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BBC Proms - 17 July - 12 September 2009 - The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival

What's On / Programme Notes

Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001)
Aïs (1980) – for amplified baritone, percussion and orchestra 

Xenakis’s schooling in ancient Greek classical literature was not evident in his first abstract works, but in the 1960s all that changed. A setting in 1962 of Sophocles in Polla ta dhina for children’s choir and orchestra was followed by some striking theatre pieces setting classical texts, notably a typically bold version of Aeschylus’ Oresteia (1966). In 1974, Xenakis finally returned to his native Greece after 27 years’ exile – for most of which he had been under death sentence in his homeland for his post-war resistance activities. The overwhelming psychological impact of this return had a crucial effect on all his subsequent music, much of which was explicitly Greek in content and frequently engaged with the great classical authors for imagery or texts.
Of all of these, none is more searing or directly personal than Aïs. Subtitled ‘the land of the dead’, this is a harrowing journey into Hades, the Underworld of classical Greek myths. Hades does not correspond exactly to the Christian notion of ‘Hell’, but it is made clear in the literature that an attempted visit to the Underworld would likely be a traumatising experience, not least due to the impossibility of proper communication between the living and the dead. The souls of the dead are frequently described as living ‘in the shadows’, or ‘beyond reach’. It is this tragic and irreconcileable split of living from dead souls that is at the heart of Aïs.
To communicate this, Xenakis employs devices which, even for his music, are extreme. The part for solo baritone focuses almost exclusively on non-standard techniques ranging from high falsetto screeching to low chanting, encompassing growls, glides, groans and howls, making Aïs a unique challenge in the vocal repertoire. Originally written for Xenakis’s compatriot, the singer and actor Spyros Sakkas, the part spends much of its time in the higher ranges of the treble clef (at first sight of the score, one would assume it is really a soprano part) and demands a forthright, overtly theatrical style of delivery. The baritone is joined by a concertante percussionist mainly playing drums: this part features strong and often repetitive rhythms derived, like the baritone’s music, from the metrical patterns of classical Greek poetry. Meanwhile the orchestra counterpoints the soloists’ interventions with its own sonic clouds, glides, violent explosions and – at certain key points – remarkably plain modal melodies. The composer comments with unusual directness that ‘the orchestra underlines or invokes the feelings of the texts, the sensations of the dead–living couple which we all are’. This is orchestral word-painting with a vengeance.
The choice of texts, in ancient Greek, is apt and has strong autobiographical resonances. All but one are from the epics attributed to Homer. The first, from the Odyssey, describes the shedding of blood at the end of a battle, and the gathering of the souls of the dead. The second, from later in the same poem, is Odysseus’ account of his desperate attempts in Hades ‘to embrace the soul of my dead mother … I longed for this with all my heart.’ The hero attempts three times, but each time ‘her soul flew’. This has poignant resonances in Xenakis’s own life. His mother died of measles when he was aged only 5, as his wife Françoise recalled for the BBC Two film on Xenakis in 1991: ‘When she was dead Iannis was told, “Go embrace your mother who is going on a long journey” – that whole horrific bourgeois ritual.’ He later told his biographer that for a long time afterwards, ‘I felt my mother’s soul living in me … and even others felt this too.’ The music here is particularly evocative.
The third text is a fragment from Sappho, whose sensual poetry Xenakis loved dearly. As he puts it, this passionate extract ‘mixes a desire to live with a nostalgia for death’. The final fragment is again from Homer, this time from the Iliad – the death of the warrior Patroclus.
Aïs has a sense of persistent endeavour, struggle and even of proud heroism combined with a recurrent lamenting character. It’s a head-on confrontation between sorrow and loss together with the anger and frustration they engender. In embracing these feelings, Aïs acquires a deep humanity and ultimately pathos.

Programme note © Julian Anderson

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