1  Integrales  	10:44  	
2  Density 	4:15 	
3  Ionisation 	5:35 	
4  Octandre 	7:48 	
5  Interpolations From Deserts: Interpolation I 	3:04 	
6  Interpolations From Deserts: Interpolation II 	2:19 	
7  Interpolations From Deserts: Interpolation III 	4:13

Rene Le Roy and the N.Y. Wind Ensemble
Julliard Percussion Orchestra 
Frederic Walkman – conductor

One of the founding fathers of modern music, Edgard Varese was experimenting with sound collage and sampling 50 years ago. Amongst the composers who claimed him to be an influence were Harrison Birtwistle, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen and a teenage Frank Zappa and his profound effect on the latter can be heard throughout Zappa's work from the Mothers Of Invention onwards. The Complete Works Volume 1 is the exact same record that turned Frank Zappa on! The recordings are savage and beautiful and far ahead of their time; they have never previously been released on compact disc. ---Editorial Review

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1  Densité 21,5  	3:37  	
2  Ionisation 	6:18 	
3  Ecuatorial 	10:58 	
4  Nocturnal 	11:12 	
5  Intégrales 	10:37 	
6  Déserts 	25:36

Philippe Pierlot – flute
Nicholas Isherwood – bass vocals
Phyllis Bryn-Julson - soprano vocals

Chœur D'Hommes De Radio France
Orchestre National De France
Kent Nagano – conductor

Despite his output of only slightly more than a dozen compositions, Edgard Varèse is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century. His concept of "organized sound" led to many experiments in form and texture. He was constantly on the lookout for new sound sources (working throughout his life with engineers, scientists and instrument builders), and was one of the first to extensively explore percussion, electronics, and taped sounds. He was, as Henry Miller called him, "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound."

Varèse spent his early childhood in Paris and Burgundy. His father wanted him to study math and engineering in preparation for a career in business. However, Varèse pursued music, studying at the Schola Cantorum with Albert Roussel and Vincent d'Indy and at the Paris Conservatoire with Charles Marie Widor. Varèse moved to Berlin in 1907, in part to meet Ferruccio Busoni; Varèse had been impressed with Busoni's Sketch for a New Aesthetic in Music (1907), which anticipated many of Varèse's own later explorations. Unfortunately, of the music Varèse wrote during that time, only one song survives. The other manuscripts were destroyed in a warehouse fire.

Unable to find regular work, Varèse moved to the United States in 1915, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1926. The first work he completed after the emigration is in fact titled Amériques, an extroverted celebration of his new life. In addition to composing, Varèse promoted new music through the establishment of his New Symphony Orchestra in 1919, the International Composers' Guild in 1921, and the Pan American Society in 1926. He continued to have difficulty making money, though, and spent some time as a piano salesman; he also made a brief appearance in a 1918 John Barrymore film.

Varèse maintained his connection with Europe, and had an extended stay in Paris between 1928 and 1933 during which he continued his sonic explorations and heard many of his works performed. In 1931 he completed Ionisation, a notorious piece for thirteen percussionists playing about forty different instruments. Back in the U.S., he attempted to get Bell Telephone and others interested in creating a center for electric instrument research. The failure of that project led to an extended depression. Over the next ten-plus years, Varèse completed only one work, Density 21.5 for solo flute, spending the time teaching (at Santa Fe's Arsuna School of Fine Arts, Columbia University, and Darmstadt) and thinking about what new direction his music should take.

The anonymous gift of an Ampex tape recorder in 1953 was the motivation Varèse needed. He set to work on the tape portion of his work Déserts, which was premiered in Paris in 1954 in a concert which was broadcast live in stereo, the first stereo music broadcast ever in France. He was involved with several film projects, writing music for documentaries on Léger and Joan Miró. He also wrote the Poème électronique for tape for Le Corbusier's pavilion at the 1958 Brussels exhibition, where Varèse's music was heard through more than 400 loudspeakers, accompanied by Le Corbusier's visuals.

Varèse and his music received much attention in the 1960s. His works were widely performed, recorded and published, and he received honors from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Royal Swedish Academy. He also won the first Koussevitzky International Recording Award in 1963. But Varèse wrote little music during these last years. His final work, the unfinished Nocturnal (with text by Anaïs Nin), was performed at a tribute concert in 1961 and completed years later by composer Chou Wen-chung. --- Chris Morrison, Rovi

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1. Arcana 		18:46 	
2. Octandre: I. Assez lent 		2:33
3. Octandre: II. Tres vif et nerveaux 		1:51 
4. Octandre: III. Grave 		2:23 
5. Offrandes: Chanson de La-haut 		3:33 
6. Offrandes: La Croix du Sud 		3:44 	
7. Integrales 		11:07 
8. Deserts 		3:57 	
9. Deserts: First Electronic Interpolation (beginning) 		2:57 	
10. Deserts: First Electronic Interpolation (conclusion) 		8:18 
11. Deserts: Second Electronic Interpolation (beginning) 		2:10 
12. Deserts: Second Electronic Interpolation (conclusion) 		1:53 
13. Deserts: Third Electronic Interpolation (beginning) 		4:11 	
14. Deserts: Third Electronic Interpolation (conclusion) 		3:40

Maryse Castets - soprano (Tracks 5-6)
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Lyndon-Gee – conductor

'Music was born free, and to win back its freedom is its destiny' proclaimed composer Ferruccio Busoni in 1906. His sentiments were shared by Edgard Varèse, who also dreamed of 'the liberation of sound'.

The two men shared a vision of a new music in which the constraints of their times would be swept aside. Busoni considered Varèse his natural successor, describing him as 'the illustrious future', and Varèse took Busoni's ideas further than the older composer could ever have imagined.

Varèse had a conception of music in which in which individual sounds function as 'intelligent' entities, moving independently in space. This led him to the concept of 'sound as living matter'. He fought for a music that would be, as he described it, 'open rather than bounded'. It should move beyond the conventional and, most problematically, beyond what was possible on existing musical instruments.

Although born in Paris, Varèse was of Italian descent on his father's side. His musical studies began in Turin after the family had moved to Italy. His rebellious streak showed itself early on, when he ran away back to Paris. He continued his studies in the French capital, enrolling at both of the city's main musical institutions, the Schola Cantorum and the Conservatoire. Roussel and Widor were among his teachers. Following his studies, Varèse embarked on a conducting career. He composed a large amount of orchestral music in these early years, although little of it was ever performed. He hardly mixed in musical circles, but did gain the friendship and esteem of Debussy, Richard Strauss and Busoni. For the most part though he preferred socialising with avant-garde painters and writers rather than with musicians.

The music Varèse composed in Europe was virtually all destroyed in a warehouse fire. As a result, his mature music today seems 'orphaned', and his early development as a composer hidden from us. But rather than treat the incident as a misfortune, Varèse seems to have welcomed the new start that it offered. He moved to New York, where in 1921 he founded the International Composers' Guild. This would become the blueprint for many new-music organisations around the world in later years.

Varèse's compositions from the 1920s and 30s were at the cutting edge of musical Modernism. In them, he explored new ideas in a more radical and consistent way than any of his contemporaries. Such works as Amériques and Arcana for orchestra, Hyperprism and Intégrales for chamber ensemble and Ionisation for 13 percussionists are fiercely concentrated and monolithic. They reject traditional notions of form and harmony, and instead exploit pungent dissonance, piercing timbres and complex rhythms.

The musical ideas he had been discussing for years were finally given full expression in these works. The notion of music is expanded to 'organised sound'. Its structures 'limitless as the exterior forms of crystals'. And constituent sounds are 'projected', giving the impression of 'a journey into space'. Radical distinctions between different instrumental timbres help Varèse to define the contours of his music. A wide range of percussion instruments and noise makers are also an integral part of his ensembles, regularly taking centre stage. His goal, he once said, was 'to be in the material, part of the acoustic vibration'. Gradually however he lapsed into silence.

From 1936 to 1950 he worked on several ambitious projects, but none came to fruition. The limitations of conventional musical instruments continually impeded his compositional ideas. He believed the answer could be found in electronics, but had no access to a studio. Finally, in the 1950s, technology caught up with his ideas, and he was able to give his dreams real sonic form. The resulting works, the electro-acoustic Déserts and the tape piece Poème électronique, set the agenda for the emerging discipline of electronic composition. Poème électronique also introduced the composer's work to a wider audience when it was heard by thousands of visitors as part of the Phillips Pavilion attraction at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. --- sinfinimusic.com

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