in addition to the composer himself on the sirens,
Carlos Salzedo
Carlos Salzedo (6 April 1885 – 17 August 1961) was a French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor. His compositions made the harp into a virtuoso instrument. He influenced many composers with his new ideas for the harp's sounds through his ...
on Chinese blocks,
Paul Creston
Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio; October 10, 1906 – August 24, 1985) was an Italian American composer of classical music.
Biography
Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self-taught as a composer. His work ten ...
on anvils,
Wallingford Riegger
Wallingford Constantine Riegger ( ; April 29, 1885 – April 2, 1961) was an American modernist composer and pianist, best known for his orchestral and modern dance music. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but spent most of his career in New York Ci ...
on guiro,
Henry Cowell on piano, and
William Schuman
William Howard Schuman (August 4, 1910February 15, 1992) was an American composer and arts administrator.
Life
Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named after the 27th U.S. ...
on the lion's roar.
Sidney Finkelstein wrote in the EMS LP liner notes about the work:
Instrumentation
The piece is scored for 13 players:
# large
Chinese cymbal, very deep
bass drum,
cowbell
A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are t ...
#
gong
A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
, high and low
tam-tams
The Tam-Tams is the informal name of a weekly free festival around the George-Étienne Cartier Monument in Mount Royal Park in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its name imitates the sound of drums and refers to the drum circles that form the focal poi ...
,
cowbell
A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are t ...
#
bongos
Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...
,
tenor drum A tenor drum is a membranophone without a snare. There are several types of tenor drums.
Early music
Early music tenor drums, or long drums, are cylindrical membranophone without snare used in Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. They consi ...
, medium and deep
bass drums (laid flat)
#
field drum
The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used in ...
,
tenor drum A tenor drum is a membranophone without a snare. There are several types of tenor drums.
Early music
Early music tenor drums, or long drums, are cylindrical membranophone without snare used in Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. They consi ...
# high
siren
Siren or sirens may refer to:
Common meanings
* Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies
* Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology
Places
* Siren (town), Wisconsin
* Siren, Wisc ...
,
lion's roar
# low
siren
Siren or sirens may refer to:
Common meanings
* Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies
* Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology
Places
* Siren (town), Wisconsin
* Siren, Wisc ...
,
whip,
güiro
# 3
Chinese blocks,
claves
Claves (; ) are a percussion instrument consisting of a pair of short, wooden sticks about 20–25 centimeters (8–10 inches) long and about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in diameter. Although traditionally made of wood (typically rosewood, ebony o ...
,
triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC.
In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
#
snare drum without snares, high and low
maraca
A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair.
Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...
s
# tarole (a kind of piccolo
snare drum),
snare drum,
suspended cymbal
Classical suspended cymbal
A suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. Common abbreviations used are "sus. cym.," or "sus. cymb." (with or without the period).
Most drum kit ...
#
clash cymbals
Clash cymbals (also called concert cymbals, orchestral cymbals, or crash cymbals) are cymbals played in matched pairs by holding one cymbal in each hand and striking the two together.
To differentiate this type of cymbal from a suspended cymbal, ...
,
sleigh bells,
chimes
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...
#
güiro,
castanets
Castanets, also known as ''clackers'' or ''palillos'', are a percussion instrument (idiophone), used in Spanish, Kalo, Moorish, Ottoman, Italian, Sephardic, Swiss, and Portuguese music. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome there was a simil ...
,
''glockenspiel a clavier'' (with resonators)
#
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...
, 2
anvils, very deep
tam-tam
A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
#
whip,
sleigh bells,
triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC.
In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
See also
* ''
Ballet Mécanique
''Ballet Mécanique'' (1923–24) is a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray).Chilvers, Ian & Gl ...
'', another early percussion ensemble piece often cited as the first
References
External links
*
"Records 2 Die 4" review of ''The Varèse Record'' in ''
Stereophile
''Stereophile'' is a monthly American audiophile magazine which reviews high-end audio equipment, such as loudspeakers and amplifiers, and audio-related news.
History
Founded in 1962 by J. Gordon Holt. ''Stereophile'' is the highest-circulation ...
'' magazine
*
* ,
Frank Zappa conducts the
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) is a performing arts organization and unionized chamber orchestra that commissions, performs, and records innovative new music from across cultures and stylistic traditions. SFCMP incorporated in ...
,
War Memorial Opera House
The War Memorial Opera House is an opera house in San Francisco, California, located on the western side of Van Ness Avenue across from the west side/rear facade of the San Francisco City Hall.
It is part of the San Francisco War Memorial and ...
, San Francisco, February 9, 1983
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ionisation (Varese)
Compositions by Edgard Varèse
Percussion music
1931 compositions
Music dedicated to ensembles or performers