Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (French: [ɛdɡaʁ viktɔʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛz]; also spelled Edgar;[1] December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965)[2] was a French composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm;[3] he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic.[4] Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded".[5] He conceived the elements of his music in terms of "sound-masses", likening their organization to the natural phenomenon of crystallization.[6] Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?"[7]
Edgard Varèse
Although his complete surviving works only last about three hours, he has been recognised as an influence by several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse saw potential in using electronic media for sound production, and his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music"[8] whilst Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound".[9]
Varèse actively promoted performances of works by other 20th-century composers and founded the International Composers' Guild in 1921 and the Pan-American Association of Composers in 1926.[10]
Life and career[edit]
Early life[edit]
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse was born in Paris; when he was a few weeks old, he was sent to be raised by his maternal great-uncle and other relations in the village of Le Villars in the Burgundy region of France. There he developed a very strong attachment to his maternal grandfather, Claude Cortot (also grandfather to the pianist Alfred Cortot, a first cousin of Varèse[11]). His affection for his grandfather outshone anything he felt for his own parents.[12]
After being reclaimed by his parents in the late 1880s, in 1893 young Edgard was forced to relocate with them to Turin, Italy, in part, to live amongst his paternal relatives, since his father was of Italian descent. It was there that he had his first real musical lessons, with the long-time director of the Turin Conservatory, Giovanni Bolzoni. In 1895, he composed his first opera, Martin Pas, which has since been lost.[13] Now a teenager, Varèse, influenced by his father, an engineer, enrolled at the Polytechnic of Turin and started studying engineering, as his father disapproved of his interest in music and demanded an absolute dedication to engineering studies. This conflict grew greater and greater, especially after the death of his mother in 1900, until 1903 when Varèse left home for Paris.[14]
In 1904, he commenced his studies at the Schola Cantorum (founded by pupils of César Franck), where his teachers included Albert Roussel. Afterwards, he went to study composition with Charles-Marie Widor at the Paris Conservatoire. In this period, he composed a number of ambitious orchestral works, but these were only performed by Varèse in piano transcriptions. One such work was his Rhapsodie romane, from about 1905, which was inspired by the Romanesque architecture of the Church of St. Philibert in Tournus. In 1907, he moved to Berlin, and in the same year, he married the actress Suzanne Bing, with whom he had one child, a daughter. They divorced in 1913.
During these years, Varèse became acquainted with Erik Satie and Richard Strauss, as well as with Claude Debussy and Ferruccio Busoni, who particularly influenced him at the time. He also gained the friendship and support of Romain Rolland and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, whose Œdipus und die Sphinx he began setting as an opera that was never completed. On 5 January 1911, the first performance of his symphonic poem Bourgogne was held in Berlin.
After being invalided out of the French Army during World War I, he moved to the United States in December 1915.
Early years in the United States[edit]
In 1918, Varèse made his debut in America conducting the Grande messe des morts by Berlioz.[15]
Musical influences[edit]
In his formative years, Varèse was greatly impressed by Medieval and Renaissance music – in his career, he founded and conducted several choirs devoted to this repertoire – as well as the music of Alexander Scriabin, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Hector Berlioz and Richard Strauss. There are also clear influences or reminiscences of Stravinsky's early works, specifically Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, on Arcana.[29] He was also impressed by the ideas of Busoni, who christened him L'illustro futuro in a signed copy of his orchestra work Berceuse élégiaque.[30]
Students and influence[edit]
Students[edit]
Varèse taught many prominent composers including Chou Wen-chung, Lucia Dlugoszewski, André Jolivet, Colin McPhee, James Tenney, and William Grant Still. See: List of music students by teacher: T to Z#Edgard Varèse.
Influence on classical music[edit]
Composers who have claimed, or can be demonstrated, to have been influenced by Varèse include Milton Babbitt,[31] Harrison Birtwistle, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Roberto Gerhard, Olivier Messiaen, Luigi Nono, John Palmer, Krzysztof Penderecki, Silvestre Revueltas, Wolfgang Rihm, Leon Schidlowsky, Alfred Schnittke, William Grant Still, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis.
The modern music conductor Robert Craft recorded two LP's of Varèse music in 1958 and 1960 with percussion, brass, and wind sections from the Columbia Symphony Orchestra for Columbia Records (Columbia LP catalog Nos.MS6146 and MS6362). These recordings brought Varèse wide attention among musicians and musical aficionados beyond his immediate sphere. Much of the percussion music of George Crumb in particular owes a debt to works such as Ionisation and Intégrales.
Influence on popular music[edit]
Varèse's emphasis on timbre, rhythm, and new technologies inspired a generation of young musicians starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This group includes Robert Lamm and Terry Kath from the band Chicago, as well as composer John Zorn.
One of Varèse's most devoted fans was the American guitarist and composer Frank Zappa, who, upon hearing a copy of The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Vol. 1 (EMS Recordings, 1950) became obsessed with the composer's music.[32][33] Zappa wrote an article titled Edgard Varèse: The Idol of My Youth, for Stereo Review magazine in June 1971. At the age of 15 Zappa talked to Varèse by phone and received a personal letter, but the two were not able to meet in person. Zappa framed this letter and kept it in his studio for the rest of his life. Zappa's final project was The Rage and the Fury, a recording of the works of Varèse. This album has remained in the Zappa private collection.
Henry Threadgill details Varèse's influence in his 2023 autobiography.
Musical philosophy and composition[edit]
Predictions[edit]
On several occasions, Varèse speculated on the specific ways in which technology would change music in the future. In 1936, he predicted musical machines that would be able to perform music as soon as a composer inputs his score. These machines would be able to play "any number of frequencies," and therefore the score of the future would need to be "seismographic" in order to illustrate their full potential.[34] In 1939, he expanded on this concept, declaring that with this machine "anyone will be able to press a button to release music exactly as the composer wrote it—exactly like opening up a book."[35] Varèse would not realize these predictions until his tape experiments in the 1950s and 1960s.
Idée fixe[edit]
Some of Edgard Varèse's works, particularly Arcana[36] make use of the idée fixe, a fixed theme, repeated certain times in a work. The idée fixe was most famously used by Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie fantastique; it is generally not transposed, differentiating it from the leitmotiv, used by Richard Wagner.