''Persephassa'' is a piece for six

percussion 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. Exc ...

ists composed by

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 ...

in 1969. The piece was commissioned jointly by the

Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française L'Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF; ) was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1975, with providing public radio and television in France. All programming, and especially news broadcasts, were under strict control ...

(ORTF) and the

Shiraz Arts Festival The Shiraz Festival of Arts (Persian language, Persian: جشنواره هنر شیراز) was an annual international summer arts festival, held in Iran bringing about the encounter between the East and the West. It was held from 1967 to 1977 in t ...

(presided by the queen consort of Persia,

Farah Pahlavi Farah Pahlavi ( fa, فرح پهلوی, née Farah Diba ( fa, فرح دیبا, label=none); born 14 October 1938) is the widow of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and was successively Queen and Empress (''Shahbanu'') of Iran from ...

), held at the historic site of

Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...

. The title is one of the variant names of the goddess

Persephone In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone ( ; gr, Περσεφόνη, Persephónē), also called Kore or Cora ( ; gr, Κόρη, Kórē, the maiden), is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after ...

Proserpina Proserpina ( , ) or Proserpine ( ) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whos ...

, and also refers to the names "Perseus", "Perceval", and "Persepolis". It was performed in its premiere by

Les Percussions de Strasbourg Les Percussions de Strasbourg is a contemporary classical music percussion ensemble made up of six percussionists. Founded in 1962, the ensemble is still performing and commissioning music. The current lineup has played together for 15 years. Thei ...

(France) for whom it was written.

Composition

''Persephassa'' gains much of its effect from having the six percussionists distributed around the audience. The treatment of space as a musical parameter is one of the most important preoccupations of Xenakis' music, particularly in his works of the mid-to-late 1960s. (See, for example, ''Terretektorh'' (1966), which "distributes the eighty-eight musicians in quasi-stochastic fashion in a circular space around the conductor, with the audience being seated amid the musicians.") The dramatic impact of utilizing the performance space in this manner is evident in many passages throughout the piece in which accents or imitative

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 recu ...

s are passed around the ensemble. At one point, "Xenakis creates an enormous accelerando, building up as many as six layers of spiraling patterns swirling around the listeners. The

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 (often ...

of that passage winds up to 360 beats per minute, with one complete rotation of rolled accents around the six players every second... these mesmerizing patterns are enhanced by isolated dynamic accents and by interruptions of silence or stochastic clouds of percussive sonorities." The percussionists use a wide range of instruments and sound effects during the piece, including

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 ...

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 r ...

s, and

pebble A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of based on the Udden-Wentworth scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered larger than granules ( in diameter) and smaller than cobbles ( in diameter). A rock made predominant ...

s, along with an arsenal of

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

s, wood blocks (

simantra The semantron ( el, σήμαντρον) is a percussion instrument used in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox monasteries to summon the monastics to prayer or at the start of a procession. It is also known as a semandron, semanteriom (σημαντ� ...

s),

cymbal A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs soun ...

s, and

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 ...

s. In 2010, the Make Music New York festival presented a performance of ''Persephassa'' on and around

Central Park Lake The Ramble and Lake are two geographic features of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. Part of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's 1857 Greensward Plan for Central Park, the features are located on the west side of the park between ...

in New York City, with audience members listening from rowboats. '' Pléïades'' is another Xenakis composition for six percussionists. Composed in 1978, it was commissioned by Les Percussions de Strasbourg.

References

Sources

* * * * * *

External links

* , University of Toronto Percussion Ensemble, 2019 Compositions by Iannis Xenakis 1969 compositions Percussion music {{Classical-composition-stub