The Music of Edgard Varèse

I had a request for a particular LP of Edgard Varèse's music, so I thought I would turn this post into a small festival of historic recordings of works by this remarkable, iconoclastic figure.

Varèse (1883-1965) was born in Paris and came to the US in 1915, already seeking new vistas in sound. Soon after arriving, he announced to a reporter, "I refuse to submit myself only to sounds that have already been heard. What I am looking for are new technical mediums which can lend themselves to every expression of thought and keep up with thought."

As Eric Salzman wrote in a long article on Varèse (included in the download), "He widened our notion of music to take in noise and the sounds of the human and natural worlds around us - never arbitrarily, but always with the highest artistic and expressive goals. He created a new kind of instrumental and percussion music that is as contemporary now as when it was written. [Salzman wrote this in 1971; the statement is still true today.] He predicted the advent of electronic music, musique concréte, and multimedia, and, having worked much of his life toward achieving these new means, lived long enough to create the first masterpieces in the new music."

Konstantin Simonovitch

The longest composition - 30 minutes - is "Déserts," which is from 1950-54. The composer said the title encompasses "not only physical deserts of sand, sea, mountains, and snow, outer space, deserted city streets… but also distant inner space… where man is alone in a world of mystery and essential solitude."

"Hyperprism" for winds, brass and percussion is much earlier - from 1922-23. As might be expected, it was premiered to an uncomprehending and mostly hostile New York audience in the latter year.

"Intégrales" was first performed in 1925, again in New York. The critic Lawrence Gilman contrasted Varèse with that another forward thinking composer: "Unlike [Arnold] Schönberg, he has broken completely with the musical past... Originality, to be sure, is not the goal of music. Yet it is something to be able to evolve music that pays tribute to no man."

Finally, flutist Michel Debost is heard in "Density 21.5." (The work was written for George Barrère, who played a platinum flute. The density of platinum is 21.5.)

Michel Debost

The performances are entirely convincing to these ears. The one review I did find of this relatively obscure recording preferred the slightly earlier ones led by Robert Craft. However, if you are at all interested in the avant-garde of the 20th century, this LP is a good introduction to Varèse's compositions. It is vividly recorded.

Simonovitch, a native of Belgrade, was the founder and conductor of the Paris Instrumental Ensemble for Contemporary Music, which often appeared on ORTF, the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française. Debost is a well-known and often recorded soloist who was at one time the principal in the Orchestre de Paris. He now lives in the US.

The first LP of Varèse's music came out in 1950. It was recorded under the composer's supervision and issued by the tiny EMS label, issued by the Emily Music Shop of New York. Frederic Waldman was the conductor, René Le Roy the flutist, again in "Density 21.5."

I first posted the LP 15 years ago, and have now refurbished the sound, which is strikingly good for its time. The LP includes "Ionisation" and "Octandre," which are not performed on the Simonovitch album above.

This particular record was an inspiration to the young Frank Zappa. The download includes an article in which he discusses his quest to find a copy of it.

Although the jacket above says it is "Volume I" of the complete works, no further releases were to follow.

You can read more about the record in my original post. The direct download link is below.

There were at least three recordings of Varèse's music during the 78 era, two of which can be found via a new post on my singles blog. The percussion work "Ionisation" is led by Nicholas Slonimsky, best known as a writer on music. The recording comes from 1933. An excerpt from "Octandre" is performed by a wind and brass ensemble conducted by Walter Goehr in a 1937 recording.

More information about these works and the download link can be found here.

The 78s come from Internet Archive; the LPs above are from my collection.